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(2019) 16" is HOT & NOISY with an external monitor! :(
- Thread starter Appledoesnotlisten
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With this setup, your system will be running as fast as it possibly can. CPU should be able to sustain an extra 500mhz or so under high load. Fans will still be at max under sustained high load but under normal usage should be silent/quiet.
Yes, exactly. With eGPU driving the external displays but dGPU still active, fans and dGPU power draw behave exactly like the MBP with nothing attached.
Best performance is eGPU to drive external displays AND default display set to an external so eGPU is used to render all apps as well as drive displays plus disable dGPU entirely.
eGPU driving external displays and everything else left at default will perform same as nothing attached. Which is still great and a huge improvement over having monitors connected directly and driven by the dGPU with 20W power draw.
eGPU driving externals and internal display as default but dGPU disabled will use the iGPU to render most apps. This might not be fast enough for some tasks and might still ramp up fans for some intensive tasks but gererally will be on par with external as default for normal usage and will require that fewer apps quit when unplugging the eGPU.
Yes. So if you take it on the road and want to plug in because no eGPU is available, the display won't work. You can disable GPU switch only while on battery or only while on main power, or both. Change the -a flag to disable dGPU only while plugged in to retain the ability to use external display directly, at least with a monitor that does not also charge the MBP with one cable.
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I can vouch for this. I have a 5600m as well and a simple 4k Youtube video will cause the fans to go to 100% on an XDR display. Even an eGPU doesn’t help much. These machines are severely flawed
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My 5600m CTO arrives on Tuesday. This is not very encouraging. I had gone through this thread, sent PMs to owners with the 5600m and I only came across 2 people (I think you were one of them) who didn't have "luck" with the 5600m.
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I haven't received it yet. But here's the review on eGPU.io that relied on to make my purchasing decision, after having previously owned a razer core X chroma (that I was happy with, but which died after 4 months of use).
Mantiz Saturn Pro Review - King of the Ring - eGPU.io
Priced to be the most affordable full-featured eGPU enclosure on the market, the Mantiz Saturn Pro delivers a knockout punch in performance and value. It showcases the best of the four-year evolution of Thunderbolt 3 eGPU technology. With a unique combination of good looks, unrivaled expansion...
egpu.io
If you use chrome to play YouTube, there is a plugin to force chrome play H.264 format instead of VP8/VP9 format that has high CPU usage. The plugin called h264ify. It worked for me.
I will add that running ecamm with many effects, photoshop and google meet open, it performs basically the same. Which is to say, very well. The fans run like crazy, but the radeon high side number never gets above 15 or so... but again, fans on max!
Glad I saw this -- I was actually planning on ordering a 5600m model next week
Maybe I should start considering a move to a Windows machine, or waiting to see if there will be a late-year refresh of the 16" models that addresses these issues.
Using the Black Magic eGPU, there is no way to have an XDR and a second 27" Thunderbolt monitor since the eGPU only has two TB3 ports - one has a cable going to the Mac and the other going to the XDR... and you can't hang anything off the XDR. So the internal GPU will still have to run the 27" Thunderbolt.
My XDR is still in the box next to my desk and my 16" 64GB, 5600M arrives Monday. Fingers crossed that it is cool and quiet... or nearly so. My current Mac is a 15" MBP (mid-2014) with 16GB and NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB with 27" Thunderbolt Display. Just plugged in and running nothing intensive, there are no fans but the area above the F5 key is quite hot. If the 16" can come close to matching this, I'll be satisfied.
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I've literally started thinking of waiting for the refresh, selling my current 16" on eBay, and taking the loss. This time I'll wait for actual users' feedback and see what happens.Glad I saw this -- I was actually planning on ordering a 5600m model next week
Yes. That scenario does not have the external tb3 display driven by the eGPU and so the dGPU will still be active and consuming 19W.
If you want to use a tb3 display and lid open and avoid 19W dGPU power draw you need to use black magic eGPU.
If you want to run two tb3 displays you are out of luck. Or, maybe you could run two black magic eGPUs? I'd rather just replace the second tb3 display with a display port monitor, though.
yep, I am already at that point. But users feedback is irrelevant too - so many people have varying opinions on performance, fans, heat etc that I would just buy whatever and return it if it doesn't meet your needs.
An egpu definitely does help a lot however, if at a desk.
Let me ask this question here since we are discussing eGPU related things.
I have a bunch of things open on 3 external monitors, the fans are not moving, UI is smooth, but stats shows that I'm using all the available memory - all 100%.
