[Eyenovation]

Can anyone confirm, or hear the noise levels emitted from the Mac Pro? Is there Power Supply screeching, whining, chirping, or buzzing? Is the fan noise acceptable? Are they loud? Always running? If the MacBook Pro is any indication for heat suppression it should be like a wind tunnel. Anyone?

[Tuoder]

Offhand, without actually hearing one, it is hard to tell. i'll bet if you aren't doing any serious work they are quite quiet.

[lilfordbmx]

i'd think so since there isn't much cooling in them
which from my knowledge is what most of the noise came from?

[badtz]

is the water cooling not there anymore?

[dohidied]

Originally Posted by badtz

is the water cooling not there anymore?

Nope, no water cooling, just two fans iirc. The Intel chips run much cooler than the G5, that's how they were able to get away with less cooling and more internal expansion ability.

I was listening to the Macworld podcast and they said they could barely hear the fans when they were looking at the MacPro. But then again, I think it was just idling.

[Tuoder]

Originally Posted by lilfordbmx

i'd think so since there isn't much cooling in them
which from my knowledge is what most of the noise came from?

Nowadays, noise comes almost completely from fans. Hard drives used to be pretty danged noisy, but not nearly as much anymore. Water cooling is usually much quieter than air cooling in systems put out enough heat for one to think about water cooling it.

[Simon]

I doubt we will get any decent noise reports until people receive their orders. WWDC is certainly a very bad place to test noise levels. It's probably even worse than trying to check in a store.

[k2director]

After owning three PowerMac G5s (the original Dual 2.0, the 2.5 Dual and finally the Quad), I've found that it's not the machine itself that makes the noise, but the blasted high-end video card that you BTO with it (ie, the ATI 9800 way back when, or the Nvidea 7800 on the Quad, or now the ATI X1900 for the Mac Pro).

[voth]

In a response to the previous post. There is no high end graphics card in my G5 Dual 2.0, at times it's quiet, and other times when you would swear a 747 was taking off.

[mac128k-1984]

Good question, difficult to answer at the moment - nobody has the MacPro in thier posessin yet.

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally Posted by mac128k-1984

Good question, difficult to answer at the moment - nobody has the MacPro in thier posessin yet.

yes, they do. Apparently, it's very quiet.

[nforcer]

I really really hope Apple didn't optimize the setup for "quiet" over performance, or more specifically, "quiet" over significant heat dissipation. I'll take "quiet" if it doesn't affect heat dissipation, but otherwise I could care less how loud it is. I'd be fine if it ran 70 decibels most of the time. Perhaps that is an extreme, but overheating problems (as experienced in the iMac and Macbook) are a bigger issue.

I really don't want to experience any more lame overheating issues all because a handful of users complain about the noise every time a leaf falls off a tree. Not being able to use my comp because it overheated and I'm waiting for it to cooldown is a larger usabliity issue than not being able to carry out a whispered conversation in the vincinity of my tower.

I realize that is not the case for everyone, and that some people enjoy the extra-quiet time they are given when their Mac overheats. If the fans on the Mac Pro are still software controlled (which I would bet), if there is any way to change their settings I would be interested in knowing about it. I'm sure the Mac Librarian Association would also be interested in knowing about that. Ideally, I want to rig my fans to run fullspeed all the time and the MLA could rig theirs to just turn off (since every library seems to have their thermostat locked to a chilly 70F or something).

[Landos Mustache]

My Rev A dual 2GHZ G5 is a chirpy bitch.

The latest gen watercooled model I have at work is dead silent. It think Apple worked out the issue a while ago.

[MovieCutter]

Yes, the Mac Pro is quiet. In the stock configuration, it is very quiet. With higher end graphics cards, nobody knows yet. See the thread here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...22#post2700222

[Simon]

Originally Posted by nforcer

I really really hope Apple didn't optimize the setup for "quiet" over performance, or more specifically, "quiet" over significant heat dissipation.

They're using the most powerful Xeon (5160) available and offer a Quadro FX 4500.

I don't think they traded performance for anything.

[badtz]

does anyone know off the top the watt dissipation between the latest G5 PPC and the the stock xeon?

[Simon]

I'm not sure about max draw, but the 51xx Xeon's TDP is 80W for the 3GHz model and 65W for the others. The 2.5GHz 970MP had a TDP of about 140W IIRC Double-check that because my 970 memory is becoming flaky.

[OreoCookie]

The PPC970MP had a thermal design power of 100 [email protected] GHz.

[Macpilot]

The 2.66 model I was checking out today with the side panel off....

VERY quiet. Slightly more noise than my iMac DC.

Less power consumption means less power to supply and less heat. You have to see it to believe it....the drastic difference in size between the Power Supply in the G5 and the new Intels.

You guys who are getting these new Mac Pros are gonna love them.

Plus the drive bays operation is just sick.

[concierge]

They are very quiet, I compressed some of the HD video they had on the machine at the apple store to h.264 and was waiting to hear the fans rev up like on the quad but it didnt. They are amazingly quiet and fast, definately a good design from apple.

[idyll]

i'd buy one immediately if only photoshop wasn't slower on these new machines compared to say a dual G5 2.0GHz

[Tuoder]

Originally Posted by idyll

i'd buy one immediately if only photoshop wasn't slower on these new machines compared to say a dual G5 2.0GHz

I'll bet CS3 will run beautifully. Probably multithreaded to heckandback, too.

[Simon]

That's great news.

People are gonna be able to brag about the guts of the thing while it's running. Hehe.

[idyll]

oh yeah, i bet CS3 will be heaven. but that's still a few months away

[memento]

I can only compare to my MDD with 4 hard drives in it. And comparing to that, it's dead quiet. almost silent.