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The new iMac is a lot noisier!
- Thread starter Darajavahus
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Another few tests for you: encoding a 4K HEVC video with Handbrake, my i5 7600K draws ~55 W, the CPU temperature is stable at around 88 degrees, and the fan stays at its idle 1200 rpm. Lightroom export runs a little bit cooler than Handbrake. I can play Diablo 3 on maximum settings and the fans spun up to no more than 1800 rpm (often at idle 1200 rpm).
The ambient temperature has dropped a little (23 degrees), so even under Prime95 load the fans are at 2200 – 2400 rpm.
Prime95 is known to stress the CPU to its maximum ability, so for many people, Handbrake and Lightroom are better real-world tests. For people whose workloads involve a lot of pure number-crunching, you'll see numbers more like what Prime95 gives.
Unless you're seriously pushing the machine, the i5 iMac should stay whisper quiet. It would be interesting to see similar numbers for the i7...
The ambient temperature has dropped a little (23 degrees), so even under Prime95 load the fans are at 2200 – 2400 rpm.
Prime95 is known to stress the CPU to its maximum ability, so for many people, Handbrake and Lightroom are better real-world tests. For people whose workloads involve a lot of pure number-crunching, you'll see numbers more like what Prime95 gives.
Unless you're seriously pushing the machine, the i5 iMac should stay whisper quiet. It would be interesting to see similar numbers for the i7...
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May I ask you to test something specific with Lightroom?
1) batch RAW processing (preview generation), probably 15 minutes or more
2) high megapixel RAW adjustment in develop module, full screen on 5K
These 2 tasks have been the most usual performance bottlenecks for previous generations of 5K iMacs
If the i5-7600k can handle these without firing fans noisily then I am going to place an order basing on that right away.
Yes, that would be really useful!Hope someone can help do similar test for the i7.
Hope someone can help do similar test for the i7.
My guess from reviews of the chips themselves is that under a load such as Handbrake, the fan will run at maximum rpm and the CPU might throttle a bit. This has been more or less the case for the previous generations. I'll be very surprised if the i7 can handle Prime95 without throttling, because the i5 is on the borderline.
The i5 stays wonderfully quiet under a realistic load, but there's not a lot of thermal headroom at low fan speeds.
[doublepost=1497954394][/doublepost]At what maximum resolution can you play Diablo 3 to get stable 60 fps?Could you please check it in busy areas like rifts? Also do you play Diablo 3 in bootcamp or macOS?
That was under macOS at 5K resolution (everything maxed except AA off). I haven't played much so haven't got to anything super intense yet, but framerates were ~45 fps. Comfortably smooth for me.
I guess you'll have to lower settings a bit to get 60 fps everywhere, even in Windows. But I'm not really the person to ask about gaming benchmarks. You can probably play every game that's out right now at high settings in 1440p (which still looks great). It's pretty fast. The Radeon Pro 580 is an underclocked RX580.
If this level of gaming performance has you uncertain about a purchase, perhaps you should be building a gaming PC...
Very helpful, thanks. I have actually heard from a few owners of the 2015 iMacs that they don't have this problem in LR, so it does seem probable that the 2017s wouldn't—especially the i7.
I'm not in a particular hurry so I guess I'll wait for those LR reports. But I'm also keen to know about the noise level for the i7, because of the audio/Screenflow recording I do.
7600K. With the Radeon 580, you can only have the i5 7600K or i7 7700K.
Thanks a lot, I wouldn't complain as I play Diablo 3 on MacBook 12 1280x800 30fps
. I am actually considering 575 with locked i5 which is 65W and it should help with fan noise and still hopefully be only around 15% slower. I wish someone with 575 and i5 could check diablo3 5k no AA frame rate so we could compare it with your 580. You mentioned that fan runs 1800rpm in diablo, is it constant fan speed or just short time peak, how anoying is it comparing to idle fan speed noise?
No. In any case, even the same models could source slightly different components and each fan has it's own specific tune even if rated the same.
