All good with sidecar and iPad Pro, it works without problems, no W increase
just not as nice because taps don’t work, you need to use pencil...
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(
- Thread starter Appledoesnotlisten
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
just not as nice because taps don’t work, you need to use pencil...I'm not sure what I need help with. Originally, my post wasn't even addressing you. You were the one that brought all of this up.
An eGPU can be had for less than $500:
eGFX Breakaway Puck RX 560 (Portable eGPU System)
Portable eGPU for computers with Thunderbolt 3 ports. Features an AMD Radeon RX 560 GPU, temperature-controlled fan, four video ports and one Thunderbolt 3 port.www.sonnetstore.com
So whether you disagree or agree with me doesn't change the fact that there is already a workaround for every problem:
1. Clamshell works with some USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 displays, or SwitchResX can be used.
2. If you must use multiple displays, the 5600M might address that, or a $299 eGPU can help as well.
Looooooooolllllllll
Do you want to add an eGPU with lower specifications (2.6Tflops in FP32 for RX 560 against 4.0Tflops for 5500m) and add 500$ to solve this issue ?
Ahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahaha
Okeydokey, my new 16" machine arrived - it's a pretty stunning notebook, but it would want to be at this price! 2.3Ghz 8-core i9, 1TB, 32GB RAM, 5500M 8GB.
I don't have all the adapters yet to hook it up to my 3 1080p monitors, but I'm able to try it out with two. One through a generic USB C to HDMI cable, and the other through the HDMI port on a SATECHI "Type C Pro Hub Adapter".
True to expectation, Radeon High Side jumped up to 18 as soon as the first external monitor was plugged in, and stays around the same for the second. CPU PECI Temp is currently hovering in the low/mid 50s, with fans both running around 1800 - basically still very quiet. If I go to clamshell mode, the Radeon High Side drops to around 5 degrees, as per others' experience.
CPU temp has crept up to 58 as I've been typing this (Chrome with 5 tabs open) with the lid open and the two monitors active, fans still hovering quietly around 1800.
I'm going to leave it sitting for a while now and see if it starts heating up further. More soon...
I don't have all the adapters yet to hook it up to my 3 1080p monitors, but I'm able to try it out with two. One through a generic USB C to HDMI cable, and the other through the HDMI port on a SATECHI "Type C Pro Hub Adapter".
True to expectation, Radeon High Side jumped up to 18 as soon as the first external monitor was plugged in, and stays around the same for the second. CPU PECI Temp is currently hovering in the low/mid 50s, with fans both running around 1800 - basically still very quiet. If I go to clamshell mode, the Radeon High Side drops to around 5 degrees, as per others' experience.
CPU temp has crept up to 58 as I've been typing this (Chrome with 5 tabs open) with the lid open and the two monitors active, fans still hovering quietly around 1800.
I'm going to leave it sitting for a while now and see if it starts heating up further. More soon...
After about half an hour, temps settled around 58 celsius, with fan speeds unchanged at around 1800. Virtually silent for all intents and purposes. I haven't had a chance to try out SwitchResX yet to see if it helps.
I'm now playing through a music/video project on Reaper to see how it goes. About a dozen 24/48 audio tracks, some VST processing, and four simultaneous H264 video streams being processed and resized (it's a COVID lockdown collaboration vid). This project brings my old mid 2012 rMBP to its knees. It jumps to 100+ degrees in an instant, and then it just starts chunking out and fails to play.
This new machine is much more comfortable. With the project timeline on one 1080p monitor, and fullscreen video window on the other, temps jump to around 90 degrees very quickly, and stay there, with fans now reasonably audible at about 4000. Upon stopping playback the fans slowly ramp down until things stabilise back to the previous idle state.
Out of curiosity I installed Turbo Boost Switcher, switched boost OFF, and played through the same project again. Wow - it's night and day. Temps around 70 degrees, fan in the low 2000s - not quite inaudible, but still very quiet (my wife's Toshiba laptop is idle across the room and I can hear it WAY louder than the MacBook.
