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The new iMac is a lot noisier!
- Thread starter Darajavahus
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No, I would (did) choose the faster one. Especially since the fan doesn't ramp up randomly and doesn't sound like a vacuum. It's just a fast quiet computer.
I tested taking a 1080p video and saving it to 720p at ProRes quality with iMovie. This is what I do with my own Music videos so is a relevant workflow for me in addition to audio... sample is 13.9minutes (just raw footage)
The i7/580 was ~30seconds faster = 11.7% faster than the i5/570. The increase in fan noise for 2 minutes on the i7 was no bother. 1800rpm is of course above the room noise but not annoying for 2 minutes.
At the rear of the iMac 1" from vent have about 55dBA noise level with 1200RPM fan. At 2000RPM get ~70dBA. At the operator position dBA meters are not a good measure of this type of noise. In my room - background is ~32dBA and with i7 at 1200RPM operator position is ~33dBA. At 2000RPM fan this is up to 36dBA.
i7/580
3min 42sec
65W GPU
49W CPU
74% CPU
95degC after 2 min, 1800RPM fan
----------------------
i5/570 (running from external USB3 SSD)
4m 12sec
38W GPU
47W CPU
94% CPU
70degC max Fan at 1200RPM (the spinning drive in this one is the loudest thing!)
The i7/580 was ~30seconds faster = 11.7% faster than the i5/570. The increase in fan noise for 2 minutes on the i7 was no bother. 1800rpm is of course above the room noise but not annoying for 2 minutes.
At the rear of the iMac 1" from vent have about 55dBA noise level with 1200RPM fan. At 2000RPM get ~70dBA. At the operator position dBA meters are not a good measure of this type of noise. In my room - background is ~32dBA and with i7 at 1200RPM operator position is ~33dBA. At 2000RPM fan this is up to 36dBA.
i7/580
3min 42sec
65W GPU
49W CPU
74% CPU
95degC after 2 min, 1800RPM fan
----------------------
i5/570 (running from external USB3 SSD)
4m 12sec
38W GPU
47W CPU
94% CPU
70degC max Fan at 1200RPM (the spinning drive in this one is the loudest thing!)
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The videos I was encoding was 1080p h.265, transcoded from 4k, which is much more CPU intensive.
750-790% usage too. That's 94-99% CPU.
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interesting that the CPU power draw was similar and there was 20% less CPU usage in the i7.
So, I turned on some of the sensor monitoring for the menu bar with iStats Menus to see what all the temps and speeds are, for my i7-7700K.
At idle the CPU sensors are usually around 39-40 degrees but with light surfing usage it can go up to about 42 degrees. CPU power utilization is around 3-9 Watts. The GPU stays around 34-35 degrees with idle/near-idle power around 13-16 Watts.
Doing a bit more surfing with Safari YouTube video watching at 1080p h.264 the temps may hit around 45 degrees to over 50 degrees with power usage in the 8-20 Watt range for CPU. For the GPU the temps may go to 36 degrees with power utilization in the 18-30 Watt range.
I know this Radeon Pro 580 isn't exactly a PC RX 580, but nonetheless the GPU idle power consumption numbers are in line with things on the PC side:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-580-review,5020-6.html
During this type of usage, the fan never moves from 1200 rpm, and the machine is essentially silent.
OTOH, those gaming power utilization numbers are just crazy on the PC side. Over 200 Watts! I wonder what Apple's design allows for max GPU power utilization. I don't have any games so I can't test that.
Interestingly, Geekbench 4.1 doesn't really seem to stress the CPU cores that hard. The temps will increase, but they fluctuate greatly, anywhere from 42 to 82 degrees and back down again, and the fan never ramps up during the course of the test. Stuck at 1200 too.
BTW, I never knew the 7700K power draw could be so low. This race-to-sleep thing works quite well I guess. It's interesting knowing there is all this performance waiting to be utilized but when not utilized it might only be drawing 4 Watts or so.
At idle the CPU sensors are usually around 39-40 degrees but with light surfing usage it can go up to about 42 degrees. CPU power utilization is around 3-9 Watts. The GPU stays around 34-35 degrees with idle/near-idle power around 13-16 Watts.
