Wow. Another super-quality video without any BS, Amazon links and long-ass intros. My Mini M2 Pro's fans switched themselves on once, and without any real reason. I was just doing "normal stuff" and the fans started blasting for about 2 minutes. Haven't heard them since then...
I bought the base model Mac Mini Pro a few weeks ago and I’m also surprised at how quiet it is. Coming from a gaming laptop that always produces a ton of noise it was a very nice change. Using the gaming laptop now annoys me.
Totally understand. I can't stand noisy computers ever since I discovered they could be quiet. Gaming laptops are one of the hardest to make quiet, as even gaming desktops are challenging to silence these days with how much power GPUs are using.
So far my M2 Pro Mac mini has been totally silent, even when I'm working on something really processor intense. I have iStat Menus installed which gives me the ability to check the fan speed. Most of the time the fan is running very low. I noticed on my M2 Max MacBook Pro that the fans are off most of the time, even when I'm working with VMs in Parallels Desktop. Only when I booted up 2 at the same time, and also used Photoshop did the fans run at a high speed. These computers are awesome. My 8-core Intel Core i9 MacBook Pro would spin up its fans a lot. I loved that computer but the fan noise drove me nuts. It got so hot because of Apple's obsession with thinness. The Intel MacBook Pro is a super fast and super powerful system but the fan noise was a big issue.
Excellent video, great work on this. Like many people, I'm trying to decide between a Mac Studio and the Mac mini, but I place a premium on noise (or lack thereof), and I don't do massive renders, so I think I'd go with a Mac mini. Thanks!
Latest results from M2 Studios strongly suggest it is about the same sound level as the mini. The mini is rated at 5 db and the Studio is 6 db. In comparison, the original M1 Studio was 15 db. My 2013 Mac Pro is rated at 14, so the M1 Studio was slightly louder than it, while the M2 Studio is much quieter. For a mid-range setup with more RAM and SSD, the Studio is definitely the way to go.
Thanks for the great video. I am planning to buy my 1st mac (as Windows user) and was curious/worried about the noise levels. This video helped me a lot with my decision to go for the mac mini m2 pro. Thanks again!
I was genuinely curious to see if the M2 Pro Mac mini would be as quiet as the M2 mini and M1 mini, respectively. It appears that the same cooling fan and maybe even the same heat sink are employed among all models. This is good to know! Thanks for the in-depth video.
Hi .. Thanks for the work and results shared here. I am in the process of ordering a Mac Mini Pro and I was wondering if you are using the monitor on the background of this video with your Mac Mini Pro? I am looking for a large monitor for my Cubase recording s/w. If you are using this as your default monitor with your Mac mini Pro, can you please provide some details on the brand/model/specs for this unit.. thank you.
Sure! The monitor I'm using is actually a TV, the LG C1 48" model. There are some pros and cons to using a TV as a monitor, though, and I have some videos regarding that on my channel if you want to hear my thoughts on it. Thanks for watching!
Any chance can we see a noise comparison between MacBook and Windows Laptop in daily usage, heavy load, etc.? I’m curious about the Nvidia Whisper mode and the 0dB feature on ROG FLOW Z13. Not sure if that’s just an advertisement or it’s a promise that can really happen when you have multiple screens connected for web browsing and word editing while not playing games.
Does Mac Mini have low power mode (like MacBook) to limit its performance? I’m not doubting Apple, it’s just sometimes I don’t need my code/software/virtual machine to run at fastest speed, instead, I wish them to run silently in the background…
I enjoyed your style of testing, but one thing really bothered me: calling 1.7k rpm fan noise "completely silent" is not completely silent. Relatively quiet, yes; but this is a very subjective matter. I personally use a MacBook Air literally because it is completely silent - it has no whine and does not contain any fans. Calling a fan-cooled machine "silent" isn't right. In fact I would have bought multiple Mac Minis by now if they were indeed silent, but that is just not the case. While I appreciate that you said working with fan speeds over 3000-3500 rpm wouldn't be tolerable, that does not mean that 1700 rpm is acceptable to everyone. Anecdotally, a PC running it's CPU fan at 1300 rpm (unsure of PSU fan speed or fan dimensions which obviously matter) is barely audible but still audible. As in, working around it is fine; sleeping in the same room as it is okay as well (but at about the limit of what is acceptable); is it preferred though?: No. Anyway, the point being: you shouldn't call something silent that isn't. Barely audible, or very quiet are better terms. We all have different tolerances for white noise. Mine is extremely low (if you hadn't guessed). Despite watching your video, I'm still asking: how quiet is his "silent" because I lost faith that our definitions are the same and that's unfortunate. I'd really appreciate if Apple took a step back and developed a silent cooling system for the Minis.... (perhaps a Mac Mini Air?) I'd definitely prefer lower-spec performance and a silent machine than high-spec machines that only every achieve those specs with active cooling blasting away - as you said, the higher-rpm speeds are intolerable: so why even bother boasting about those scores in benchmarks?
