The new iMac is a lot noisier!

[tozz]

I have the i7 on order, but I might just cancel, I prefer a more quiet day to day machine, I'm ok sacrificing the performance when doing something very taxing (waiting a bit longer).
I really want the 580 though so 7600K is the only choice available then, but looking at heat output it seems to be significantly lower than the 7700K.

 

[Robbo1]

I must say that for everyday tasks the i7 is whisper quiet. The only times the fans spool up for me is when streaming a 5K video (the fans don't budge for 4k) or when playing a graphically intensive game like XCom2.

 

[tozz]

I must say that for everyday tasks the i7 is whisper quiet. The only times the fans spool up for me is when streaming a 5K video (the fans don't budge for 4k) or when playing a graphically intensive game like XCom2.

Video playback is usually hardware accelerated so not much load there, photoshop work however is not (well some parts but not all)

 

[EugW]

I must say that for everyday tasks the i7 is whisper quiet. The only times the fans spool up for me is when streaming a 5K video (the fans don't budge for 4k) or when playing a graphically intensive game like XCom2.

What 5K are you streaming? As for 4K, if you try to software decode a high bitrate 10-bit 4K HEVC file, then the fans will hit maximum pretty quickly on a 7700K. Even high bitrate 8-bit 4K HEVC will do the same thing. Lower bitrate 8-bit 4K HEVC files aren't as problematic, but you'll see a gradual increase in temp and sometimes it will also eventually cause the fans to hit max. Certainly, moderate fan speeds will happen, and you will get some audible noise. I know, because I tried on an iMac 7700K.

HEVC 4K (8-bit and 10-bit on the 2017) is handled in hardware in High Sierra, but only if you can play it in QuickTime. You can't play MKV files in QT though, for example, and pretty much all the third party MKV players right now on macOS are software-only decode for HEVC AFAIK.

The other thing that I noticed in Sierra is that just exporting a simple 45 sec birthday video file from Photos on the 7700K would cause the machine to go into full fan mode, because this was all done in software. I wonder if they've changed this to hardware encode in High Sierra, but I haven't tested that yet.

 

[user1234]

You guys are not making the CPU decision any easier

I'd like to keep this computer for 5 years ideally, so the i7 should help both now and in the future, but I don't like that it gets so hot. I'm really tired of listening to the fans of my early 2013 rMBP 15" and it regularly gets up to 100-105°C. The huge swings in temperature causes a lot of stress, so for longevity the i5 would probably be a better choice, but then I may be too CPU limited before 5 years has passed. HT also helps in what I do.

The only thing I'm sure about right now is the 580 GPU (well, kinda sure) and 512 GB SSD.

 

[EugW]

The other thing that I noticed in Sierra is that just exporting a simple 45 sec birthday video file from Photos on the 7700K would cause the machine to go into full fan mode, because this was all done in software. I wonder if they've changed this to hardware encode in High Sierra, but I haven't tested that yet.

Interesting. I just tested this.

I don't have that 7700K iMac anymore, but on my Core m3 MacBook 2017, such video transcoding from Photos in High Sierra launches com.apple.photos.VideoConversion.Service but it utilizes less than 30% CPU (out of 400%), and furthermore, when you consider total system CPU usage, altogether it is less than 10% CPU usage (out of 100%) including all running background apps and services. Plus, the transcode on the Core m3 in High Sierra is faster than it was on the 7700K in Sierra IIRC.

As a torture test, I decided to import that Sony Camp video I had previously mentioned which is a 10-bit 76 Mbps 4K 2160p HEVC file and then re-exported it. VTDecoderXPCService was launched at about 10% CPU usage (out of 400%) with com.apple.photos.VideoConversionService at about 25-30% (out of 400%), for a total CPU usage of about 15% or so (out of 100%). The difference here is that it needs VTDecoderXPCService to decode the video at the same time so that adds a little overhead, but overall it doesn't stress the MacBook at all. Impressive. Not really a torture test after all I guess.

