$1150 USD for a MacBook Pro 2019 16-inch. Good deal?

[TheOutlier]

Hey, so I'm looking at buying this for a few months worth of work until I move to an M1 Max @ 64GB RAM. Looking to buy this as a temporary and immediate solution. Would these specs be enough to handle 3D and motion design work?

MacBook Pro 2019 16-inch
* i7 2.6GHz (6-core)
* 16GB 2666MHz DDR4 RAM
* 512GB SSD
* Radeon Pro 5300M 4GB DDR6
* Price: $1150 USD (used)

Is the price fair for this laptop? And would these specs be enough to handle 3D and motion design work? Is overheating going to be a problem here?

Another concern is the 512GB SSD. The apps that I plan on downloading (and their files) already might eat up a bunch of this storage space, but I can probably get around that with an external SSD. Does anybody know if it's possible to use a Samsung T5 external SSD as the primary boot drive? I read something about a T2 security chip that prevents this, no?

Thanks!

 

[hmorneau]

(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(

I received a base 16" today and am disappointed because it get's as hot as my 2017 with an external 4K monitor. Is anybody else experiencing the same issue? I always work with external monitors and running on high resolution and this heating performance is upsetting. It's not cooler than the...

forums.macrumors.com

Have seen 32GB i9 1TB for $200 more and price are just going down. Just keep looking.

 

[TheOutlier]

(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(

I received a base 16" today and am disappointed because it get's as hot as my 2017 with an external 4K monitor. Is anybody else experiencing the same issue? I always work with external monitors and running on high resolution and this heating performance is upsetting. It's not cooler than the...

forums.macrumors.com

Have seen 32GB i9 1TB for $200 more and price are just going down. Just keep looking.

Oh wow, that does sound like it'd be a pretty good deal - hoping I can find something like this.

 

[badsimian]

Do you plan to plug it into an external monitor? I had that spec machine with 32GB of RAM and with any external monitor the fans were on and it got hot. I had to use turbo boost disabler to make it usable. it is a design defect in the way the 5300/5500 are designed, any external monitor makes them go into "high power" mode which increases heat. The 5600 I believe doesn't suffer from this but costs more. In the end I sold it and got a MacBook Air M1 which was a better machine in almost every respect unless you need the larger screen or Intel compatibility. I have since gone with M1 Pro 14" which I appreciate costs much more.

If I was in your position, seriously consider the M1 MBA, they are amazing little machines and I am fairly sure you could find a 16GB/512GB one now for a good price.

(edit: just noticed the previous poster linking to the very long thread above - it is a real issue, I would say avoid these machines unless you can get a 5600 one or absolutely must have intel)

 

[elbert]

Yes, buy it.

 

[TheOutlier]

Do you plan to plug it into an external monitor? I had that spec machine with 32GB of RAM and with any external monitor the fans were on and it got hot. I had to use turbo boost disabler to make it usable. it is a design defect in the way the 5300/5500 are designed, any external monitor makes them go into "high power" mode which increases heat. The 5600 I believe doesn't suffer from this but costs more. In the end I sold it and got a MacBook Air M1 which was a better machine in almost every respect unless you need the larger screen or Intel compatibility. I have since gone with M1 Pro 14" which I appreciate costs much more.

If I was in your position, seriously consider the M1 MBA, they are amazing little machines and I am fairly sure you could find a 16GB/512GB one now for a good price.

(edit: just noticed the previous poster linking to the very long thread above - it is a real issue, I would say avoid these machines unless you can get a 5600 one or absolutely must have intel)

Ah, yeah. I heard the Monterey OS update resolved the issue with the overheating via external monitor though.