Important to note - the dGPU is still slurping down 18+ watts this whole time, but disabling Turbo Boost seems to buy the cooling system enough headroom to be able to take care of business without ramping the fans up to rocket-launch volume. It's definitely a compromise, not a fix.
BUT... while not a proper fix, I think it's enough for me to keep the MacBook. I need a capable portable machine that I can also use docked, and even with Turbo Boost off, this one still benchmarks faster than the Cylinder Mac Pro it's replacing.
So yeah. I can work with this. But I'll keep an eye on this thread, and also have a play with SwitchResX.
I'm now playing through a music/video project on Reaper to see how it goes. About a dozen 24/48 audio tracks, some VST processing, and four simultaneous H264 video streams being processed and resized (it's a COVID lockdown collaboration vid). This project brings my old mid 2012 rMBP to its knees. It jumps to 100+ degrees in an instant, and then it just starts chunking out and fails to play.
This new machine is much more comfortable. With the project timeline on one 1080p monitor, and fullscreen video window on the other, temps jump to around 90 degrees very quickly, and stay there, with fans now reasonably audible at about 4000. Upon stopping playback the fans slowly ramp down until things stabilise back to the previous idle state.
Out of curiosity I installed Turbo Boost Switcher, switched boost OFF, and played through the same project again. Wow - it's night and day. Temps around 70 degrees, fan in the low 2000s - not quite inaudible, but still very quiet (my wife's Toshiba laptop is idle across the room and I can hear it WAY louder than the MacBook.
Important to note - the dGPU is still slurping down 18+ watts this whole time, but disabling Turbo Boost seems to buy the cooling system enough headroom to be able to take care of business without ramping the fans up to rocket-launch volume. It's definitely a compromise, not a fix.
BUT... while not a proper fix, I think it's enough for me to keep the MacBook. I need a capable portable machine that I can also use docked, and even with Turbo Boost off, this one still benchmarks faster than the Cylinder Mac Pro it's replacing.
So yeah. I can work with this. But I'll keep an eye on this thread, and also have a play with SwitchResX.
Great to hear about your positive experience
Indeed GPU's 18W is an amplifier, while the CPU is the main driver for heat - if we got an ECO mode that just keep things in check a bit, it would be a joy to use machine
https://github.com/syscl/CPUTune also has the ability to limit/set max multipliers for CPU, but it requires csrutil/system integrity to be disabled, so it's a bummer
With multiplier limiting and a manual/more aggressive fan profile, it would probably be possible to limit the temps to 70C even under sustained usage, but it's too much work, and too many 3rd party programs that need to be run :/
Indeed GPU's 18W is an amplifier, while the CPU is the main driver for heat - if we got an ECO mode that just keep things in check a bit, it would be a joy to use machine
https://github.com/syscl/CPUTune also has the ability to limit/set max multipliers for CPU, but it requires csrutil/system integrity to be disabled, so it's a bummer
With multiplier limiting and a manual/more aggressive fan profile, it would probably be possible to limit the temps to 70C even under sustained usage, but it's too much work, and too many 3rd party programs that need to be run :/
Just another one…
MBP 16", 2,3 GHz i9, 32 GM RAM, 1 TB, 5500M 4GB
LG 5K screen (1st edition, TB-only and 86 Watt via TB3)
Apple hasn't acknowledged that; nobody knows, if this is fixable is possible in SW/firmware, or if it would be coming or not. As I understand, using the Intel GPU on external screen is inhibited by HW design.
Previous 15" models 5x0(X) could handle this better, as does the new 5600 option. (Which has HBM2 RAM, which may be more energy efficient; however, since we talk idle behavior here, it's assumed to be a driver setting issue; e.g. with RAM clock to improve performance. I read about this topic (RAM clock with more/"bigger" screens) in general also with standard PC PCIe cards, but trend the last years was to handle more and higher resolution displays with less Watts; see previous generation of AMD cards in the 15" ones…)
Obviously improved TDP design (16" over 15") of the model is intended for high-power usage, to allow more Watts being turned into computation. That should not affect idle-power behavior. But cooling system isn't the issue here anyway.
The new "more efficient" GPU is hopefully not only more efficient at high power usage…
I understand, I have not hit the worst case (since clamshell mode is fine not going for high-power GPU.)
