How Much Noise does the Mac Mini make?

[Hessel]

I'm seriously considering getting a Mac Mini in my studio.

I'm working on a 17 inch Macbook Pro from 2010 rightnow and the noise it makes is ****ing ridiculous. especially since it's summertime right now on the northern hemisphere, the thing gets even louder, even when I not doing ANYTHING!

and literally every task I throw at it almost causes the thing to ****ing TAKE OFF! like some vertically rising airplane!

since I work with sound this not only annoying but it actually holds me back from making precise mixing decisions.

so my question is:

how is the Heatmanagement in the Mac Mini??

or a better question may be.. how LOUD does the Mac Mini get? I'm talking maximum workload. things like exporting, running several audio tracks with several CPU intensive plugins at once. basicly anything that makes the CPU actually WORK HARD.

is the fan noise noticable? how many dB is it? will it be any better then my current Macbook Pro?

 

[WhatAmI]

Sound is subjective but I can tell you my base Mac Mini 2011 with 8GB almost takes off from the desk when under full load (converting MKVs to MP4 etc etc)

 

[charlieegan3]

most of the time though it will be very quite.

 

[philipma1957]

it is loud under load. dare I say just about all 2010 and newer macs are loud under load.

 

[useme2305]

the mac mini is too loud. not recommended for mixing in the same room unless you put it in a sound proof chassis with a fan....that's what i did.

 

[Hessel]

the mac mini is too loud. not recommended for mixing in the same room unless you put it in a sound proof chassis with a fan....that's what i did.

Okay so I do wonder..

does the noise come from the vibrations? or does it come from the spinning fans?

 

[philipma1957]

Okay so I do wonder..

does the noise come from the vibrations? or does it come from the spinning fans?

the fan maxes at 5500 rpm under a heavy load it is very loud.

there are ways to keep it at a lower speed and not burn up but you may not be able to do it in your setup. I will look for some posts i made a month ago.


some quiet cooling ideas in here

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1400622/


also I use a fan program included with istats menus 3

if you set the minimum speed at 2200 rpm the machine tends to never have to ramp up to 5400-5500 rpm. if you combine an outside fan with the fan speed program set at 2200rpm as the floor it will help to prevent full speed ramp up.

 

[Chippy99]

Totally silent would be great, but to be honest I don't mind loud under load.

The really important thing for me is quiet under normal use, i.e. like now, surfing the web or typing something - writing a proposal or answering emails perhaps. Then I need quiet to think. But if I am converting a video for example (which incidentally is a really bad use-case for a Mini) then I don't mind loud.

If you fit an SSD instead of the hard disk, then the Mini idles *very* quietly indeed.

 

[tom vilsack]

My 2006 mini is dead quiet..i have it sitting here on my desk top.Maybe when I'm playing utube vids it makes the smallest of sound but really not much of anything.

I also own a macbook and number of ppc laptops...and there way louder under load compared to my mini.