How noisy/quiet is new iMac with Retina 5K display?

I posted before about how quiet my 5K is, and folks seemed to dismiss that thought. But I stand by it. I have done some video editing and other things that are extremely processor-intensive, and on occasion I do hear the fan. It is a very soft sound, nothing grating or loud. I also checked the fit of the screen to the aluminum, it is perfect. As a point of reference, my hearing is excellent, and I work in my home office where there are no other sounds to cover up the fan sounds. If the fan was loud, I would hear it. Another point of reference is that my old computer was a 2009 Mac Pro, and that thing made lots of fan and hard drive sounds!

I am not dismissing that other folks are having problems. But I suspect that it is the rarity, not the standard-issue that the machines are meant to be. One suggestion it to go to a store where they have the 5k and put it thru it's paces, and see if it makes loud fan noises.

Hope that helps,

Peter

If you asking me -its a home office. I do FCP, Motion, AE, Episode, VideoConvertors and music on Logic Pro etc. occasional gaming etc. Never had a problems before, my 2012 iMac i7 on 3.5 Ghz is whisper quite (of course it does run fans, but about 10min later then the retina and much quieter - and for example in Diablo where retina kicks in 2 minutes, older iMac plays without any noise. Thats alarming. This should not be explained as "its because the screen". I do not care. I want the best and thats why I paid the most money to get there. I am not questioning the quality of the retina display - it is eye popping / jaw dropping experience - only that top of the line iMac should be better in every characteristics when compared to the older ones. Apple played on the display keeping the other issues (cooling) left alone. I believe more people will chime in when they get theirs. In a office space this is nonissue, however in the long run, collecting the dust and extremely hot GPU and its longevity might be in question.

Christiaan, I am in an office in my home, and there are no other distracting sounds, most of the time. And when I am doing "regular" things with my 5K, like browsing the internet, or dealing with photos, the only sound I hear is so barely perceptible, I have to lean in and focus on it to hear it at all. On occasion, I use Second Life game, and then, part or the time, some other fan kicks in. This is more noticeable when if first comes on, but only because the room is dead quiet. And this higher level fan sounds is more like a very soft sigh. It is not in the slightest way loud, or obnoxious. The sound of air coming out of my heating ducts is pretty much the same level and softness. A very small and well made room fan, at the lowest setting, would make more noise than what is ever made by my 5K.

Some people are saying that the noise is loud and obnoxious and constant from the moment they turn their 5K on. This tells me that they are having an entirely different experience than me, and that there is something mechanically different about their computer, a defect. The fact that you have had three with problems is, quite honestly, dismaying. I am sorry to hear about this string of bad experiences. I am not challenging that the problems are real. Just that I am not having this problem.

Peter

How silent is it compared to a Mac Book Pro 2008 Unibody ?

@AAA in NOLA

So whats the current status regarding Firmware? any news on that ?

How is the glare on the 5k display? This question popped into my head because I'm sitting right now with my macbook pro near the window, with the sun shining at my back and I can't see anything but my own face, how annoying!

there was no firmware update since it's a design flaw by apple. I returned mine to apple (i7, m295x) and ordered a late 2013 imac with 4gb gpu which was always reported silent.

the imac 5k is only a benefit if you need a retina for photography/video editing and don't mind noise.

for casual gamers or people who like to enjoy content without bugs or feeling that they test the first beta generation of 5k imacs, i wouldn't recommend it. most 1080p movies look worse than on non-retina since it's not the native resolution. also web content ***** as you immediately see bad image quality.

if you can live with that, the retina is a gorgeous screen but the use cases are rare apart from photography/video. give it another year or two and apple sorts out the bugs and can come up with a more efficient thermal management and I'll be interested again.

So how does the late 2013 compare regarding noise with the iMac 5k ?

Some reported that the Retina iMac is also silent without CPU Load ?

Another nice to know thing would be , how does the Retina i7 295 compare to an MBP 2008 noise wise?

I definitely hear my MBP 2008 even without CPU load.

Please keep us posted when you get your 2013 !

I read this thread before getting a retina iMac, base model.

I can hear the hard disk firing up from sleep in a midnight bedroom.

I can hear a constant noise from the iMac when idle.

I don't know how much idle noise is from the fan and how much the hard drive.

It would be interesting someone with comparable hear-ability to test a full SSD version to assess the CPU fan.

Yes, it can be annoying esp. when thinking and typing at the same time but even for this 5k screen itself it is a good deal with the devil.

My five cents.

It'll be nice if you can put more on the MacMini. Thanks.

SUMMARY

Another data point: My iMac 5k produces a disturbing amount of fan noise during daily use in a cold home office environment.

DETAILS

I have the iMac 27-inch Retina 5k with M295X GPU, i7 CPU and 3TB Fusion drive. Ordered with 8 GB and I upgraded to 32 GB. I had a mid-2011 iMac before that which was silent.

The new iMac is the noisiest computer I've ever used at home. This is a subjective comparison with 5 different Windows PCs, some VAXstations an early desktop Macs (a Mac II?) and the mid-2011 iMac which was silent under a similar load. The only other source of sound is my dog thumping her tail against walls and furniture, my breathing, my fingers on the keyboard, a few HDDs spinning and intermittent air vent sounds for heating/cooling.

The Armstrong dB meter app on an iPhone 6 says it's 54dB(A) in here when the fan is NOT making what I consider a lot of noise. I might need to calibrate the meter because that sounds like a very high reading!

The iMac sounds like a small jet preparing to taxi a hundred yards away when a single process consumes about 150% of the CPU viewed in Activity Monitor for several minutes straight. I haven't looked at any of the temp sensors when this happens. I'm running apps like iTunes, Mail, Safari, Calendar, Hear (audio enhancement), 1Password, Aperture, Photoshop, Office Apps, Time Machine, occasional Steam gaming. I also get the fan noise when I'm booted into Windows 8.1 using a Bootcamp partition and running a Steam game that requires Windows such as: Far Cry 4

I love the system except for 2 problems: 1) the intermittent, loud fan noise and 2) the 3 to 5 second delay in disk response time from the Fusion drive when the HDD has spun down. I can change things system-wide to never turn off any disk and that helps response time - I wish I could set that attribute for just the 3TB Fusion HDD. I wonder if that energy saving feature effects external USB 3.0 connected drives. Does anyone know?

iMac 5K, i7, 32 GB SDRAM, 3 TB Fusion here. Almost silent when surfing Web, email, etc., but fan kicks in during screen saver cycle to 2300 RPM. I find that a bit odd and that's how I found this thread. Haven't worked extensively on machine yet but I'm sure I'll test it. I had MBP with noisy fan that Apple corrected via firmware. So far I consider this machine a keeper.

the fan is running very often. the sound is very high-pitched, at the border of hearing, but very loud at this frequency. so, if your hearing is still "young", it is very bothersome. (I have an SSD only iMac.) I don't mind when it spins up a lot, e.g., during active numerical calculations, as much as I dislike the constant high-pitch. It has also become worse over time, as it aged. maybe it is dust that induces it to spin more.

for what I do, a firmware upgrade could do the job of quietening it. it is likely that they are just a little overcautious.

/iaw

I have had the new iMac Retina since Feb 3rd and tonight, while using FCP I took off my headphones and thought it was the DROBO I have connected that was very loud. I powered that down but the noise was the iMac. Wow. The fan sounded like a vacuum. I don't like this. I too have the i7 and 4GB GPU. They need to fix this ASAP.