Thanks for all this info. Noise is driving me nuts, I have been thinking of getting the new mac mini m4 but i guess it won't be totally silent, therefore a Mac Book Air would make more sense. I can't seem to find any PC that are indeed totally silent. I would take a performance hit in exchange of total silence.
I tested the base model with 10/16. With my ear pressed up to the mini, it's not completely smooth, but also not super clicky, so probably partway between the 2, slightly leaning toward "friction".
thats fine a naked macmini noise test but real life test would be to connect one (or two) USB HUB(s) with 2 external disks and USB Audo equipment connected or other current consuming devices.
I'm new to Mac pc I'm planning to buy one Mac mini to replace my i5 desktoo pc for audio editing and videos, movies. Ist worth to take Mac mini base model m2?
I've watched a dozen M2 Mac Mini videos and they all say the same thing: get the 16 Gb memory upgrade and 512 Gb of SSD. I thought of this, but then the price was so close to M2 Pro I decided to get that. If you're really editing MOVIES, I suggest you get the M2 Pro.
@@TomiTakamaa Or just get a budget PC that has an integrated GPU in the CPU (like all Intel chips except the one Mac used to compare performance of the M2 Pro) with an RTX3060 and it will blow the M2 Pro away.
I have a m2 mini pro, 12 core, 32g, 1TB. and I used tgPro to switch between base 1700 RPM, and maximum 5000 RPM My mini is about 18 inches from my keyboard . At 1700 rpm it is totally silent , at 5000 RPM you can hear very faint fan noise , I would have no issues using it at 5000 RPM all day if it was ever needed .
Another quality video. I wish there is another video testing fan controlling software that keeps temperatures below 85c. How noisy the machine would be.
The last thing I think about with computers is how quiet they run. This has never been an issue with why I would upgrade a computer. I find Fruit Flies (Apple users) to be particularly daft when it comes to noise - and ironically, they make more noise whining about computer noise than the computer makes! While I can understand if you are using a computer to do music production, but seriously, 99% of other uses are never impacted by noise. And I say this as an owner and user of a "wind tunnel" mac from the early 2000's (mirror door g4) - the absolute loudest running computer ever made. But this whining by this Fruit Fly is worthless and shows how entitled most Fruit Flies feel.
wanting a quiet environment is not entitlement. When you appreciate nice things, you'll begin to notice all aspects of how and why things are nice. Silence while using a pc is definitely really nice
Note: I tested the base model M2 Pro Mac mini with 10-core CPU and 16-core GPU in this video. Not sure how I forgot to mention it in the video!
The M4 mac mini should be passively cooled, like every other PC and server. You need active cooling, your computer isn't efficient enough.
Wow. Another super-quality video without any BS, Amazon links and long-ass intros. My Mini M2 Pro's fans switched themselves on once, and without any real reason. I was just doing "normal stuff" and the fans started blasting for about 2 minutes. Haven't heard them since then...
Interesting! Perhaps there are some bugs in the fan control system as well.
I bought the base model Mac Mini Pro a few weeks ago and I’m also surprised at how quiet it is. Coming from a gaming laptop that always produces a ton of noise it was a very nice change. Using the gaming laptop now annoys me.
Totally understand. I can't stand noisy computers ever since I discovered they could be quiet. Gaming laptops are one of the hardest to make quiet, as even gaming desktops are challenging to silence these days with how much power GPUs are using.
Nice informative video!
What monitor do you use?
