M4 Max MBP 16 Fan Noise Question

[Grilled Cheese]

I’m thinking about upgrading my 16 inch M1 Max MBP to M4 Max. I work in a silent recording studio and the fans are off (or otherwise inaudible) 99% of the time. Perfect. They only become audible during intensive video editing work, but I’m totally fine with that.

Has anyone noticed any change in fan behaviour with the M4 Max MBP? I’m not expecting much has changed but confirmation would be great.

Cheers!
~Cheesy

 

[Onimusha370]

I’m thinking about upgrading my 16 inch M1 Max MBP to M4 Max. I work in a silent recording studio and the fans are off (or otherwise inaudible) 99% of the time. Perfect. They only become audible during intensive video editing work, but I’m totally fine with that.

Has anyone noticed any change in fan behaviour with the M4 Max MBP? I’m not expecting much has changed but confirmation would be great.

Cheers!
~Cheesy

Hey generally the power consumption has increased with each generation of apple silicon, so (for example) my M3 Max spins the fans up easier than my M1 Max. However having said that, you need to be pushing the machine very hard to hear the fans still. Unless you’re maxxing out the system for a sustained period, it should be A-okay. If you do have noise issues, switching to low power mode effectively turns the Max into more of a Pro chip and it’s then basically impossible to get the fans to come on (and you still get more than enough performance to do what you need).

 

[raythompsontn]

My M4 Pro maxed the CPU for 5 minutes. I knew the fans were on as I felt the warm air exiting. I could not hear the fans even when held up to my ears. Will the same happen with the Max? I don’t know.

 

[l0stl0rd]

I can tell you 10 min of cinebench 2024 on gpu or cpu gives you over 3000 rpm and it is quite audible. That is with automatic power mode.
Slightly higher fan rpm on the CPU compared to the GPU.

Running stable diffusion has a similar effect but did not pay attention to the rpms.
I can check later if you want.

Ooh yes and full 40 core M4 Max.
Which in the case of Cinebench GPU is about 4x the M1 Max.

I did try on the work M1 Max, in clamshell.
Looks like M4 max is 4x the speed 1,5x the fans.

M1 Mac was 2100-2300 rpm.

Not sure about power draw but yes M4 was definitely higher than 56W I saw on the M1 Max. I think 70ish but I can double check if someone wants to know.

Which would make sense 1,5x power draw = 1,5x fans 😆

Maybe the binned 32 Core M4 Max will have similar noise levels.

 

[Grilled Cheese]

I can tell you 10 min of cinebench 2024 on gpu or cpu gives you over 3000 rpm and it is quite audible. That is with automatic power mode.
Slightly higher fan rpm on the CPU compared to the GPU.

Running stable diffusion has a similar effect but did not pay attention to the rpms.
I can check later if you want.

Ooh yes and full 40 core M4 Max.
Which in the case of Cinebench GPU is about 4x the M1 Max.

I did try on the work M1 Max, in clamshell.
Looks like M4 max is 4x the speed 1,5x the fans.

M1 Mac was 2100-2300 rpm.

Not sure about power draw but yes M4 was definitely higher than 56W I saw on the M1 Max. I think 70ish but I can double check if someone wants to know.

Which would make sense 1,5x power draw = 1,5x fans 😆

Maybe the binned 32 Core M4 Max will have similar noise levels.

Thank you very much!

Most of the time I work on music productions in which the CPU load is modest and the M1 Max is inaudible. That’s what I want to keep with the M4 Max: silence during music production.

When I’m doing video production the CPU and GPU often work very hard and I don’t mind the fans kicking in. It‘s expected.

So perhaps I should have asked, “Is the M4 Max still inaudible under low to moderate load?” i.e During web browsing, photo editing, audio editing.

 

[l0stl0rd]

Web browsing yes, installing things yes, photo editing I suppose so did not have a chance yet only got it yesterday.

Audio editing I can’t say I don’t do that.

 

[l0stl0rd]

Thank you very much!

Most of the time I work on music productions in which the CPU load is modest and the M1 Max is inaudible. That’s what I want to keep with the M4 Max: silence during music production.

When I’m doing video production the CPU and GPU often work very hard and I don’t mind the fans kicking in. It‘s expected.

So perhaps I should have asked, “Is the M4 Max still inaudible under low to moderate load?” i.e During web browsing, photo editing, audio editing.

Also if it helps, I just tested it with stable diffusion, but in lower powermode is is quiet and about as fast as an M1 Max 😆

Or at least in that use case.