> it's very, very hard to make the fans spin on a 16" M1 Max. You have to utilize all CPU/GPU/NPU cores together to even make them move,

I routinely get my M1 fans spinning from compiling big projects. You don’t have to get the GPU involved, but when you do it definitely goes up a notch.

I read so much about the M1 Pros being completely silent that I thought something was wrong with mine at first. Nope, it just turns out that most people don’t use the CPU long enough for the fans to kick in. There’s a decent thermal capacity buffer in the system before they ramp up.