Greetins from Austria
So far my M2 Pro Mac mini has been totally silent, even when I'm working on something really processor intense. I have iStat Menus installed which gives me the ability to check the fan speed. Most of the time the fan is running very low. I noticed on my M2 Max MacBook Pro that the fans are off most of the time, even when I'm working with VMs in Parallels Desktop. Only when I booted up 2 at the same time, and also used Photoshop did the fans run at a high speed. These computers are awesome. My 8-core Intel Core i9 MacBook Pro would spin up its fans a lot. I loved that computer but the fan noise drove me nuts. It got so hot because of Apple's obsession with thinness. The Intel MacBook Pro is a super fast and super powerful system but the fan noise was a big issue.
These Apple Silicon computers are indeed impressive with fan noise and energy efficiency. Thanks for sharing your experience!
I am relatively curious to know what application that is showing your GPU utilization @ 6:15
That would be this Stats app: github.com/exelban/stats
Excellent video, great work on this. Like many people, I'm trying to decide between a Mac Studio and the Mac mini, but I place a premium on noise (or lack thereof), and I don't do massive renders, so I think I'd go with a Mac mini. Thanks!
Latest results from M2 Studios strongly suggest it is about the same sound level as the mini. The mini is rated at 5 db and the Studio is 6 db. In comparison, the original M1 Studio was 15 db. My 2013 Mac Pro is rated at 14, so the M1 Studio was slightly louder than it, while the M2 Studio is much quieter. For a mid-range setup with more RAM and SSD, the Studio is definitely the way to go.
Thanks for the great video. I am planning to buy my 1st mac (as Windows user) and was curious/worried about the noise levels. This video helped me a lot with my decision to go for the mac mini m2 pro. Thanks again!
Glad I could help! And enjoy your mac mini!
I was genuinely curious to see if the M2 Pro Mac mini would be as quiet as the M2 mini and M1 mini, respectively. It appears that the same cooling fan and maybe even the same heat sink are employed among all models. This is good to know! Thanks for the in-depth video.
I like your channel’s name. Mute the fan during daily usage, definitely!
I've had a mini m1 for awhile and I can only tell if it's on by the light , thing is SILENT
Hi ..
Thanks for the work and results shared here. I am in the process of ordering a Mac Mini Pro and I was wondering if you are using the monitor on the background of this video with your Mac Mini Pro? I am looking for a large monitor for my Cubase recording s/w. If you are using this as your default monitor with your Mac mini Pro, can you please provide some details on the brand/model/specs for this unit.. thank you.
Sure! The monitor I'm using is actually a TV, the LG C1 48" model. There are some pros and cons to using a TV as a monitor, though, and I have some videos regarding that on my channel if you want to hear my thoughts on it. Thanks for watching!
So taking in account the noise mini M2 Pro is louder/quieter than M2Studio Max? Which one is more silent?
Excellent buying guide. Appreciate your great work.
my m2 pro mini randomly started ramping while watching a youtube video. can not reproduce so not worried. No coil whine or buzz.
Sounds like there may be some bugs at times. Thanks for sharing!
New subbie here! Thanks for going into detail. This really helped me make a decision on this
Glad it was helpful! And thanks for the sub!
Any chance can we see a noise comparison between MacBook and Windows Laptop in daily usage, heavy load, etc.? I’m curious about the Nvidia Whisper mode and the 0dB feature on ROG FLOW Z13. Not sure if that’s just an advertisement or it’s a promise that can really happen when you have multiple screens connected for web browsing and word editing while not playing games.
very nice review, deserve more sub, keep up the good work, subcribing
My Mac Mini Pro M2 is usually very quit, but once the fan went crazy and loud. It wouldn't stop until I restarted the computer.
Does Mac Mini have low power mode (like MacBook) to limit its performance? I’m not doubting Apple, it’s just sometimes I don’t need my code/software/virtual machine to run at fastest speed, instead, I wish them to run silently in the background…
Does C1 48" works on Mac mini with 120hz?
Yes and no. I have some other videos on my channel you can check out that goes into this and the issues it has.
I enjoyed your style of testing, but one thing really bothered me: calling 1.7k rpm fan noise "completely silent" is not completely silent. Relatively quiet, yes; but this is a very subjective matter. I personally use a MacBook Air literally because it is completely silent - it has no whine and does not contain any fans. Calling a fan-cooled machine "silent" isn't right.