So, it would appear that Photos transcoding is entirely in hardware, even for HEVC sources, if you have the right CPU (Kaby Lake and sometimes Skylake), and the right OS (High Sierra).

Thus, on the 7700K in High Sierra, this action would no longer ramp up the fan like it does in Sierra, supporting the purchase of a 7700K. OTOH, the 7700K isn't necessary here, because even the base model i5 would be fine for this, supporting the purchase of an i5.

 

[snap01]

I don't understand why people are worried about the fan noise from the i7. Getting the i7 gives you more computing power when needed. If the fan is becoming too noisy though, why not just limit the computing power on per process basis with commands like cpulimit, cputhrottle, etc at the times when you need quiet.

When you don't need it to be quiet, you can just let it rip.

 

[EugW]

I don't understand why people are worried about the fan noise from the i7. Getting the i7 gives you more computing power when needed. If the fan is becoming too noisy though, why not just limit the computing power on per process basis with commands like cpulimit, cputhrottle, etc at the times when you need quiet.

When you don't need it to be quiet, you can just let it rip.

Aren't those on a per process basis? If so, I could see that getting old pretty fast for a lot of people.

The easiest is to use Turbo Boost Switcher, as it's a global on/off switcher for Turbo Boost, but even without Turbo Boost the i7 can get pretty hot. Plus the app has to be reactivated after every reboot.

You can also shut off HyperThreading, I believe through Xcode, but then you have to install Xcode and run it after each reboot to do this. But doing this effectively turns it into a 7600K.

I see where you're coming from, esp. if you really need the speed, but at a certain point, people just don't want to deal with the hassle. The other thing is you can save a few hundred bucks by going to a lower end model. That'd do nicely to help to pay for SSD storage.

So, if you need the i7, definitely get it, but if you don't and you don't like loud fans, then consider a different CPU. All of that said though, for regular business usage, the i7 is effectively silent. If you do that 90% of the time and then 5% of the time you encode a video, for example while you go for dinner, then the i7 is great.

 

[tozz]

I don't understand why people are worried about the fan noise from the i7. Getting the i7 gives you more computing power when needed. If the fan is becoming too noisy though, why not just limit the computing power on per process basis with commands like cpulimit, cputhrottle, etc at the times when you need quiet.

When you don't need it to be quiet, you can just let it rip.

Because having to manually control thermal limits is not something most people cba with, there's a lot of more worth while things to spend your time on. I had the 7700K in a PC build and I had to delid it to get sane temperatures (which I should've thought about when ordering, but I've canceled now and went with the 7600K instead).

 

[snap01]

Aren't those on a per process basis? If so, I could see that getting old pretty fast for a lot of people.

Yes per process. If you need to limit it every time, then yeah I can see it getting annoying. But we are talking about power users here right? people who can really benefit from the i7's speed.

The easiest is to use Turbo Boost Switcher, as it's a global on/off switcher for Turbo Boost, but even without Turbo Boost the i7 can get pretty hot. Plus the app has to be reactivated after every reboot.

You can also shut off HyperThreading, I believe through Xcode, but then you have to install Xcode and run it after each reboot to do this. But doing this effectively turns it into a 7600K.

I've never used cputhrottle but it's just a one line command line call with the PID. So maybe two calls (one to get the PID) and the second for the actual cputhrottle command. It seems to allow setting cpu limit as a percentage so you get much more control.

I suppose you could write a script to automatically check the processes and throttle depending on certain conditions (like throttle at night when you're trying to sleep if you have the iMac in your bedroom) but that's require some programming skills.

I see where you're coming from, esp. if you really need the speed, but at a certain point, people just don't want to deal with the hassle. The other thing is you can save a few hundred bucks by going to a lower end model. That'd do nicely to help to pay for SSD storage.

I totally get the cost consideration.

