How Quiet is the New iMac? Answer >>

Bmer · **Posted:** Thu Sep 09, 2004 7:12 pm

From Silent PC Review...

"The speaker grill [at the bottom edge of the monitor/pc] lets a trio of ultra-quiet blowers draw cool air into the system. These custom heat dissipaters can rotate at speeds as low as a few hundred RPM. Advanced thermal software spins them as fast or slow as needed... the iMac G5 measures less than 25dB when idle (at the same distance of 50cm, a whisper in a quiet room measures more than 30dB). A slit in the back of the case allows heat to rise out the top."

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richardwy · **Joined:** Thu Sep 14, 2006 4:46 pm **Posts:** 129

Bmer, silence is golden! Very quiet machine is my new iMac.

Regards,

Richard

RickPrather · **Posted:** Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:39 pm

Since I can't hear anything no matter what I run on my Intel iMac I have to say it is virtually silent.

Bmer · **Posted:** Sat Sep 23, 2006 2:43 pm

If I didn't like the mobility of this Macbook so much, I guess my Mac would be a new iMac--20 or 24" too. ;-)

KingFish · **Posted:** Tue Nov 21, 2006 2:00 pm

I'm a pretty "Taxing Power user" often running the machine to its "brink" with Plugins in Pro-Tools.

I've never heard my intel iMac.

it's definitely the quietest computer I own.

akr95 · **Posted:** Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:59 pm

Seems that since installing the recent firmware update I notice my Mac is a little noisier, anyone else notice this? The noise is not bad but I can hear it now when I don't think I could before. Anyone else noticed this? Or thoughts on what else it might be?

Thanks

TurnerMan · **Posted:** Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:16 am

All of these comments make me really excited to get my new iMac - my PCs have been loud for so long that I feel uncomfortable in silence....

Cory Cooper · **Joined:** Sat Apr 24, 2004 11:50 pm **Posts:** 5400

My Intel mini is the quietest Mac I ever owned...only one that can beat the Intel Macs is the Cube.

C

Chakris · **Posted:** Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:37 am

I can honestly say that this iMac is supper quiet.

Ryan McKenzie · **Posted:** Thu Oct 25, 2007 11:24 am

For the size of the Mac Pro it is really really quiet. Unless you crank the fans up to 2500rpm, then it hovers across the floor. Its actually kinda funny, I should post that on youtube.

johnda · **Posted:** Mon Mar 10, 2008 9:45 pm

My imac,intel, is the most silent desktop machine I have had the pleasure of using. I like to listen to internet audio fed from my computer to my study stereo receiver and sound system. I was using my Dell Pentium computer for this feed, but the imac is so silent I started using it instead. Right now I'm using the headphone jack for the audio feed, but i think I'll be getting the imic ($40) system so I can feed the audio via the USB port and have the choice of using the computer speakers or the stereo system.

Any folks have comments about using the imic system?

talmy · **Posted:** Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:10 am

Interesting how if you go back to the original post, the "new iMac" thread subject is the 3rd generation iMac with the G5 processor, not either of the Intel iMacs!

My wife's G5 iMac is quiet most of the time but in heavy processing the fans do get noisy. My white Intel iMac is quiet even under 100% CPU.

How noisy were the first two generation iMacs? Did they even have fans? I think Steve Jobs once claimed an aversion to them.

TurnerMan · **Posted:** Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:34 am

I have several systems in use at my house and my iMac is, hands-down, the quietest system I've ever owned.

Slydude · **Posted:** Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:43 pm

johnda wrote:

My imac,intel, is the most silent desktop machine I have had the pleasure of using. I like to listen to internet audio fed from my computer to my study stereo receiver and sound system. I was using my Dell Pentium computer for this feed, but the imac is so silent I started using it instead. Right now I'm using the headphone jack for the audio feed, but i think I'll be getting the imic ($40) system so I can feed the audio via the USB port and have the choice of using the computer speakers or the stereo system.

Any folks have comments about using the imic system?

I tried that for a while but it didn't work too well for me. Even going right across the room there was sometimes some drift. I would loose the signal and get static instead. Part of the problem may be with the FM reception on my receiver though.

johnda · **Posted:** Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:34 pm

"I tried that for a while but it didn't work too well for me. Even going right across the room there was sometimes some drift. I would loose the signal and get static instead. Part of the problem may be with the FM reception on my receiver though."

Hi, I'm a little confused about the system you're using. I get streaming audio from the web, via Real player. I put a stereo miniplug in the earphone jack (imac) this plug is a radio shack cable that ends in a right and left phono plug. I add an extra section of audio cable to that and I connect the phono plugs at the end of that cable to the aux input on my stereo receiver. There is no wireless transmission involved and the sound is excellent. Sometimes there may be a pause in the audio if the streaming has to catch up.

Because there are times when we would like the audio over the imac internal speakers, I need to unjack that cable as there is no audio out jack on my imac and using the headphone jack cuts off the internal speakers.

The imic system uses the USB port instead of the earphone jack, and I would then plug the minijack into that unit. The imic system comes with software that lets you easily(I think) change which way you operate, internal speakers or via the USB port. I figured operating this way, I would not have to jack and unjack the connection.