Quick Q: Current 3.4 iMac at sustained full load

[vbuggy]

Anyone have acoustic figures 'at ear' (i.e. perceived noise)? Especially relative to a dual-Westmere Pro?

Thanks

 

[Reliant]

I do a lot of handbraking for hours at a time, and honestly, I don't hear it that much. Sure, you can hear it kick up once in a while, but it takes a long time before it does and even then it's not horribly loud.

 

[vbuggy]

Not horribly loud is subjective, I'm looking for objective info - e.g. I've seen a fair number of references to people saying the Pro is the quietest tower they've ever used but I find it increasingly more intolerably noisy (and it's the furthest machine from me in terms of where I sit at each position) next to the HP Z800 and DIY-on-air in my deathly quiet (and would like to keep it that way) home office.

I actually have to turn it off unless I absolutely need it, which means then it's more of a hassle to use it. I'd just like it as with the other machines which are on for the day unless they go to sleep after a few hours of non-use, and I don't want the fans (both GPU and CPU) spooling up to a really distracting whirr when presented with a bit of a load - though obviously I expect an increase.

I'm trying to establish if an iMac would be any better as a front-end OS X workstation. I don't want to run everything over ARD and need a reasonable amount of grunt from the machine - and the current top-drawer iMac will, more or less, do. The screen (or more precisely the glass) is a liability but I can live with that.

The question regarding sustained load is because when it's worked especially with the analysis app, it's not entirely dissimilar to running a game like FSX in terms of load.

 

[TheStu]

Here, Anandtech mentions that at load it is 'very quiet, almost too quiet'. Though they don't have any measurements to go along with it.

Looking around, i am having trouble finding anything myself that actually has objective figures.

 

[vbuggy]

So am I. Was hoping Apple tech documentation has something of a guide at least but I can't turn up anything and Apple themselves weren't that illuminating.

Thanks for the link. Shimpi is such a drooling fanboi since discovering Macs I really don't look at anything but the benchmarks in his reviews, and even then with a pinch - personal opinions on the other hand I need so much salt I don't even bother - but it was worth reading.

I guess I'll probably have to buy one and find out. Guess also I'd better get my order in before the inevitable IB refresh.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Apple usually errs on the side of quiet operation, often to the detriment of what most enthusiasts would consider "proper" cooling and temps.

I've never had a Mac that was too loud. I have had a couple bake themselves to death, but they did it quietly.

 

[TheStu]

Apple usually errs on the side of quiet operation, often to the detriment of what most enthusiasts would consider "proper" cooling and temps.

I've never had a Mac that was too loud. I have had a couple bake themselves to death, but they did it quietly.

I don't know, when the fan on my Air gets going, it is definitely not quiet.

 

[notposting]

Maybe go check over at SPCR and see if anyone there has any experience/comparison points.

 

[vbuggy]

So, the aftermath.

First, I had the iMacs in the office to test as a potential general replacement to the Pro's for slightly lower-impact stuff.

(Specs: Max out the first four sections on the top-end 27" right now in the Store.)

Totally, completely, utterly failed the stability tests. The Pro's also fail some of the stability tests (which all of my commercial-use Windows machines pass), but definitely not as epically as the iMacs. Basically, untenable as a for-work-machine in anywhere else but a freezer. A non-contender.

It wasn't entirely unexpected, so duly resigned I carted them home, where I assumed that at least the abovementioned noise issue might actually be solved for lower-impact, or at least non-critical, use at home which nevertheless could benefit from the 2700.

You know what? They're the noisiest things in my deathly quiet home office by a small margin. And as far as desktops go I have in there (in descending noise profile) a 12-core Mac Pro with 5870, a GPU+GPGPU equipped / faster 12-core HP Z800 with factory upgraded cooling, and my mildly OC'd i7-2600K DIY with a DirectCu II GTX 580.

The thing is that the iMacs aren't that noisy in absolutes when you measure them by the vent comparing against the same method of measurement at the same distance with any desktop. But because it uses hamster wheels the noise pitch is higher, and it's also right up in front of your face. Add that to the fact that it transmits vibration to the desk (which is a natural sounding board) and cumulatively what you have is something that's a lot more noticeable than something that emits a much lower-pitch fan noise, and sits under the desk a distance away from your ears.

I'm going to have to figure out what to do now. Whereas I used to turn off / sleep the Pros as I said above, now I'm manually sending *both* the Pro and the iMacs to sleep as soon as I'm about to move away from them to turn to the PC's, and in fact I'm finding that I'm still using the Pro in preference to the iMacs to avoid the two-stage 'shwirrr + drone'. I might have to turn to the top-end model of the new MBP's which I can locate on an under-desk plinth attached to one of my Thunderbolt Display's, and maybe cook up some custom stands with silenced fans and ducted air (though once again, no guarantee it'll be an even bigger screamer) - or just be done with it and stick with the Pro. I'm inclined to do the latter right now.

The overall feeling is that I wasted $3400 x 2 simply to confirm, among other things, that Shimpi - who seems to be rapidly becoming Gruber with benchmarks where fruit-logo'd hardware is concerned - was at least partially talking out of his butt. He's not the only culprit of course, but he should know better.

I'm thinking about making one dedicated to Logic (the program, not the behaviour - that's something Apple-first-by-choice users invariably don't have). Clearly for music the noise isn't an issue as I'll either have the monitors turned on or be using headphones.