{"id":784,"date":"2021-11-05T13:01:58","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T13:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/?p=784"},"modified":"2021-11-05T13:01:58","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T13:01:58","slug":"fan-noise-on-the-14-macbook-pro-m1-max","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/2021\/11\/fan-noise-on-the-14-macbook-pro-m1-max\/","title":{"rendered":"Fan Noise on the 14″ MacBook Pro M1 Max"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some reason, the noise a computer makes can really affect my experience using it. \u00a0And since most of the time I\u2019m using my computer for work, it can affect my work attitude tremendously. \u00a0Yesterday I posted my initial impressions<\/a> of fan noise on the new 14\u201d MacBook Pro M1 Max. \u00a0At that point, I only had a couple hours to work on it, and mostly just installed some software updates and apps. \u00a0After using it a second day, I\u2019ve had a chance to push the hardware a little bit more and get a better gauge on the fan noise. \u00a0I\u2019m posting this for folks who may be on the fence between the 14\u201d and the 16\u201d due to noise and thermals.<\/p>\n

In my office, I typically use a laptop in clamshell mode, hooked up to a Pro Display XDR. \u00a0This will trigger the fans to run at around 2500 rpm at idle on the M1 Max. \u00a0I can\u2019t hear any fan noise until they start spinning above 3000rpm, so at 2500rpm they are inaudible to me. \u00a0This is in my relatively warm office, around 75\u00b0F\/24\u00b0C. \u00a0Day-to-day tasks that use the GPU, such as Mission Control, feel absolutely fluid on the 6K display, which I couldn\u2019t say about my previous 2019 MacBook Pro.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s move on to tasks that present more of a load on the system. \u00a0I spend 90% of my day writing software. \u00a0What is the Mac like when building an Xcode project with 100k lines of mixed ObjC\/Swift code? \u00a0To begin with, the build took just 17 seconds to complete, compared to 61 seconds on a 2019 16\u201d MacBook Pro Core i9. \u00a0This is going to save me a ton of time every day, for sure. \u00a0While working on some larger projects, I can spend more than an hour every day just waiting for Xcode to compile. \u00a0Getting 45 minutes of time back every day is a game changer.<\/p>\n

Returning to the thermals\u2026the thing is, 17 seconds isn\u2019t long enough to raise the fan speed at all on the M1 Max. \u00a0So I had to repeatedly build and clean the project for several minutes to get a gauge on how it would do on a bigger project. \u00a0The fan speed started increasing slowly after a couple of minutes, eventually reaching between 4000-5000 rpm. They are definitely audible at that point, though it\u2019s a much less objectionable sound than the higher pitch from the 2019 16\u201d MacBook Pro. \u00a0After I stopped compiling, the fan speed dropped back down below the audible 3000 rpm threshold after a couple of minutes. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Next I moved onto Final Cut Pro, and exported a 15 minute 4K video. \u00a0Again after a few minutes this pushed the fans up to around 5000 rpm. Background rendering also raised the fan speed, but if I was just scrubbing the timeline and doing minor edits, the fan speed kept below 3000 rpm. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Moving on to gaming, which admittedly I don\u2019t usually have much time for these days. \u00a0I opened Cities: Skylines and left it running on a smaller town. \u00a0It hit the GPU around 65% and CPU around 300% on default graphics settings at 1920×1080 in a window. \u00a0Fan speeds settled around 4400 rpm, so the fans are audible\u2026though difficult to pick out above the sound of the game (which was relatively low at the time).<\/p>\n

To compare it to a few other Macs I have experience with: I would say the 14\u201d MacBook Pro M1 Max is similar in noise level to the 2018 Mac mini i7. \u00a0It\u2019s much<\/em> quieter than the 2019 MacBook Pro 16\u201d i9\/5500M. \u00a0It\u2019s quieter at idle, but louder under load than the 2013 Mac Pro. \u00a0Performance, of course, beats all these other Macs significantly\u2026It\u2019s worlds faster.<\/p>\n

Overall, I\u2019m impressed at the thermal headroom of this Mac. \u00a0I haven’t heard the fans when doing most day to day work\u2026 Keep the CPU below 200% usage on the efficiency cores and you’ll never hear the fans. \u00a0If I start pushing the CPU or GPU, it has to be for more than a few minutes before the fans really start needing to spool. \u00a0And typically my work will come in quick bursts (compiling), giving it plenty of time to cool before the fans even start to ramp up. \u00a0<\/p>\n

That being said, I\u2019m still not totally sure if I\u2019ll keep this model or return it for the 16\u201d. \u00a0The 16\u201d is not the size I want, but my understanding is that it\u2019s rare for the fans on that Mac to raise above 2000 rpm even under full load. \u00a0So I have to weigh whether it\u2019s worth the $200 cost difference and larger size\/weight while traveling to eliminate some fan noise. \u00a0I\u2019m leaning toward keeping the 14\u201d but still have some time in the return window before I need to decide. \u00a0Either option offers a fantastic machine on which to do some real work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some reason, the noise a computer makes can really affect my experience using it. \u00a0And since most of the time I\u2019m using my computer for work, it can affect my work attitude tremendously. \u00a0Yesterday I posted my initial impressions of fan noise on the new 14\u201d MacBook Pro M1 Max. \u00a0At that point, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-macintosh","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starcoder.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}