The new iMac is a lot noisier!

[JasonMovieGuy]

2015 iMac 27 i7: 4 min 42 sec
- relatively quiet until about 1/2 way through
- temp and fan gradually increased to 95C and 2400 rpm

2017 iMac 27 i7: 4 min 3 sec
- a little quieter than the 2015
- temp and fan speed hit about 90C and 1900 rpm

2017 iMac 27 i7, hyperthreading disabled: 4 min 12 sec
- temp and fan similar to HT enabled

Hey Joe! Wanted to touch base with you since you gave me great advice before about what to get.

Because of budget constraints I had to cancel my original purchase of the top-tier 27 580/i7

Instead I am going with the Entry-Level 27 i5/570 - with 1TB SSD/40GB RAM

Will this suffice you think for my 1080p Editing in FCPX and 4K Editing too? My videos are simple/ I don't do much but add transitions and titles. I just want solid export times. I was ALMOST going to go for the mid-tier 575, but then I would have had to downgrade to 512SSD and I need more space then that. I also didn't know if 570 vs 575 would make that much of a difference. I'm aware the 580/8GB Video ram does. But hopefully 4GB Video ram will do me over.

I hope I made a good choice

 

[joema2]

....I am going with the Entry-Level 27 i5/570 - with 1TB SSD/40GB RAM...Will this suffice you think for my 1080p Editing in FCPX and 4K Editing too? My videos are simple/ I don't do much but add transitions and titles. I just want solid export times...

That is probably faster than the 2013 3.5Ghz i7 iMac one of our editors uses on 4k video with FCPX, admittedly via proxy. It has a GTX-780m with 4GB VRAM.

Your i5/750 will be very fast on 1080p H264, reasonably fast on 4k ProRes, and somewhat sluggish on 4k H264. It is almost impossible for any hardware or software to edit long GOP 4k H264 smoothly without using proxy, but with that even a MacBook Air can edit 4k.

Re FCPX export times with the 2017 i5, I don't have any numbers on that. However FCPX has very good export performance to H264 on most hardware.

 

[JasonMovieGuy]

That is probably faster than the 2013 3.5Ghz i7 iMac one of our editors uses on 4k video with FCPX, admittedly via proxy. It has a GTX-780m with 4GB VRAM.

Your i5/750 will be very fast on 1080p H264, reasonably fast on 4k ProRes, and somewhat sluggish on 4k H264. It is almost impossible for any hardware or software to edit long GOP 4k H264 smoothly without using proxy, but with that even a MacBook Air can edit 4k.

Re FCPX export times with the 2017 i5, I don't have any numbers on that. However FCPX has very good export performance to H264 on most hardware.

Thanks Joe! Great detailed advice as always. I'll report to you on how it goes with my editing. I'm hoping my option to get the larger SSD pays off in the end. Down the road I def will want to do an i7 processor. It was a tough decision.

 

[DryRot]

Got a 27"i7 iMac. Pretty impressive machine NB the screen and speed.

The fan has been dead quiet so far. indeed, my Time Machine backup Western Digital hard drive is noisier. However, the iMac saes an odd clicking sound now and again. Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[tozz]

There has to be different suppliers of fans, I first thought I was imagining it but my second iMac is _significatly_ more noisier than my first (at 1200rpm), the first one I had to put my ears to the vent to hear, this one I hear clearly just sitting in my normal work position.

 

[grizfish]

Have a 2017 iMac 27" 3.8 GHz i5, 1TB SSD/32GB ram, R580 and after 5 days of trying, cannot get my fan to speed up. Need to get my ear within a few inches, low on the back to hear the fan.
Can somebody recommend a good game to get this thing spinning up enough to be annoying?
Don't have windows yet, so will need to be a Mac game.
Thanks

 

[SaSaSushi]

Have a 2017 iMac 27" 3.8 GHz i5, 1TB SSD/32GB ram, 380 and after 5 days of trying, cannot get my fan to speed up. Need to get my ear within a few inches, low on the back to hear the fan.
Can somebody recommend a good game to get this thing spinning up enough to be annoying?
Don't have windows yet, so will need to be a Mac game.
Thanks

Wow, this is the first time I've seen someone searching for a way to get the fans to run faster.

If you want to hear what the fans sound like at full speed, download a copy of smcFanControl.

I have the 4.2GHz i7 with 512GB SSD and R580 and I very rarely hear the fans spin up above idle. It is no more noisy than the Late 2013 iMac that preceded it.

 

[grizfish]

Wow, this is the first time I've seen someone searching for a way to get the fans to run faster.

If you want to hear what the fans sound like at full speed, download a copy of smcFanControl.

I have the 4.2GHz i7 with 512GB SSD and R580 and I very rarely hear the fans spin up above idle. It is no more noisy than the Late 2013 iMac that preceded it.