Doing a bit more surfing with Safari YouTube video watching at 1080p h.264 the temps may hit around 45 degrees to over 50 degrees with power usage in the 8-20 Watt range for CPU. For the GPU the temps may go to 36 degrees with power utilization in the 18-30 Watt range.
I know this Radeon Pro 580 isn't exactly a PC RX 580, but nonetheless the GPU idle power consumption numbers are in line with things on the PC side:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-580-review,5020-6.html
During this type of usage, the fan never moves from 1200 rpm, and the machine is essentially silent.
OTOH, those gaming power utilization numbers are just crazy on the PC side. Over 200 Watts! I wonder what Apple's design allows for max GPU power utilization. I don't have any games so I can't test that.
Interestingly, Geekbench 4.1 doesn't really seem to stress the CPU cores that hard. The temps will increase, but they fluctuate greatly, anywhere from 42 to 82 degrees and back down again, and the fan never ramps up during the course of the test. Stuck at 1200 too.
BTW, I never knew the 7700K power draw could be so low. This race-to-sleep thing works quite well I guess. It's interesting knowing there is all this performance waiting to be utilized but when not utilized it might only be drawing 4 Watts or so.
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Like whatevs I find this kind of interesting, particularly about the CPU power usage and perhaps even more so, the GPU power usage.
I went spec'ing the various Mac combos on the Canadian edu store yet again. I wasn't really interested in looking at the base i5 so I checked out these ones. Note that Apple specifically does not allow you to buy an i7 with Radeon 570.
CAD$3305: 3.5 GHz i5 / Radeon 575 / 1 TB / 8 GB / Keyboard with numeric keypad
CAD$3605: 4.2 GHz i7 / Radeon 575 / 1 TB / 8 GB / Keyboard with numeric keypad (+9%)
CAD$3497: 3.8 GHz i5 / Radeon 580 / 1 TB / 8 GB / Keyboard with numeric keypad (+6%)
CAD$3713: 4.2 GHz i7 / Radeon 580 / 1 TB / 8 GB / Keyboard with numeric keypad (+12%)
In terms of dollar cost in this scenario, the 4.2 GHz i7 + Radeon 580 only costs 12% more than the 3.5 GHz i5 + Radeon 575. In absolute dollars, that's $408. That's nothing to sneeze at but then again it isn't a lot of money in the greater scheme of things.
Knowing now what I know about the noise levels and power usage of he various models, I would make the same i7 choice as before. However, as mentioned, Apple's upselling works well on me I guess, at least in this case.
[doublepost=1498277150][/doublepost]I also loaded up Photos (which has tons of photos in it on my computer) and just started doing fast scrolling through the images. Interestingly, CPU usage on some of the cores can jump as high as 85-90%. However, it's extremely bursty, so it immediately jumps way back down again, and the fan always stays locked at 1200 rpm.
That 85-90% number may be significant, since the i5-7500 is about 65-85% as fast as the 7700K depending upon the task, so I suspect the i5-7500 could have a bit more lag in the UI under certain circumstances. I can't confirm this though, since I don't have an i5-7500 to test. But I can say the UI of Photos is now soooooooooo much faster than on my 2.93 GHz Core i7 870 (which is 4-core plus hyperthreading).
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Update - after testing and comparing the i7/580/1TB ssd and the i5/570/1TB Fusion I am going to return the i7 and order an i5/570/512 SSD. This saves me $1000US and for what my tasks are at this time (even being a ProAudio guy) the i5 has nearly equal performance for audio with 50% CPU headroom over 2X my max loading and only 12% loss in the speed of video encoding I do. All this with no fear of any increase in Fan noise ever. This makes more sense to me today. If a year from now this one is slowing me down I will just sell it and see what either a New MacPro 2 looks like or an imac Pro.
I will have some time using this Fusion one till the new one is built and then 2 weeks to make sure the new one does it for me. Can always reorder the i7 if needed but for storage I see now that the 512 SSD will be big enough today will all SSDs outside. Maybe get an Akitio Tunder3 Mini to maximize external SSDs and to have RAID available if I want.
Crazy for me - I always bought way over need before - today I go the other way
PS - there is nothing at all wrong or bad about the i7 - my needs have gone down since the old days and CPUs have just gotten that good. Today - an i5 will do just fine... I think!