Hence using SwitchResX won't help me, since people could effect behavior with single/multiple external displays, but not in conjunction with the internal one?
Until I have some "heavy load" on the system, I'll monitor temperature; and only then will consider items like "Turbo Boost switcher".
Well then; I'll try the system the coming days (and if I can live with Clamshell most of the time). Otherwise I might opt for 14-day-return option hereabout.
Beyond, I shall consider contacting Apple about the "issue" and if I can come up with any other idea about what might help. (Yes, I know about eGPU and 5600 options; but that's making the system work "as intended" I just spend enough bucks on…)
Appreciate all the information/tips collected here. 👍
MBP 16", 2,3 GHz i9, 32 GM RAM, 1 TB, 5500M 4GB
LG 5K screen (1st edition, TB-only and 86 Watt via TB3)
- Clamshell: about 5 Watt on the Radeon.
- Would be even better with Intel-GPU (as an option), but I think this is fine, given the machine has external power and a GPU to use on a Hires display.
- 45°C to start with, 50° with light usage. (Just now. "Airflow" to just keep a singel value. Temperatur around connected TB3 port is higher, but CPU/GPU are okay.)
- Open lid: about 18 Watt on the Radeon.
- Idle temperature rises from 45° to 55° within a minute or two.
I noticed, because the machine definitely get "very warm to the touch", which an idle machine should not do (in my opinion).
- Idle temperature rises from 45° to 55° within a minute or two.
- No external device: internal GPU; cold, good battery on playing video. (And with a rather big Retina display… that#s good.)
Apple hasn't acknowledged that; nobody knows, if this is fixable is possible in SW/firmware, or if it would be coming or not. As I understand, using the Intel GPU on external screen is inhibited by HW design.
Previous 15" models 5x0(X) could handle this better, as does the new 5600 option. (Which has HBM2 RAM, which may be more energy efficient; however, since we talk idle behavior here, it's assumed to be a driver setting issue; e.g. with RAM clock to improve performance. I read about this topic (RAM clock with more/"bigger" screens) in general also with standard PC PCIe cards, but trend the last years was to handle more and higher resolution displays with less Watts; see previous generation of AMD cards in the 15" ones…)
Obviously improved TDP design (16" over 15") of the model is intended for high-power usage, to allow more Watts being turned into computation. That should not affect idle-power behavior. But cooling system isn't the issue here anyway.
The new "more efficient" GPU is hopefully not only more efficient at high power usage…
I understand, I have not hit the worst case (since clamshell mode is fine not going for high-power GPU.)
Hence using SwitchResX won't help me, since people could effect behavior with single/multiple external displays, but not in conjunction with the internal one?
Until I have some "heavy load" on the system, I'll monitor temperature; and only then will consider items like "Turbo Boost switcher".
Well then; I'll try the system the coming days (and if I can live with Clamshell most of the time). Otherwise I might opt for 14-day-return option hereabout.
Beyond, I shall consider contacting Apple about the "issue" and if I can come up with any other idea about what might help. (Yes, I know about eGPU and 5600 options; but that's making the system work "as intended" I just spend enough bucks on…)
Appreciate all the information/tips collected here. 👍
Last edited:
I have found very weird thing.
I have connected my MBP 16(i7,32,5300m) to Dell 27' and TV 4k. Of course in clamshell mode wat usage jumped to 18W but even if turned off tv and the hdmi was still attached the wat usage was still 18W.
When I detached hdmi the wat usage reduced to 3-5W.
I have connected my MBP 16(i7,32,5300m) to Dell 27' and TV 4k. Of course in clamshell mode wat usage jumped to 18W but even if turned off tv and the hdmi was still attached the wat usage was still 18W.
When I detached hdmi the wat usage reduced to 3-5W.
I believe that TVs are not really "turned off" as long as they're connected to a power outlet. I connected my MBP to a TV that was turned off but the MBP knew that it was connected to a display (you can see this in System Preferences - Displays).
Can you try unplugging your TV from the power source to see what happens?
Ah sorry, that wasn’t as clear as I had thought.