Thanks, but not looking for artificial fan speed increase. Want to use a program that increases processor work in a real world situation to increase CPU usage and create heat that needs to be dissipated. Just thought a game would get me there. Hope to find a game other than battlefield type. I experienced over a year of real battlefield and still wake in the middle of the night from bad dreams after things like war movies. PTSS or whatever they call it today.

 

[EugW]

Thanks, but not looking for artificial fan speed increase. Want to use a program that increases processor work in a real world situation to increase CPU usage and create heat that needs to be dissipated. Just thought a game would get me there.

A game probably won't do it.

Download the Philips Red Bikini Supershop Demo 1 10-bit HEVC video from here:

http://www.4ktv.de/testvideos/

Then download Handbrake:

https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

Then load up Handbrake and open the video, and set it to encode to HEVC using the Roku 2160p30 4K Surround preset, which will re-encode the video again into h.265. Start the encode, and let it finish. You might get the fan to speed up after about 5-10 minutes. However, whether it's audible or not is not guaranteed. The 7600K runs pretty cool, almost as cool as my 7600. I was able to get the fan to speed up a bit after 10 minutes with my 7600, but it was still not really audible to me.

 

[SaSaSushi]

Thanks, but not looking for artificial fan speed increase.

Oh OK. I thought you were just looking to hear what the fans sound like, lol.

 

[propower]

On the i5/3.8 I took a 12 minute 1080p video and converted it to 720p using iMovie with output set to pro res. Takes ~4minutes and steadily ramps the CPU temp to 90degC in ~3minutes. Fan runs around 1600 to 1800 for the remainder of the encoding. Worth mentioning that the GPU speed jumps around a lot and is rarely at 1.1GHz. The fan is noticeable but not obnoxious (to me). If you disable Turbo (very small penalty) the same encode takes the same amount of time but CPU only hits 78degC. Worth noting again that with Turbo OFF - the GPU is steady at 1.1 GHz.

 

[Phuc024]

A game probably won't do it.

Download the Philips Red Bikini Supershop Demo 1 10-bit HEVC video from here:

http://www.4ktv.de/testvideos/

Then download Handbrake:

https://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

Then load up Handbrake and open the video, and set it to encode to HEVC using the Roku 2160p30 4K Surround preset, which will re-encode the video again into h.265. Start the encode, and let it finish. You might get the fan to speed up after about 5-10 minutes. However, whether it's audible or not is not guaranteed. The 7600K runs pretty cool, almost as cool as my 7600. I was able to get the fan to speed up a bit after 10 minutes with my 7600, but it was still not really audible to me.

I was trying to read all 28 pages of this thread and appreciate your efforts to help people to buy the right configuration. I was debating between 7600 and 7600k, and still not sure if the 580 will be a better need in the future or not since the price different is only $110 (both mid-tier and high end tier I configured to 512 SSD, and education discount). For all my needs, I will use the imac pretty much for software development programs, occasional 4k video editing, maybe some 3d rendering, and some extra games (will try VR some day), do you think the 7600/575 should be enough for me in the next 4-5 years? Thanks

 

[EugW]

I was trying to read all 28 pages of this thread and appreciate your efforts to help people to buy the right configuration. I was debating between 7600 and 7600k, and still not sure if the 580 will be a better need in the future or not since the price different is only $110 (both mid-tier and high end tier I configured to 512 SSD, and education discount). For all my needs, I will use the imac pretty much for software development programs, occasional 4k video editing, maybe some 3d rendering, and some extra games (will try VR some day), do you think the 7600/575 should be enough for me in the next 4-5 years? Thanks

Dunno as it depends on your usage, but for Final Cut, 3D, and VR, the 580 may be beneficial.

 

[tozz]

I was trying to read all 28 pages of this thread and appreciate your efforts to help people to buy the right configuration. I was debating between 7600 and 7600k, and still not sure if the 580 will be a better need in the future or not since the price different is only $110 (both mid-tier and high end tier I configured to 512 SSD, and education discount). For all my needs, I will use the imac pretty much for software development programs, occasional 4k video editing, maybe some 3d rendering, and some extra games (will try VR some day), do you think the 7600/575 should be enough for me in the next 4-5 years? Thanks

No GPU is ever going to be enough for the next five years (if you do anything at all that requires the GPU), just look at how things were five years ago (Compare the NVIDIA GTX 680 vs a 1080). Not even the 580 is going to be any good in five years so most definitely pick the 580 since it's the best you can do.

 

[DRuser]

There has to be different suppliers of fans, I first thought I was imagining it but my second iMac is _significatly_ more noisier than my first (at 1200rpm), the first one I had to put my ears to the vent to hear, this one I hear clearly just sitting in my normal work position.

