liquid cooling is not quiet, in addition to the fans you also have the pump noise, depending on which pump u get some are not quiet
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
New Mac mini Noise Considerations
- Thread starter kaibob
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I’ve heard the PC with liquid cooling at full load and I’ve heard PC with air cooling at full load. The difference is night and day. Although fan noise from the liquid cooling system were audible, it was nowhere near the fan noise of the air cooler.
Water just conducts heat better than air, that’s the fact. Therefore, fans on liquid cooling do not need to work as hard as they do with air cooling.
Water just conducts heat better than air, that’s the fact. Therefore, fans on liquid cooling do not need to work as hard as they do with air cooling.
I don't think anyone argues about that, just the fact that water cooling isn't noiseless. You will still hear it.
i7-8700 (65W) can be completely passively cooled in a small-ish case:
https://www.quietpc.com/sys-sentinel-fanless-s
i7-8700T (35W) can be completely passively cooled in a small case:
https://www.atlastsolutions.com/ult...-displayport-hdmi-2-0-8gb-250gb-ssd-imb310tn/
I find it hard that is not gonna thermal throttle like crazy. At least the one with 65 watt TDP.
Atlastsolutions (35W) have guaranteed me 100% CPU continuous use without throttling nor overheating IF used with the right motherboard (allowing to set max TDP at 35W indeed)
These cases have proper copper or alu heatpipes to cool the CPU.
I have not tried this particular kind of setup personally but stressing the bus (thunderbolt in this case) tends to have a knock-on effect on system load and overall temperatures. In this case wouldn't it put a permanent load on the bus?
Given my obsession with silent computers, I've begun to question my decision to go with the I5 rather than the I3. So, marc_b's post is good news. My I5 arrives in two days and I'll find out for sure then.
The machine in my sig is silent. Notice I did not say quiet. I built it with silence first in mind. Air cooled. It is hands down the quietest computer ever. And I have been a fan if www.silentpcreview.com for 20 years
When I first built it, I had to open the computer multiple times to see if the fan was spinning at all. Noctua has the quietest heatsinks/fans in the business.
The machine in my sig is silent. Notice I did not say quiet. I built it with silence first in mind. Air cooled. It is hands down the quietest computer ever. And I have been a fan if www.silentpcreview.com for 20 years
I have a similar build with an i7 8700 CPU and it's silent. Curious to find out DB levels on the i7 Mac Mini.
D
i'm pretty sure the pc you heard with air cooling is using some junky 25 dollar cooler master 2-4 pipe cooler.
my noctua d14 in my gaming pc is dead silent.
Marco's video tests the DB levels on the i7 Mac mini under load at about 40 DB (though he may need a better meter). In any case, you can have a listen compared to the 13" MacBook Pro i7.
https://marco.org/2018/11/06/mac-mini-2018-review
I'm still waiting to hear more on the i5. I wonder if the Apple Store has any of the i5's on display... and if they would be willing to do some sort of load test.
Am I correct eGPU might just stress the CPU even harder that the iGPU resulting in higher noise levels?
An EGPU would likely have its own fan(s) and be an additional source of noise. I don’t think it would add much overhead to the CPU.
D
There is a video posted with an i5 Mac mini that is running at a solid 3.9 Ghz and the fan noise is recorded for your listening pleasure:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/base-i3-geekbench-4.2152969/#post-26772748
9to5mac has some reviews of eGPUs -- and they suggest removing the GPU rendering from a MacBook Pro actually makes things quieter overall, in the case of the BlackMagic eGPU. That may not apply to the Mac mini though, as it may not get as loud as a MBP.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/base-i3-geekbench-4.2152969/#post-26772748
9to5mac has some reviews of eGPUs -- and they suggest removing the GPU rendering from a MacBook Pro actually makes things quieter overall, in the case of the BlackMagic eGPU. That may not apply to the Mac mini though, as it may not get as loud as a MBP.
Last edited:
I have the same one coming to me right now and this was what I was afraid of. Are temps like that normal for macs?
Should I exchange it for an i3?
Guys like this dude spread around FUD saying blatantly false stuff like "the i7 maxes out at 50w" and "the fan is barely audible under heavy workloads."
Maybe give it another viewing. He pegged all six cores for 10 minutes and couldn’t generate enough noise for the mic to pick up. Looked great to me.
I looked at the video. The fellow used a terminal command to run all six cores at 99 percent at a Turbo-boost frequency of 3.9GHz. After about 50 seconds, the "PKG" temperature reached 99 degrees and the fellow reported that "now you can start to hear the fan."
I know little about CPU's, but this seems to be a worst-case situation that--given my use of the computer--would seldom if ever be encountered. But, I'll know for sure when my I5 mini arrives later today.
Last edited:
But, I'll know for sure when my I5 mini arrives later today.
Any update available ?
I received my I5 mini yesterday and have been busy installing apps and configuring Mojave. I had forgotten how long this takes.
My mini sits on my computer desk in an extremely quiet home office. Being the obsessive type, I even temporarily turned off the hot-water recirculating pump so as not to miss even a hint of fan noise. Thus far, I have found the mini to be absolutely silent with one exception.
I use the SuperDuper utility to backup my mini's SSD to an external Samsung T5 SSD. At the exact point when SuperDuper begins to update the prebinding on the target drive--which takes about 15 seconds--the fan becomes audible (although still only a whisper). When SuperDuper is finished updating the prebinding, the fan once again becomes inaudible. This seems odd but is not a concern.
The aluminum case of the mini does get a bit warm in use but certainly not hot. Once again, not a concern for me.
I don't do any encoding or anything that would really stress the cpu, and so I'm probably not a reliable judge of fan noise. But, for me, and with the exception noted above, my mini is silent and I'm really happy with it.
You can't disable hyperthreading but you can disable TurboBoost. Upside—fans quieter under full load. Downside—rendering etc. takes more time because you've lowered the definition of a full load. There are apps for this.
For those of us who require an i7, the arguments in favor of less don't apply.
Why in the world would you use cloning for backup if fan noise is a concern? Between Time Machine and APFS Snapshots, there is no reason to do this unless making an archival disk for storage. Time machine is silent and works.
For those of us who require an i7, the arguments in favor of less don't apply.
Why in the world would you use cloning for backup if fan noise is a concern? Between Time Machine and APFS Snapshots, there is no reason to do this unless making an archival disk for storage. Time machine is silent and works.
Have you tried to disable HT in Mojave? It’s possible in previous versions of macOS.
I've been using SuperDuper for 6 years and have always found it to be easy to use and 100 percent reliable. But, it's probably time to look at alternatives. Thanks for the suggestions.