Everything in my second post (the one you quoted) is lid open plus the 2x 1080 external monitors.
I feel like Turbo Boost Switcher PRO set to trigger at a certain fan threshold (2500 maybe?) would get pretty close to a “set and forget” solution for me. It would allow the CPU to surge to high speed for most things, but keep temps in check for more sustained loads.
Again, not a proper fix, but enough that I can live with it and get my work done.
Another ****** workaround is to turn off turbo-boost.
I tested Radeon 5500 power draw under boot-camp (Windows 10) today - it stays fixed at 15W in open-lid mode with my DELL 2415Q connected. The fan speeds are around ~2000 RPM, which felt okay to me in my work environment.
For comparison, Radeon power draw is over 18W in Catalina 10.15.6 Beta (19G60d) for me, and the temperature and fan RPMs are around 65-70 C and 2500-3000 RPM. So, there's a clear discrepency between the two operating systems and driver revisions.
Hope this helps someone. Thanks.
P.S.
On Windows 10, I measured GPU power draw with GPU-Z [1] and fan speeds with Mac-Fan-Control [2]. Thanks.
[1] https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz
[2] https://crystalidea.com/macs-fan-control
Last edited:
well friends. Yesterday I sent back my rMPB 16" and am sticking with a new 4-port 13" which I was trying out simultaneously. Almost caved and kept the big boy because of that sexy screen and how great it is when using it natively, but man—it is nice to have a silent computer. I'm docked most of the time and always hooked up to an external. Last week, there were days my fingers were almost literally baking and the fans were never under 2500rpm on the 16".
Just going to look forward to the refresh. Didn't think it was reasonable to try all these workarounds though I played with a few. but, seriously, spend an extra $700 for 5600 or $500 for an egpu? or pray that Apple fixes this in an update? Or waste DAYS with apple support in hopes they replace it or upgrade it? Or basically restrict our usage of the machine and rig it with custom resolutions and fan profiles? Come on...Seriously? We either accept it as a defect and get on with our work or we choose an alternative. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it is what it is. All the rest is just us bitching that Apple didn't make a better machine. and to me, it was unacceptable to have this problem despite the power and sexiness of the 16". Onward to ARM. God speed friends
Just going to look forward to the refresh. Didn't think it was reasonable to try all these workarounds though I played with a few. but, seriously, spend an extra $700 for 5600 or $500 for an egpu? or pray that Apple fixes this in an update? Or waste DAYS with apple support in hopes they replace it or upgrade it? Or basically restrict our usage of the machine and rig it with custom resolutions and fan profiles? Come on...Seriously? We either accept it as a defect and get on with our work or we choose an alternative. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it is what it is. All the rest is just us bitching that Apple didn't make a better machine. and to me, it was unacceptable to have this problem despite the power and sexiness of the 16". Onward to ARM. God speed friends
I agree, but, when you say "Onward to ARM" you just enable them
A thought, if there was a way to lock the device to a "Single Screen Mode" that would kinda fix my issue too, at least until something better comes along (let's hope it will)
I honestly don't trust these machines to run them in clamshell, the li-po swells, it becomes too hot, I've seen so many messed up retina screen posts too, I could never do it
A thought, if there was a way to lock the device to a "Single Screen Mode" that would kinda fix my issue too, at least until something better comes along (let's hope it will)
I honestly don't trust these machines to run them in clamshell, the li-po swells, it becomes too hot, I've seen so many messed up retina screen posts too, I could never do it
Now we shouldn't pretend that ARM is the solution to all problems and Intel or AMD are the idiots. The slimming mania is Apple's own fault and in the past Apple has caused enough problems itself that even with ARM don't just disappear.
Apple as the manufacturer has overall responsibility for the product and if someone at Apple would take the customers more seriously, there would probably have been a switch back to the butterfly keyboard earlier.
Beside that I would like to see a major release of the operating system only every two years and not reinventing the wheel every year, but rather doing some maintenance. Catalina has so many bugs.
Apple as the manufacturer has overall responsibility for the product and if someone at Apple would take the customers more seriously, there would probably have been a switch back to the butterfly keyboard earlier.