So, if you need the i7, definitely get it, but if you don't and you don't like loud fans, then consider a different CPU. All of that said though, for regular business usage, the i7 is effectively silent. If you do that 90% of the time and then 5% of the time you encode a video, for example while you go for dinner, then the i7 is great.

Hopefully mine will arrive on monday.
[doublepost=1498941304][/doublepost]

Because having to manually control thermal limits is not something most people cba with, there's a lot of more worth while things to spend your time on. I had the 7700K in a PC build and I had to delid it to get sane temperatures (which I should've thought about when ordering, but I've canceled now and went with the 7600K instead).

Yeah if you're going to need to limit the cpu/fan all the time then I agree there's no point. But cpu limiting I think is a good compromise for people who have speed as the top priority but need quiet at certain times.

 

[colodane]

This is an interesting discussion. When I first looked at the new iMacs, I was drawn to the high end i5 with the 580 GPU. Something about 8 GB of graphic memory was strongly calling me. I don't know why because I do not have plans for a second display and don't do VR or games or even video editing. So I started questioning my decision. The clincher was when I looked to see how much graphic memory I have on my current 2011 iMac. Turns out to be 512 MB ! So the 575, with 4 GB of memory, will have 8 TIMES the memory of what I'm currently using. I've never had any graphics issues, so decided that the 575 with the mid tier i5 processor will be more than sufficient for my needs. I'll use the $200 I save to help pay for the RAM purchase from Crucial ;>)

 

[whatevs]

So the 575, with 4 GB of memory, will have 8 TIMES the memory of what I'm currently using.

wont you also have a screen with 4X the pixels to power?

 

[colodane]

wont you also have a screen with 4X the pixels to power?

Good Point! So my net will be an effective 2X increase in memory along with faster processing.

Also, my post may be on the wrong thread. I thought I was replying to a discussion about the 575 vs. the 580, but somehow it got appended here. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[Smoothie]

Because having to manually control thermal limits is not something most people cba with, there's a lot of more worth while things to spend your time on. I had the 7700K in a PC build and I had to delid it to get sane temperatures (which I should've thought about when ordering, but I've canceled now and went with the 7600K instead).

I read about people delidding the 7700K to reduce the temperature. I also read that some people were getting extreme temperature spikes for no apparent reason and Intel didn't seem to come up with an explanation for the spikes.

 

[DRuser]

If I were only a Logic user this would be easier but I am also a Pro Tools user (plus Studio One and Davinci Resolve)

You've mentioned Davinci Resolve. Which version do you use? I'd be very interested what your experiences are with 4k editing. I had a 7600k iMac but decided to send it back as good performance wasn't always there. However I'm not entirely sure what has caused this behaviour. Probably the atrocious fusion drive.
Thought I'm better off ordering the i7 with an 1tb SSD drive but as I am very sensitive to fan noise this doesn't seem to be an option. Even the 1200rpm idle noise bugged me. Did you do tests in Resolve on your i5 and i7? Did the fans ramp up in normal grading work?

Thanks

 

[Ethosik]

I still haven't had a response to my question on whether the i5 is worth it or if I need to go with the i7. I am getting one to replace my 2010 6 core 3.33Ghz Mac Pro as a FCPX system. I can already notice MUCH faster rendering times on my 2016 Macbook Pro compared to my 2010 Mac Pro. I would default to the i7, but noise and heat are an issue. Or do I need to pick up the current Mac Pro again for the 6 cores? The iMac i7 build and the Mac Pro build are around the same price for me.

 

[EugW]

wont you also have a screen with 4X the pixels to power?

Everyone seems to say 1 GB is fine for 2D work on a 5K sc

I still haven't had a response to my question on whether the i5 is worth it or if I need to go with the i7. I am getting one to replace my 2010 6 core 3.33Ghz Mac Pro as a FCPX system. I can already notice MUCH faster rendering times on my 2016 Macbook Pro compared to my 2010 Mac Pro. I would default to the i7, but noise and heat are an issue. Or do I need to pick up the current Mac Pro again for the 6 cores? The iMac i7 build and the Mac Pro build are around the same price for me.