Does it mean that my RX 570 with 8GB is maxed out? If yes, why are the fans not moving? I am not noticing any overheating at all.
I have a bunch of things open on 3 external monitors, the fans are not moving, UI is smooth, but stats shows that I'm using all the available memory - all 100%.
Does it mean that my RX 570 with 8GB is maxed out? If yes, why are the fans not moving? I am not noticing any overheating at all.
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You need to differentiate between “using all of the memory” vs. “using all of the computing power” when talking about maxing something out.
In your case the GPU is sitting idle. Yes, there’s cached data in its RAM, but it’s just waiting there, waiting to be used or refreshed with new data. Whatever is the opposite of “being maxed out”, that’s what your Mac is doing in those images.
I’ve seen some people observing “a simple 4k YouTube video” maxing out the fans. Check what Activity Monitor is showing. If a laptop is decoding 4k via a CPU process, it’s going to be very stressful. Means: that would be normal and to be expected in that scenario.
Different videos, browser, codec combinations matter a lot here. Some videos/browsers may be able to use hardware decoding, in which case even multiple 4k videos would be trivial. Yet in others a single 4k can be difficult to decode. Read about hardware decoding and video codecs.
I can’t say if the above is the case on all of the 5600M reports, but I too have seen some YouTube 8k videos play with no effort at all, and others requiring every bit of CPU power. It really does vary based on codec support, and when it does, the dGPU can do nothing about it, it becomes a bystander.
Meaning: “a simple youtube video” is not a great benchmark for troubleshooting purposes, because it so easily tells nothing about what the dGPU is doing, and becomes a CPU benchmark instead.
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I'm curious as to what everyone that is using an eGPU does for a living, or what their reason for buying one is? I've had my 16" MBP (2019, 5500) for just a month, and while the fan noise and heat are bothering the hell out of me, dropping $$$ on an enclosure and THEN another graphics card is just about out of my comfort zone. My current plan is to see about trading in/up to a 5600, but now I'm seeing that people are having problems with those too?
Scaled resolutions are actually rendered at 2x the "looks like" resolution and then scaled down. If you have 3 external displays all at scaled resolutions, that could use up a decent chunk of memory. I think that 8gb should still be more than enough, by far. If the system is fast/smooth and quiet, I wouldn't worry about memory usage. Systems are very good at "using" all available memory to speed things up. Doesn't mean you are operating at the limit. That memory might otherwise be sitting there doing nothing at all, just wasted. Instead it can be put to use as cache and freed if something else actually really needs it.
I'm a programmer who has little to no need for GPU performance. But the excessive Radeon power draw was bringing my 2019 15" mbp to a grinding halt. 800mhz and 1000% kernel task. After months of fighting with Apple asking for a refund they agreed to exchange with a 16" model. I had already purchased an eGPU by that point just to get some work done. The 16" is much better. Does not grind to a halt, but performance is still handicapped and it is still noisy. I could certainly live with it, and am living with it while I wait for my eGPU replacement to arrive. But eGPU gives me a quiet and faster system (sustained 500mhz higher under extreme load) and 100W charging. So I'm sticking with it, and recommend it to anyone who is not happy with the noise, heat, or performance of their 16".
The 5600M is about 50% more expensive than a good enough eGPU, and while much better than the other dGPU options it still does draw at least 5-10W which is no longer available for the CPU. Unless you hate the eGPU quirks (quit apps on unplug) or really need GPU performance with directly attached monitors (eg at home and the office or at client offices), an egpu and 5300m option is going to perform better for less money and be quieter.
I'm a programmer too, so your situation is intriguing. what eGPU and card did you go for?
Another factor for me is the fact that I may be moving in a few months, in a "what I can take with me on a plane trip" fashion. That being said, I'm loathe to add another big piece of gear to my bags, which are already packed to bursting. But I'll be in Kenya after the move, and so I'd rather take advantage of the readily-accessible things that I can while I'm in the States.
Similar to many others in this post, I've also been having major battery drain when using an external monitor (1080p) in an unplugged state. The maximum it'll last will be just over an hour. 16" 2019 MBP 5200M.
Has anybody looked into this tool for controlling power output?
MaxTech seems to also mentions positive results
Has anybody looked into this tool for controlling power output?
Turbo Boost Switcher for OSX / macOS
Turbo Boost Switcher for macOS. Save battery of your Mac, cool your CPU and reduce fans noise
tbswitcher.rugarciap.com
MaxTech seems to also mentions positive results