In fact I would have bought multiple Mac Minis by now if they were indeed silent, but that is just not the case. While I appreciate that you said working with fan speeds over 3000-3500 rpm wouldn't be tolerable, that does not mean that 1700 rpm is acceptable to everyone. Anecdotally, a PC running it's CPU fan at 1300 rpm (unsure of PSU fan speed or fan dimensions which obviously matter) is barely audible but still audible. As in, working around it is fine; sleeping in the same room as it is okay as well (but at about the limit of what is acceptable); is it preferred though?: No.
Anyway, the point being: you shouldn't call something silent that isn't. Barely audible, or very quiet are better terms. We all have different tolerances for white noise. Mine is extremely low (if you hadn't guessed). Despite watching your video, I'm still asking: how quiet is his "silent" because I lost faith that our definitions are the same and that's unfortunate.
I'd really appreciate if Apple took a step back and developed a silent cooling system for the Minis.... (perhaps a Mac Mini Air?) I'd definitely prefer lower-spec performance and a silent machine than high-spec machines that only every achieve those specs with active cooling blasting away - as you said, the higher-rpm speeds are intolerable: so why even bother boasting about those scores in benchmarks?
Thanks for all this info. Noise is driving me nuts, I have been thinking of getting the new mac mini m4 but i guess it won't be totally silent, therefore a Mac Book Air would make more sense. I can't seem to find any PC that are indeed totally silent. I would take a performance hit in exchange of total silence.
Is it the 10/16c or the 12/19c Mini?
When you have the ear next to the back, can you hear a “friction” noise or just a “breathing” noise?
I tested the base model with 10/16. With my ear pressed up to the mini, it's not completely smooth, but also not super clicky, so probably partway between the 2, slightly leaning toward "friction".
@@MutePCdotcom Thanks ☺️
Very good tech Channel
thats fine a naked macmini noise test but real life test would be to connect one (or two) USB HUB(s) with 2 external disks and USB Audo equipment connected or other current consuming devices.
I'm new to Mac pc I'm planning to buy one Mac mini to replace my i5 desktoo pc for audio editing and videos, movies. Ist worth to take Mac mini base model m2?
I've watched a dozen M2 Mac Mini videos and they all say the same thing: get the 16 Gb memory upgrade and 512 Gb of SSD. I thought of this, but then the price was so close to M2 Pro I decided to get that. If you're really editing MOVIES, I suggest you get the M2 Pro.
Thanks so much
@@TomiTakamaa Or just get a budget PC that has an integrated GPU in the CPU (like all Intel chips except the one Mac used to compare performance of the M2 Pro) with an RTX3060 and it will blow the M2 Pro away.
@@LBCAndrew I'd take ebola over any PC in the world, but thanks for the tip.
I’m waiting your review for the new m4 pro mac mini before pulling the gun.
I love the FFXIV test...that's my exact use case I've been looking for!
It's a great game!
Thank you! You helped me a lot
You are welcome!
I have a m2 mini pro, 12 core, 32g, 1TB. and I used tgPro to switch between base 1700 RPM, and maximum 5000 RPM My mini is about 18 inches from my keyboard . At 1700 rpm it is totally silent , at 5000 RPM you can hear very faint fan noise , I would have no issues using it at 5000 RPM all day if it was ever needed .
Thanks for sharing your experience!
Another quality video. I wish there is another video testing fan controlling software that keeps temperatures below 85c. How noisy the machine would be.
That's an interesting idea!
90c+ is unacceptable IMO. Temps that high are guaranteed to shorten the life of the hardware.
I want a computer that is as quiet as my iPhone 12.
The last thing I think about with computers is how quiet they run. This has never been an issue with why I would upgrade a computer. I find Fruit Flies (Apple users) to be particularly daft when it comes to noise - and ironically, they make more noise whining about computer noise than the computer makes! While I can understand if you are using a computer to do music production, but seriously, 99% of other uses are never impacted by noise. And I say this as an owner and user of a "wind tunnel" mac from the early 2000's (mirror door g4) - the absolute loudest running computer ever made. But this whining by this Fruit Fly is worthless and shows how entitled most Fruit Flies feel.
wanting a quiet environment is not entitlement. When you appreciate nice things, you'll begin to notice all aspects of how and why things are nice. Silence while using a pc is definitely really nice
Thanks this was very helpful.