If you want 6 cores, wait until 2018. The new top end i5 will be 6 cores. The new i7 will be 6 cores with HyperThreading.

 

[Ethosik]

Everyone seems to say 1 GB is fine for 2D work on a 5K sc

If you want 6 cores, wait until 2018. The new top end i5 will be 6 cores. The new i7 will be 6 cores with HyperThreading.

Well are the 6 cores beneficial at all? How does my 2016 Macbook Pro beat my 2010 Mac Pro? On the post I wrote a few pages back, a 5 hour recording will take around 12 hours on my 2010 Mac Pro, but only around 6 hours on my 2016 Macbook Pro which doesn't have 6 cores. So if I don't really need 6-cores, should I get the i5 or i7 iMac?

 

[tozz]

I read about people delidding the 7700K to reduce the temperature. I also read that some people were getting extreme temperature spikes for no apparent reason and Intel didn't seem to come up with an explanation for the spikes.

The thermal compound between the CPU and the IHS is atrocious, when replacing it with liquid ultra (a liquid metal compound) my load temperatures dropped 20℃ and the time to cool down was drastically shortened. I could run the torture test in Prime95 and never even hit 65℃, before delidding I was close to 90℃.
Probably due to lack of competition, Intel has really gotten cheap on the things that matter.
[doublepost=1498976573][/doublepost]

You've mentioned Davinci Resolve. Which version do you use? I'd be very interested what your experiences are with 4k editing. I had a 7600k iMac but decided to send it back as good performance wasn't always there. However I'm not entirely sure what has caused this behaviour. Probably the atrocious fusion drive.
Thought I'm better off ordering the i7 with an 1tb SSD drive but as I am very sensitive to fan noise this doesn't seem to be an option. Even the 1200rpm idle noise bugged me. Did you do tests in Resolve on your i5 and i7? Did the fans ramp up in normal grading work?

Thanks

Isn't 1200rpm the default, no matter what CPU you have?

 

[Lando555]

When the new iMacs were announced I started to follow the discussions in this forum without registering as a user. Well, discussions... actually, in some cases it was interesting to learn more about some users' individual thought processes as I was in the same situation... looking at users like EugW. ;-)
This forum was very helpful for me, so thanks to everyone here!

I was on a Late 2008 MBP before, had upgraded RAM to 8 GB and replaced the HDD with a 1 TB Samsung Evo 840 SSD. Of course, this solution only worked for so long because for the most time I was using my work computer.

So when finally the latest iMac update was announced I knew I would get a new Mac. Actually, I had just been waiting for this update. I do photo and video editing, office work, some scientific and statistical analyses, run a virtual machine, play video and audio etc. Not the hardest tasks one can imagine but I wanted a computer that is really snappy. And who knows what will be in the future...

I had not expected this but actually the decisions in the buying process were really tough. Finally, I decided to get the 2 TB SSD. 1 TB would have been ok for now but I like to have a true all-in-one solution with no external devices (maybe except for an external drive for large video files) and in 1-2 years or even sooner I would need an external drive. For example, a portable 1 TB SSD would be a) not really inexpensive, b) significantly slower than PCIe flash, and c) not as elegant as a real AIO. So, this 2 TB SSD upgrade was really expensive but especially with APFS on the horizon I think it was worth it. I plan to use this iMac for at least 5-6 years and I just can't imagine I will be happy with a HDD in such a computer over all these years. Additionally, if I should sell the Mac one day, a large SSD (>512 GB) will be what people want. I should mention that I am a researcher at a university so I get an educational discount. However, I have to admit that this upgrade was pretty expensive.