Beside that I would like to see a major release of the operating system only every two years and not reinventing the wheel every year, but rather doing some maintenance. Catalina has so many bugs.
Out of interest, is there a huge difference performance wise between the 16 and the 13 for what you use it for?
Im looking at the tope end 13" or low end 16" but the display heat issue is putting me off.
Are you using a 4K monitor?
Thanks
13" has higher performance actually, since it's 10th gen Intel
Because of the heat, we can't use the performance anyway, so it's all just a gimmick - all the extra cores, useless
But with usage, both heat up the same way, the 16" faster with a screen, the 13" faster without a screen (there's a recent thread, where a user returned his 13" - because it was heating too much on clamshell, there was probably a reason, but he just returned it instead, found the 13" noisy, so the grass isn't greener on the other side much either)
I'd get the cheapest 16" to be honest, but if you don't care for the speakers, and care more about lightness/portability, just go for the 13" I guess?
Because of the heat, we can't use the performance anyway, so it's all just a gimmick - all the extra cores, useless
But with usage, both heat up the same way, the 16" faster with a screen, the 13" faster without a screen (there's a recent thread, where a user returned his 13" - because it was heating too much on clamshell, there was probably a reason, but he just returned it instead, found the 13" noisy, so the grass isn't greener on the other side much either)
I'd get the cheapest 16" to be honest, but if you don't care for the speakers, and care more about lightness/portability, just go for the 13" I guess?
Hmmmm, that's somewhat worrying. Doesn't sound like there is a good option at the moment, just the 'least bad option'.
Looking to upgrade my MBA 2018 which is a dual core i5 with 8GB of RAM. Struggling with iMovie 4K stuff so want to upgrade, the base spec 13" didn't seem enough of an upgrade spec wise and once you add 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD then you are only 100 pounds (UK pricing) off the top spec one anyway so the base spec doesn't seem worth bothering with.
If we had a date for the new ARM ones, I would wait but it could be anytime, I don't think I can cope for another 6+ months with the MBA.
I'd go with the cheapest 16" - I suspect it will have the best resale value, you could buy the cheapest one, use it with ease of mind within the warranty, then sell it in 6 months
Edit: But to complicate matters, let me also mention that some experience other issues with the 16" ones, I guess just test it well when you got it - there's a Geekbench 5.1.0 test here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250905859?page=14 - buy 16" from a place where you can return it, stress test it well
Edit: But to complicate matters, let me also mention that some experience other issues with the 16" ones, I guess just test it well when you got it - there's a Geekbench 5.1.0 test here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250905859?page=14 - buy 16" from a place where you can return it, stress test it well
I'm not sure what you mean here. I have the 2020 13" and I definitely use all the cores. This machine is very ample for 4K movie editing, as can be seen on many many youtube videos. I use it for Arnold rendering out of Maya, Nuke comps, and Photoshop - among other things - and it is capable.
The 16" machines with a 5300M or 5500M do not perform as advertised, so in my opinion they are a waste of money. However, the 5600M version is supposed to be able to perform as advertised. I will find out this week since mine is on the way. Compared to the 13" I can definitely use double the ram (64Gb), twice the cores (8, 16 hyperthreaded), almost double the GPU from the 5500M (40 compute units), the bigger screen and better speakers. I'm amortizing this machine over 5-8 years, but it's still pricey.
If they come out with a fix for the 16" base models that makes it not run at 20W+ constantly than I would say go for it.
My last 2 Macbook Pro's only lasted 1.5 years before the li-po's swell, and it was without the heat issues like the 16" have (to be honest, maybe the 2017 with Radeon 560 had issues of it's own, I didn't pay attention, but the 2015 was a solid device, both got swollen)
5-8 years is unbelievably realistic, also illogical, instead of investing for a long term, makes more sense to pay half, and use the other half to buy a better device in 2-3 years (optimistic)
With these heats (and the GPU's high power draws*), if used constantly with an external monitor, the thread will soon become more like: https://portugnole.blogspot.com/2020/05/running-macbook-without-battery-lets-go.html
5-8 years is unbelievably realistic, also illogical, instead of investing for a long term, makes more sense to pay half, and use the other half to buy a better device in 2-3 years (optimistic)
With these heats (and the GPU's high power draws*), if used constantly with an external monitor, the thread will soon become more like: https://portugnole.blogspot.com/2020/05/running-macbook-without-battery-lets-go.html
For my uses, no. Occasional FCPX use (though I intend to do more) and I currently use one 1080p monitor, which really drove me bonkers using the 16" bc it's pushing much less graphics than a 4K and still gave me the heat and fan issues.
