Huge difference between intel MBP16 and MBP16 with M3Max

[DaveXX]

I bought a MBP16 with the best configuration you could get (except max storage) with i9 and Radeon 5600M and so on for more than 6000$.

This MBP was always crap tbh. As soon I had a 4K monitor connected it was always hot like hell even with 0 process running. A few browser tabs and the fans spinning up and I had 90degree....
It got never better with any updates. The machine was nearly unusable except without monitor it was kinda fine...

I waited now a while until I got my MBP16 M3Max for just around 3500$ this time just with 1TB. But I have to say it's a night and day difference no benchmark can show. It's not about how much faster he is. it's just how much more usable the MBP with silicon is.
The fans are just quiet - 0 nothing. I can open 8k vids and it will go maybe up for 2 degrees. And the vids are running flawless with 0 problems with HDR 4K 60.

Im sure the difference would be the same with M1 or M2 (just waited for proper HDMI connector). Sometimes it's not just about 2 times faster or whatever.... I remember many famous YT reviewer said about the MBP16 I9 that it is a monster and a must buy... but it was really just expensive crap. The new devices are so much better and even cheaper.
The only downside is the missing TB port. I never needed sd card reader nor HDMI ports but I have a lot of usb-c or tb devices. I know others are happy about old connectors but I never missed them.

 

[galad]

Every AMD GPU use so many watts at idle when you connect more than 1 display. And the i9 cpu didn't help.

 

[NT1440]

The i9 never should have been an option. Basically thermally throttled as soon as anything ran, which meant you were basically using the i7 version 🤷‍♂️

 

[Elusi]

The i9 never should have been an option. Basically thermally throttled as soon as anything ran, which meant you were basically using the i7 version 🤷‍♂️

Idk. I press "stabilize" on a clip, have to wait for the prompt and processing before I can continue. This goes faster on the i9, meaning I have to wait less, it doesn't reach a terrible throttle point. Have to repeat that step 100+ times during a work day and the i9 added value.

The Intel Macbook 16" was overpriced though. Those levels of throttle during extended load just aren't okay for the price we paid.

 

[NT1440]

Idk. I press "stabilize" on a clip, have to wait for the prompt and processing before I can continue. This goes faster on the i9, meaning I have to wait less, it doesn't reach a terrible throttle point. Have to repeat that step 100+ times during a work day and the i9 added value.

The Intel Macbook 16" was overpriced though. Those levels of throttle during extended load just aren't okay for the price we paid.

I’m glad you found some utility from it. We got one for the guy that was doing a bit of video editing at the time and for certain things he was doing it ended being slower, and blazing hot/loud.

Thank god for Apple Silicon.

 

[magbarn]

My 2019 $4000 i9 MBP 16 was god awful. Ran always hot, battery life stunk, my AMD GPU failed and so did the SSD which required 2 logic board replacements, thankfully under AppleCare. Due to Intel's ineptitude, Intel was still on Intel 14++++++nm when everyone else was already on 7nm for 6-8 core mobile at the time. I got the MBA M1 when it first came out and it was already outperforming the i9. Fast forward to M3 and the gap is even bigger.

 

[Zest28]

The i9 never should have been an option. Basically thermally throttled as soon as anything ran, which meant you were basically using the i7 version 🤷‍♂️

Apple should have build better laptops that actually have cooling.

You had smaller PC laptops with a RTX 3080 in it. Yet Apple cannot make a i9 work in a larger laptop?

 

[mr_roboto]

Apple should have build better laptops that actually have cooling.

You had smaller PC laptops with a RTX 3080 in it. Yet Apple cannot make a i9 work in a larger laptop?

Intel should have built chips which actually stuck with the sane product category thermal limits they'd defined years before those i9 chips. Instead, they made stuff which claimed to be in the same TDP bin, but realistically far exceeded it. They've made a complete joke out of their own TDP rating over the past six or seven years.

So if a vendor like Apple wanted to keep making computers which met Intel's nominal spec sheet thermal requirements, they had to live with them running at the limit under even fairly light loads, and with reduced clock speed.

Also, I'm calling your bluff. What 16" PC laptop did a better job cooling an i9 than Apple's 16" i9 laptops, in the same form factor (thickness and weight)? I bet you can't name one, or tests to prove it.