With my decision for the 2 TB SSD, the high-end model with i5 7600K and Radeon Pro 580 was the only option. I decided to upgrade to the i7 7700K. Not because I think I really need it at the moment but I just don't want to regret choosing the i5 one day. Currently, I mostly shoot JPG and 1080p... yet, I will be shooting and editing more and more RAW and 4K in the future. I also think that, in the next years, software will make better use of more cores/threads. I have followed the heat/fan noise discussion very closely. However, in the end, I decided to go for the i7. I don't expect fan noise during normal use... and in those moments when I need max performance the fans will spin for a reason... I can live with that and appreciate the speed. My only other option would have been the i5 7600K which also might not be a completely cool and silent solution while not being much faster than the 7600. So I decided to go for the i7 which definitely has a higher performance, single-core and multi-core.

I went with the standard 8 GB RAM configuration and additionally got a Micron Crucial 32 GB kit (2x16) from Amazon Germany for under 210€. Not the 'for Mac' version but this should be fine considering the positive reports in this forum.

The iMac has arrived on Friday but I didn't have time to set it up. Will give you an update when I had the chance to play with it a little bit. Just wanted to say thank you for your opinions and also wanted to share my thoughts. ;-)

 

[user1234]

Maybe this has already been mentioned, but how loud is the iMac fan at full blast compared to a 15" rMBP (2013-2015 model) with it's 2 fans at full blast?

Btw, adding the 512GB SSD now bumps shipping estimate to 3-4 weeks, with every other option being 2-4 days. Awesome...

Edit: To all who prefer internal SSD because it's faster, I think we will see thunderbolt 3 SSDs eventually that will be almost as fast as the internal SSD. Probably not going to be cheap in the beginning though. I hope they will be available at a decent price when I need more fast storage because I can't justify the extra cost for 1 TB SSD right now. It does ship in 2-4 days compared to 3-4 weeks though

 

[tozz]

When the new iMacs were announced I started to follow the discussions in this forum without registering as a user. Well, discussions... actually, in some cases it was interesting to learn more about some users' individual thought processes as I was in the same situation... looking at users like EugW. ;-)
This forum was very helpful for me, so thanks to everyone here!

I was on a Late 2008 MBP before, had upgraded RAM to 8 GB and replaced the HDD with a 1 TB Samsung Evo 840 SSD. Of course, this solution only worked for so long because for the most time I was using my work computer.

So when finally the latest iMac update was announced I knew I would get a new Mac. Actually, I had just been waiting for this update. I do photo and video editing, office work, some scientific and statistical analyses, run a virtual machine, play video and audio etc. Not the hardest tasks one can imagine but I wanted a computer that is really snappy. And who knows what will be in the future...

I had not expected this but actually the decisions in the buying process were really tough. Finally, I decided to get the 2 TB SSD. 1 TB would have been ok for now but I like to have a true all-in-one solution with no external devices (maybe except for an external drive for large video files) and in 1-2 years or even sooner I would need an external drive. For example, a portable 1 TB SSD would be a) not really inexpensive, b) significantly slower than PCIe flash, and c) not as elegant as a real AIO. So, this 2 TB SSD upgrade was really expensive but especially with APFS on the horizon I think it was worth it. I plan to use this iMac for at least 5-6 years and I just can't imagine I will be happy with a HDD in such a computer over all these years. Additionally, if I should sell the Mac one day, a large SSD (>512 GB) will be what people want. I should mention that I am a researcher at a university so I get an educational discount. However, I have to admit that this upgrade was pretty expensive.

With my decision for the 2 TB SSD, the high-end model with i5 7600K and Radeon Pro 580 was the only option. I decided to upgrade to the i7 7700K. Not because I think I really need it at the moment but I just don't want to regret choosing the i5 one day. Currently, I mostly shoot JPG and 1080p... yet, I will be shooting and editing more and more RAW and 4K in the future. I also think that, in the next years, software will make better use of more cores/threads. I have followed the heat/fan noise discussion very closely. However, in the end, I decided to go for the i7. I don't expect fan noise during normal use... and in those moments when I need max performance the fans will spin for a reason... I can live with that and appreciate the speed. My only other option would have been the i5 7600K which also might not be a completely cool and silent solution while not being much faster than the 7600. So I decided to go for the i7 which definitely has a higher performance, single-core and multi-core.