This is very interesting. To me the base fan was also not quite at all. I was able to hear it clearly from the other end of my (pretty quiet) room. Hence I was fiddling with DIY air vent solutions. Did anyone else notice that? Maybe some of you who had more than one iMac at the same time for comparison.

 

[tozz]

This is very interesting. To me the base fan was also not quite at all. I was able to hear it clearly from the other end of my (pretty quiet) room. Hence I was fiddling with DIY air vent solutions. Did anyone else notice that? Maybe some of you who had more than one iMac at the same time for comparison.

I have my third one on the way, if it's a dud I will give up for now, will be interesting to hear how the fans is on that one.

 

[Phuc024]

I have my third one on the way, if it's a dud I will give up for now, will be interesting to hear how the fans is on that one.

did you get the i7/580 for the previous one that caused heat and noise?

 

[tozz]

did you get the i7/580 for the previous one that caused heat and noise?

No the i5/580. I'm just talking about the idle sound level, 1200rpm so specs doesn't really matter, they're all spinning the same on idle.

 

[czacha]

Wow, this is the first time I've seen someone searching for a way to get the fans to run faster.

If you want to hear what the fans sound like at full speed, download a copy of smcFanControl.

I have the 4.2GHz i7 with 512GB SSD and R580 and I very rarely hear the fans spin up above idle. It is no more noisy than the Late 2013 iMac that preceded it.

That's quote normal if you don't need additional heater radiator in your room or just don't want to overheat CPU. I've been using SMC Fan Control on 2011 iMac for 6 years. I wanted fans to spin faster so CPU stays colder

 

[Phuc024]

No the i5/580. I'm just talking about the idle sound level, 1200rpm so specs doesn't really matter, they're all spinning the same on idle.

Hm I was going to order the same one, but yea the fan shouldn't cause that much of noise when just running on idle level. Will be interested to hear the update from your third one.

 

[glazball]

Have a 2017 iMac 27" 3.8 GHz i5, 1TB SSD/32GB ram, R580 and after 5 days of trying, cannot get my fan to speed up. Need to get my ear within a few inches, low on the back to hear the fan.
Can somebody recommend a good game to get this thing spinning up enough to be annoying?

I've been playing lots of Civ VI and it often causes the fan to ramp up, becoming audible. The iMac should be essentially silent at idle, even in a quiet room. I can't hear it at all (neither the fan or any "clicking sounds" some have reported).

@tozz, sorry to hear about your troubles.... 3rd time's a charm, right?!

 

[tarsins]

My 2017 27" i7 32GB RAM 1TB SSD is effectively silent with general use. I've only had it since Friday but the only time I've heard the fan was when importing about 6000 photos and 60 videos into Photos. Very happy with my choice.

 

[KentuckyApple]

My 2017 27" i7 32GB RAM 1TB SSD is effectively silent with general use. I've only had it since Friday but the only time I've heard the fan was when importing about 6000 photos and 60 videos into Photos. Very happy with my choice.

I've had the same experience with my new i7. I upgraded from a late 2009 i7 iMac. The new machine is quieter is general and much much cooler in temperature. When I use handbrake, the cpu and fan spike almost immediately, but that happened on my old machine too. And I believe this new machine throttles less. I am not a professional. I just wanted top of the line because this will last me at least 5 years. I'm glad to know I have the muscle when I need it. A little fan noise doesn't bother me when I see handbrake smashing out 500 frames per second. Fan speed drops back to inaudible almost as soon as the heavy lifting is done. My old Mac took longer to quiet.

 

[Archmage2002]

I've had the same experience with my new i7. I upgraded from a late 2009 i7 iMac. The new machine is quieter is general and much much cooler in temperature. When I use handbrake, the cpu and fan spike almost immediately, but that happened on my old machine too. And I believe this new machine throttles less. I am not a professional. I just wanted top of the line because this will last me at least 5 years. I'm glad to know I have the muscle when I need it. A little fan noise doesn't bother me when I see handbrake smashing out 500 frames per second. Fan speed drops back to inaudible almost as soon as the heavy lifting is done. My old Mac took longer to quiet.

Same, went from a late 2009 i7 iMac to an i7, 580, 1tb SSD and I have yet to get them to even rev up. I ended up using MacFan Control to increase it to max speed and even then it is really quiet compared to my old beast of a machine. It sounds like one of those small hand fans that you can get in a box store, so to me it is really quiet.

 

[adambadamh]

Just got my new i7, 580 earlier this week. Would say it is not silent. There is def a noticeable sound/hum and some vibration if you touch the bezel. The fan is only at 1100 rpm, so perhaps it is the HDD. Not super annoying but again not zero sound.