I will have some time using this Fusion one till the new one is built and then 2 weeks to make sure the new one does it for me. Can always reorder the i7 if needed but for storage I see now that the 512 SSD will be big enough today will all SSDs outside. Maybe get an Akitio Tunder3 Mini to maximize external SSDs and to have RAID available if I want.
Crazy for me - I always bought way over need before - today I go the other way
PS - there is nothing at all wrong or bad about the i7 - my needs have gone down since the old days and CPUs have just gotten that good. Today - an i5 will do just fine... I think!
Update - after testing and comparing the i7/580/1TB ssd and the i5/570/1TB Fusion I am going to return the i7 and order an i5/570/512 SSD. This saves me $1000US and for what my tasks are at this time (even being a ProAudio guy) the i5 has nearly equal performance for audio with 50% CPU headroom over 2X my max loading and only 12% loss in the speed of video encoding I do. All this with no fear of any increase in Fan noise ever. This makes more sense to me today. If a year from now this one is slowing me down I will just sell it and see what either a New MacPro 2 looks like or an imac Pro.
I will have some time using this Fusion one till the new one is built and then 2 weeks to make sure the new one does it for me. Can always reorder the i7 if needed but for storage I see now that the 512 SSD will be big enough today will all SSDs outside. Maybe get an Akitio Tunder3 Mini to maximize external SSDs and to have RAID available if I want.
Crazy for me - I always bought way over need before - today I go the other way
PS - there is nothing at all wrong or bad about the i7 - my needs have gone down since the old days and CPUs have just gotten that good. Today - an i5 will do just fine... I think!
I agree with your assessment.
I just picked up the high end retail 27 inch. i5 3.8Ghz, 2TB Fusion drive, Radeon Pro 580
Machine is whisper quiet.
Shreds 4k video footage and effects in Final Cut Pro X
I think for most people, the trade off in performance to noise/heat and possibly reliability for the i7 just isn't worth it.
Also, while I'm thinking of it, i'm kinda disappointed that Apple didn't beef up the cooling system in the new 27 inch iMacs like they are doing with the iMac pro. Dump the 3.5 inch hard drive option and increase the heatsink and fan structure in place of it. I don't expect iMac Pro level cooling increase, but some more cooling would be much appreciated.
I am just curious why did you not consider the i5 3.5 version which I believe will be must cooler yet with similar CPU performance to the i5 3.8 according GeekBench result.
So, I turned on some of the sensor monitoring for the menu bar with iStats Menus to see what all the temps and speeds are, for my i7-7700K.
At idle the CPU sensors are usually around 39-40 degrees but with light surfing usage it can go up to about 42 degrees. CPU power utilization is around 3-9 Watts. The GPU stays around 34-35 degrees with idle/near-idle power around 13-16 Watts.
Doing a bit more surfing with Safari YouTube video watching at 1080p h.264 the temps may hit around 45 degrees to over 50 degrees with power usage in the 8-20 Watt range for CPU. For the GPU the temps may go to 36 degrees with power utilization in the 18-30 Watt range.
I know this Radeon Pro 580 isn't exactly a PC RX 580, but nonetheless the GPU idle power consumption numbers are in line with things on the PC side:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-580-review,5020-6.html
During this type of usage, the fan never moves from 1200 rpm, and the machine is essentially silent.
OTOH, those gaming power utilization numbers are just crazy on the PC side. Over 200 Watts! I wonder what Apple's design allows for max GPU power utilization. I don't have any games so I can't test that.
Interestingly, Geekbench 4.1 doesn't really seem to stress the CPU cores that hard. The temps will increase, but they fluctuate greatly, anywhere from 42 to 82 degrees and back down again, and the fan never ramps up during the course of the test. Stuck at 1200 too.
BTW, I never knew the 7700K power draw could be so low. This race-to-sleep thing works quite well I guess. It's interesting knowing there is all this performance waiting to be utilized but when not utilized it might only be drawing 4 Watts or so.
I found that the Radeon Pro 580 uses 100 W under Furmark. A bit less in actual games. That's a huge reduction over the ~ 150 W that the GPUs in the previous generation iMacs could use. It's really impressive what a bit of under-clocking can do for these chips (the 580 runs at 1200 MHz).