And I'm not sure the 16" will resell that well, which I also considered, bc anyone that needs a 16" in a year or two is going to be aware of its issues and then how could they not want the refresh?
on the 13", I'm also using turbo boost switcher because I did notice occasional fan ramp ups to near or max speed when I didn't need the extra power so this has made my general use of it silent. I'll disable it for performance-intensive tasks.
This is not true. The 13 inch may be a little more power efficient, but it's a 28W part vs a 45W part, with half the cores and about 1ghz slower turbo. 10th gen is really just an extra 1-200mhz boost you will never see because it only works for 1 core at under 50c.
I am often using my i9 2.4ghz all 8 cores at capacity for compiling and it is FAST. It is often hovering around 3.9 to 4ghz for prolonged periods for real world tasks (avg speed across 8 cores).
From my experience, any Macbook sells super duper fast, it just might not match the price you expect it to match - I suspect, the base model that currently goes for $2000 - would fetch $1200 in an instant, in 1.5 years - I didn't want to trigger my aggressiveness by dealing with 3rd party authorized services in Ankara, there's no direct Apple store here, only in Istanbul, I for example sold my swollen 2017 for a bit less than $1200 - you'd expect people to avoid the butterfly, but both actual users and aftermarket repairsman flock to devices, the guy who bought it told me he already had a buyer for the Retina screen, I expected a normal user to buy it and get it fixed free as the keyboard fix in theory included a battery fix too
I honestly don't think we are a majority, we are probably the actual "Pro" users, maybe like 10%, the rest is probably chilling and enjoying their devices - also the media is so well controlled, if you just watch the major Youtube reviews, which potential buyers do, it's almost a flawless machine
So I know I'd sell it easy, I have an i9 as well, it was the only one available in Silver due to lockdown, but If I was in US, I'd just buy the base one for $2000 and enjoy it, then sell it for $1200 when the time comes - For the i9 I paid $2800, I expect, in 1-1.5 years, it would fetch $1500 easily - mainly because there'll be people wanting Intel and Windows/Bootcamp etc. - I see it as a selling advantage
I guess if I buy Apple Care, it could fetch more, but I just can't decide on that one - when the devices fail, my work addiction doesn't even allow 1-day downtime, let alone a worst case scenario of 2-3 weeks, so I just buy a new one, sell the old one (get it fixed if within warranty beforehand), and move on, so for the 16" - I didn't yet ran the numbers/scenarios and see if it makes sense
I guess given these issues, those with specced machines bought the warranty?
I honestly don't think we are a majority, we are probably the actual "Pro" users, maybe like 10%, the rest is probably chilling and enjoying their devices - also the media is so well controlled, if you just watch the major Youtube reviews, which potential buyers do, it's almost a flawless machine
So I know I'd sell it easy, I have an i9 as well, it was the only one available in Silver due to lockdown, but If I was in US, I'd just buy the base one for $2000 and enjoy it, then sell it for $1200 when the time comes - For the i9 I paid $2800, I expect, in 1-1.5 years, it would fetch $1500 easily - mainly because there'll be people wanting Intel and Windows/Bootcamp etc. - I see it as a selling advantage
I guess if I buy Apple Care, it could fetch more, but I just can't decide on that one - when the devices fail, my work addiction doesn't even allow 1-day downtime, let alone a worst case scenario of 2-3 weeks, so I just buy a new one, sell the old one (get it fixed if within warranty beforehand), and move on, so for the 16" - I didn't yet ran the numbers/scenarios and see if it makes sense
I guess given these issues, those with specced machines bought the warranty?