 

[Elusi]

Yeah I definitely don't remember smaller laptops from other vendors having better performance either. We bought some ASUS Zenbooks (looked like dark MBP clones essentially) at work and they had the same thermal issues as the MBPs.

Just that tech media focused more on the issues found in Macbooks because it gets the clicks.

 

[magbarn]

Intel should have built chips which actually stuck with the sane product category thermal limits they'd defined years before those i9 chips. Instead, they made stuff which claimed to be in the same TDP bin, but realistically far exceeded it. They've made a complete joke out of their own TDP rating over the past six or seven years.

So if a vendor like Apple wanted to keep making computers which met Intel's nominal spec sheet thermal requirements, they had to live with them running at the limit under even fairly light loads, and with reduced clock speed.

Also, I'm calling your bluff. What 16" PC laptop did a better job cooling an i9 than Apple's 16" i9 laptops, in the same form factor (thickness and weight)? I bet you can't name one, or tests to prove it.

What's ironic is that Apple Silicon MacBook Pro's (the 14/16 specifically) have upgraded cooling from their Intel predecessors.

 

[Zest28]

Intel should have built chips which actually stuck with the sane product category thermal limits they'd defined years before those i9 chips. Instead, they made stuff which claimed to be in the same TDP bin, but realistically far exceeded it. They've made a complete joke out of their own TDP rating over the past six or seven years.

So if a vendor like Apple wanted to keep making computers which met Intel's nominal spec sheet thermal requirements, they had to live with them running at the limit under even fairly light loads, and with reduced clock speed.

Also, I'm calling your bluff. What 16" PC laptop did a better job cooling an i9 than Apple's 16" i9 laptops, in the same form factor (thickness and weight)? I bet you can't name one, or tests to prove it.

Dude, you had gaming laptops such as the 14” Razer with a RTX 3080 (generates much more heat than an i9) back then. And the 14” Razer was very close to the 13” MBP in terms of dimension. That just shows how bad Apple was at engineering.

On the Intel MBA, the fan inside that laptop wasn‘t even blowing on the heat sink, no wonder that thing was overheating. That was some real top engineering from Apple too.

Luckly for Apple, their iPhone division solved the problems of their Mac division when they launched their iPhone based M1 chips which doesn‘t require much cooling in the end.

 

[galad]

Obviously it's not a single issue, it's a fact that the M series is less power hungry than an i9, that AMD GPU uses too much power at idle with an external display, that the 2019 MacBook Pro was too slim for that TDP.

I wonder what's the TDP of the mobile RTX 3080.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Congrats on M3 Max! Welcome to the dark side. You have lot more patience than me using 2019 MBP16, I had similar config with 64 GB Ram. Easily the worst laptop I ever owned. Ran hot, loud and throttled. I got rid of it for M1 Max. Enjoy your laptop, huge upgrade compared to 2019 MBP.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Apple should have build better laptops that actually have cooling.

You had smaller PC laptops with a RTX 3080 in it. Yet Apple cannot make a i9 work in a larger laptop?

Windows laptops suffered same fate. I actually was ready to move on from Mac, tried a gaming laptop from Costco. It throttled, got hot and loud. I am glad Apple moved away from Intel crap.

 

[CalMin]

I actually thought my 2019 16" MBP was fantastic. It was subtly fatter than the 15" it replaced but I really did enjoy it - largely because I stopped worrying about by butterfly switch keyboard failing. My biggest beef was the instability when docking/docking using Thunderbolt because it would just lock-up once or twice a month - ie. too infrequent to be repeatable at the Genius Bar, but frequent enough to make me lose work regularly.

I immediately jumped ship to the 14" M1 Pro when they were announced. It has been stellar. It has also been stable, quiet, reliable, long battery, fast etc. What's more remarkable is that the M2 Air is similarly solid. Apple silicon has been extraordinary.

 

[profH]

Even the M1 Air was hugely better than the Intel MBP16; what a POS

 

[altaic]

Congrats on M3 Max! Welcome to the dark side. You have lot more patience than me using 2019 MBP16, I had similar config with 64 GB Ram. Easily the worst laptop I ever owned. Ran hot, loud and throttled. I got rid of it for M1 Max. Enjoy your laptop, huge upgrade compared to 2019 MBP.

Why’s it the dark side? Is that edgy or smt?