I think this is because Apple resigned from soldering the CPUs on the MoBo and went with standard LGA1151 socket. What this means is that the lid of the CPU possibly is still apparent, and TIM, connects the die to the lid, hence the high temps under load. If the CPU would not have the lid, and would be soldered, the temps would be better.
I was about to order the high-end model with the i7, but from the comments here, I might get the i5 instead. The i7 is only very marginally faster in photo editing and games (my only uses that require power), it costs 200€ more and apparently runs hotter.
The CPU won't be the limiting factor in games, not with the radeon 580 à 1440p. I'd need an external more powerful GPU for the CPU to matter, and even then, the difference between the i7 and i5 would be minor.
The CPU won't be the limiting factor in games, not with the radeon 580 à 1440p. I'd need an external more powerful GPU for the CPU to matter, and even then, the difference between the i7 and i5 would be minor.
I believe the high end i5 will run hot too. Mid-tier i5 might be better if you are concern about the heat. It is one of my concerns as well as I am not working in a very cool room.
Some posters here report that the high-end i5 does not trigger the fan as often as the i7. I want the high-end iMac for the 580, which actually does not increase the cost of the machine vs. the 575 (you can compare the two configurations with the same i7 CPU and storage, and the 580 iMac may even come cheaper). The 580 will make a difference in games.
Based on your needs (better GPU), the high end i5 version is indeed a good compromise. If you are looking at processing speed, then performance will be very similar.
3.8 i5 with 580 video card....whisper quiet...just an old geezer's observation...no numbers...no stress tests. It's an awesome machine. Upgraded from 2011 iMac...missing the startup bong.
Interesting. May I know what is the most intensive thing you have performed on this i5?
I run X-Plane 11 which actually can be very taxing on machines. With settings near or at max the fan would very quietly cycle a bit...but mostly it stayed quite....have not run the simulator for hours yet...but the performance is super and the Mac is behaving as it should. Took about 6 hours to transfer data from my old iMac but everything came across perfectly...not reinstalls needed...that is very cool.
Thanks a lot for sharing. I actually did not consider this option (i5 3.8) because performance seems similar to i5 3.5 but likely to generate more heat due to the higher voltage chip. However I will be missing out on 580 which may not be too important for me now because I do not play games on the Mac but may need might be useful in future with importing and manipulating 3D models in Unity Editor.
It's cooler in this room this morning and the CPU cores are idling closer to 38-39C after a bit of usage.So, I turned on some of the sensor monitoring for the menu bar with iStats Menus to see what all the temps and speeds are, for my i7-7700K.
At idle the CPU sensors are usually around 39-40 degrees but with light surfing usage it can go up to about 42 degrees. CPU power utilization is around 3-9 Watts. The GPU stays around 34-35 degrees with idle/near-idle power around 13-16 Watts.
Doing a bit more surfing with Safari YouTube video watching at 1080p h.264 the temps may hit around 45 degrees to over 50 degrees with power usage in the 8-20 Watt range for CPU. For the GPU the temps may go to 36 degrees with power utilization in the 18-30 Watt range.
I know this Radeon Pro 580 isn't exactly a PC RX 580, but nonetheless the GPU idle power consumption numbers are in line with things on the PC side:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-580-review,5020-6.html
During this type of usage, the fan never moves from 1200 rpm, and the machine is essentially silent.
OTOH, those gaming power utilization numbers are just crazy on the PC side. Over 200 Watts! I wonder what Apple's design allows for max GPU power utilization. I don't have any games so I can't test that.
Interestingly, Geekbench 4.1 doesn't really seem to stress the CPU cores that hard. The temps will increase, but they fluctuate greatly, anywhere from 42 to 82 degrees and back down again, and the fan never ramps up during the course of the test. Stuck at 1200 too.
BTW, I never knew the 7700K power draw could be so low. This race-to-sleep thing works quite well I guess. It's interesting knowing there is all this performance waiting to be utilized but when not utilized it might only be drawing 4 Watts or so.
Again, CPU power usage is around 4 Watts at idle, jumping to maybe 10 or so with surfing.