I went with the standard 8 GB RAM configuration and additionally got a Micron Crucial 32 GB kit (2x16) from Amazon Germany for under 210€. Not the 'for Mac' version but this should be fine considering the positive reports in this forum.

The iMac has arrived on Friday but I didn't have time to set it up. Will give you an update when I had the chance to play with it a little bit. Just wanted to say thank you for your opinions and also wanted to share my thoughts. ;-)

Unless you really need the iMac today, the iMac Pro is a much much better product for you, especially looking at life span, you're already spending a lot of money on it and the Pro is going to _significantly_ faster for not a lot of more money.
I'm buying an iMac looking at 2-3years before selling it (and I only pay ~55% of retail, but even then it's quite expensive in Sweden), and even in that time the progress will have moved quite a bit, especially on the GPU side of things.
[doublepost=1498992606][/doublepost]

Maybe this has already been mentioned, but how loud is the iMac fan at full blast compared to a 15" rMBP (2013-2015 model) with it's 2 fans at full blast?

Btw, adding the 512GB SSD now bumps shipping estimate to 3-4 weeks, with every other option being 2-4 days. Awesome...

Edit: To all who prefer internal SSD because it's faster, I think we will see thunderbolt 3 SSDs eventually that will be almost as fast as the internal SSD. Probably not going to be cheap in the beginning though. I hope they will be available at a decent price when I need more fast storage because I can't justify the extra cost for 1 TB SSD right now. It does ship in 2-4 days compared to 3-4 weeks though

There's USB-C drives that are pretty fast already, the Sandisk Extreme 900 gives you ~550MB/s seq write and ~800MB/s seq read, not native PCI-express fast but far from the old slow USB 3 drives

 

[EugW]

Unless you really need the iMac today, the iMac Pro is a much much better product for you, especially looking at life span, you're already spending a lot of money on it and the Pro is going to _significantly_ faster for not a lot of more money.
I'm buying an iMac looking at 2-3years before selling it (and I only pay ~55% of retail, but even then it's quite expensive in Sweden), and even in that time the progress will have moved quite a bit, especially on the GPU side of things.

iMac Pro is way overkill for him.

There's USB-C drives that are pretty fast already, the Sandisk Extreme 900 gives you ~550MB/s seq write and ~800MB/s seq read, not native PCI-express fast but far from the old slow USB 3 drives

Nice, USB 3 Gen 2, but I see that drive requires 10 Watts power. People with MacBooks are reporting flakiness with that drive, I suspect due to power delivery, as the flakiness increases when the MacBook is low on power.

The USB 3 Gen 1 Samsung T3 drive only needs 3.5 Watts. People get about 430 MB/S out of that. I’ll either get that, or else hold off for a Samsung T5.

 

[tozz]

iMac Pro is way overkill for him.


Nice, USB 3 Gen 2, but I see that drive requires 10 Watts power. People with MacBooks are reporting flakiness with that drive, I suspect due to power delivery, as the flakiness increases when the MacBook is low on power.

The USB 3 Gen 1 Samsung T3 drive only needs 3.5 Watts. People get about 430 MB/S out of that. I’ll either get that, or else hold off for a Samsung T5.

I'm just looking at a ROI perspective based on estimated life span and potential resale value.

For a an iMac the power consumption of an external drive should not be a problem.

 

[DRuser]

Isn't 1200rpm the default, no matter what CPU you have?

As far as I'm aware of, yes. I would definitely go for lowering the base fan speed with the hack mentioned earlier in this thread. Seems to be an easy and safe way. I've tried to do it with cheatengine which made my Mac crash after a few minutes. However, I could experience how much of a difference it makes to lower the fans speed from 1200 to 1000rpm.