Hi all. I just opened my new i7. I haven't pushed the thing to the max yet (just ran some camtasia editing and exporting). So far, the machine has been pin-drop silent. I'm really pleased I got the i7! I was concerned reading posts about the sound, but so far all I hear is nothing
Hi all. I just opened my new i7. I haven't pushed the thing to the max yet (just ran some camtasia editing and exporting). So far, the machine has been pin-drop silent. I'm really pleased I got the i7! I was concerned reading posts about the sound, but so far all I hear is nothing
Trust me, people are way overblowing this fan noise with the i5 and i7. Im glad your machine is dead silent though!
The fear of noise level may have been paranoia, but the i7 getting hot much sooner is still a fact. There may be use cases where the fans kick in a alot less frequently with an i5 over an i7.
Of course its going to get hot sooner due to the higher clock speeds and hyper threading I mean its a given.
Hi all. I just opened my new i7. I haven't pushed the thing to the max yet (just ran some camtasia editing and exporting). So far, the machine has been pin-drop silent. I'm really pleased I got the i7! I was concerned reading posts about the sound, but so far all I hear is nothing
Same here. New 21.5" i7, haven't particularly stressed it yet, but "pin-drop" silent describes it perfectly.
You can say it is a given, it is similar on i7 MBPs where battery performance is generally worse than the stock i5, but you make do with higher potential throughput. I guess some buyers of the new i7 iMac were just caught off-guard, perhaps they had experiences with lesser iMac models where heat was relatively less of an issue, where this time with Kaby lake 7700K and an RX580 it is simply a heater combo. But in this view, if the fans (at the same RPM) are indeed noisier than the past then we do have a legit case here.
I am personally split on which iMac to buy myself, investing top spec on an AIO is itself an oxymoron already. And if it is also disturbingly noisy then going for a mid-tier option makes more financial sense and ergonomic sense if I am going to replace it with the eventual modular Mac Pro.
+1.
Core i7 7700K 27" with 1 TB SSD and Radeon Pro 580 - Pin drop silent!
PIn fact, it's quieter than my Core i7 870 27", beside it. If I put my ear up to the top of the i7 870 I can hear a faint whirr but otherwise I can't hear it at normal seating distance. If I put my ear up to the top of the i7 7700K I hear absolutely nothing. If I put my ear up to the bottom of the i7 7700k I can barely make out a slight whirr.
Note that this is just with light usage, but that is what I really I care about. It should be silent at idle and with light office applications. I fully expect the fan to ramp up if I'm say encoding h.265 in software but that's fine.
I do wonder though if the storage has anything to do with it. I do not have a platter drive. I have an SSD. Surely an SSD alone would be cooler than a HD alone or an HD + SSD in a Fusion drive.
What is the proof that 1200 rpm in 2017 model is more noisy than the 2015 model? I haven't seen any.
So I got the fans to rev up in the 27" with 7700K by trying to play a Sony 10-bit HEVC 4K 60 fps video using only software decode. The 7700K couldn't even play it smoothly, and the CPU usage went up 650%, and shortly afterwards the fans went into loud mode.
Then I turned off the video and the fans went back to silent after about 15 seconds or so.
Interestingly, playing back 4K 30 fps VP9 material in YouTube with Chrome using pure software decode was fine. CPU spikes were in the 200%+ range, yet the fans stayed silent. (VP9 decode is not as demanding as HEVC decode.)
I suspect the i5-7500 would have been quieter trying to play the 10-bit HEVC Sony file but I also suspect the playback would have been much, much worse too, so it's a big tradeoff. Fortunately though, these files can likely be played through hardware acceleration on these 2017 machines at some future date, once High Sierra has been released and the appropriate software is available to do hardware HEVC 10-bit decode.
Then I turned off the video and the fans went back to silent after about 15 seconds or so.
Interestingly, playing back 4K 30 fps VP9 material in YouTube with Chrome using pure software decode was fine. CPU spikes were in the 200%+ range, yet the fans stayed silent. (VP9 decode is not as demanding as HEVC decode.)
I suspect the i5-7500 would have been quieter trying to play the 10-bit HEVC Sony file but I also suspect the playback would have been much, much worse too, so it's a big tradeoff. Fortunately though, these files can likely be played through hardware acceleration on these 2017 machines at some future date, once High Sierra has been released and the appropriate software is available to do hardware HEVC 10-bit decode.