This iMac hates my USB 3 SATA dock though. Drives will spontaneously dismount after 1 second mounted. Same result with all ports. I will need to buy a new one.
That's maybe what I'd recommend in your situation or else a mid-tier i5, but you seemed set on the i7 with Turbo turned off. What changed your mind?Update - after testing and comparing the i7/580/1TB ssd and the i5/570/1TB Fusion I am going to return the i7 and order an i5/570/512 SSD. This saves me $1000US and for what my tasks are at this time (even being a ProAudio guy) the i5 has nearly equal performance for audio with 50% CPU headroom over 2X my max loading and only 12% loss in the speed of video encoding I do. All this with no fear of any increase in Fan noise ever. This makes more sense to me today. If a year from now this one is slowing me down I will just sell it and see what either a New MacPro 2 looks like or an imac Pro.
I will have some time using this Fusion one till the new one is built and then 2 weeks to make sure the new one does it for me. Can always reorder the i7 if needed but for storage I see now that the 512 SSD will be big enough today will all SSDs outside. Maybe get an Akitio Tunder3 Mini to maximize external SSDs and to have RAID available if I want.
Crazy for me - I always bought way over need before - today I go the other way
PS - there is nothing at all wrong or bad about the i7 - my needs have gone down since the old days and CPUs have just gotten that good. Today - an i5 will do just fine... I think!
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Thank you to everyone in this thread posting useful information.
I just sold my 2013 6c Mac Pro/D500/1TB system, and for now, am pocketing the money until the iMac Pro comes out, and possibly until the Mac Pro refresh. I'll be moving in the next few months after I get a surgery taken care of, so I'm going to wait until I'm settled into a new place for my next major computer purchase. Currently making do with a 2012 MBP connected to an LG 34" ultrawide display in the interim.
My Mac Pro was fairly silent at higher workloads (I'm an audio guy but have gotten into video production the last year or so), but the large single fan in the Mac Pro would become annoying at times...not loud, but more of a deeper "howl" than anything else. Of course, my solution was to stick the machine on the back of the desk behind the monitor, and totally inaudible.
I had a 27" 2010 i7 iMac beforehand, and as long as the newer iMacs are a bit less silent than that one at load, I'll be fine. Going to be monitoring this thread for future impressions.
Thanks again guys!
I just sold my 2013 6c Mac Pro/D500/1TB system, and for now, am pocketing the money until the iMac Pro comes out, and possibly until the Mac Pro refresh. I'll be moving in the next few months after I get a surgery taken care of, so I'm going to wait until I'm settled into a new place for my next major computer purchase. Currently making do with a 2012 MBP connected to an LG 34" ultrawide display in the interim.
My Mac Pro was fairly silent at higher workloads (I'm an audio guy but have gotten into video production the last year or so), but the large single fan in the Mac Pro would become annoying at times...not loud, but more of a deeper "howl" than anything else. Of course, my solution was to stick the machine on the back of the desk behind the monitor, and totally inaudible.
I had a 27" 2010 i7 iMac beforehand, and as long as the newer iMacs are a bit less silent than that one at load, I'll be fine. Going to be monitoring this thread for future impressions.
Thanks again guys!
I have the 27" 2010 i7 beside my 2017 i7. Neither are silent at full load, but the 2017 i7 is less annoying and slightly quieter.
However, with low to moderate usage, both are effectively silent. The 2010 is barely audible from 18" away with light usage, but my 2017 is totally inaudible at 18" away with light usage. I suspect it is because the 2010 is one large fan, as opposed to several small fans in the 2010.
Any video guys with the i5-7600K? I'm curious about max fan RPM after about 30 minutes or preferably longer of transcoding?
I haven't upgraded my 2013 because it doesn't lift off 1200 RPM while transcoding (i5-4670) for hours on end and while I could benefit from a 7700K I need it computer that is as silent as possible so I'm willing to sacrifice speed. Besides the 7600K would be ~30% faster.
I haven't upgraded my 2013 because it doesn't lift off 1200 RPM while transcoding (i5-4670) for hours on end and while I could benefit from a 7700K I need it computer that is as silent as possible so I'm willing to sacrifice speed. Besides the 7600K would be ~30% faster.