 

[avkills]

Luckily I never had the intel 16". But my 15" Intel i9 also was loud and hot all the time, and the battery life was a joke.

Intel is catching flak right now about desktop CPUs burning up, more the motherboard manufacturers fault but also Intel for encouraging basically no limits on voltage and wattage generated. I'd be so pissed if I had one of those newer ones and was running the mobo BIOS with optimized defaults and the CPU toasted like a roman candle.

 

[TechnoMonk]

Why’s it the dark side? Is that edgy or smt?

It’s wicked good. But it can cause anxiety if you are stuck with old ways.

 

[Elusi]

Luckily I never had the intel 16". But my 15" Intel i9 also was loud and hot all the time, and the battery life was a joke.

Well I wouldn't say "luckily". The 16" had better thermal management than the 15". I think 16" owners just feel more burned because all the lying tech-reviewers said that the issues were fixed with the bigger chassis. It was merely improved upon a little bit.

 

[ondioline]

My biggest beef was the instability when docking/docking using Thunderbolt because it would just lock-up once or twice a month

Yup I had the same problem with the 2019 MBP and the Caldigit TS3. Either everything would start to break and get choppy or I'd get kernel panics. Never had a single issue with TB on my M1 Max MBP.

 

[mr_roboto]

Dude, you had gaming laptops such as the 14” Razer with a RTX 3080 (generates much more heat than an i9) back then. And the 14” Razer was very close to the 13” MBP in terms of dimension. That just shows how bad Apple was at engineering.

On the Intel MBA, the fan inside that laptop wasn‘t even blowing on the heat sink, no wonder that thing was overheating. That was some real top engineering from Apple too.

Luckly for Apple, their iPhone division solved the problems of their Mac division when they launched their iPhone based M1 chips which doesn‘t require much cooling in the end.

LOL. As reviews like this one make clear:

what Razer does is put a super hot GPU in a 14" chassis, claim it totally runs at the high power specs, honest!, but in reality when you use it for real programs it almost never does.

And even then, if you let it run in the highest power modes, you'll be living with horrendous fan noise. Despite the narrative you're trying to push, physics is the limitation here, not Apple's engineering. The only way to get rid of heat is to pump air through, and the only way to pump enough air to cool a 100W+ load in a small 14" chassis with limited internal volume for vents and radiator surfaces is to move it real fast, and fast-moving air makes a ton of noise. (As anyone who has been around a running jet engine can attest.)

Apple is not incompetent at thermal design. They are, in fact, extremely good at it. But their goals are different from most PC vendors, and it shows in the products they deliver - they consistently prioritize battery life and fan noise over meaningless peak benchmark numbers which don't translate well to real-world usage. Vendors like Razer have very little to market on other than such numbers, so that's what they push. And they've conditioned you so much to drool over these numbers that you've lost the ability to see reality.

Honestly, I have to thank you for a laugh - because you tried to claim Razer is better at laptops than Apple, I learned today that it is a thing for PC gaming laptop makers to brag about how many watts their laptops can theoretically burn. It's absurd, and hilarious.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Why’s it the dark side? Is that edgy or smt?

For those who were not around, Wintel boxes used to be called the dark side a la Star Wars and wicked fast was what Apple called the IIfx during an era when all personal computer boxes were relatively slow doing Photoshop-type work.

 

[TechnoMonk]

LOL. As reviews like this one make clear:

what Razer does is put a super hot GPU in a 14" chassis, claim it totally runs at the high power specs, honest!, but in reality when you use it for real programs it almost never does.

And even then, if you let it run in the highest power modes, you'll be living with horrendous fan noise. Despite the narrative you're trying to push, physics is the limitation here, not Apple's engineering. The only way to get rid of heat is to pump air through, and the only way to pump enough air to cool a 100W+ load in a small 14" chassis with limited internal volume for vents and radiator surfaces is to move it real fast, and fast-moving air makes a ton of noise. (As anyone who has been around a running jet engine can attest.)

Apple is not incompetent at thermal design. They are, in fact, extremely good at it. But their goals are different from most PC vendors, and it shows in the products they deliver - they consistently prioritize battery life and fan noise over meaningless peak benchmark numbers which don't translate well to real-world usage. Vendors like Razer have very little to market on other than such numbers, so that's what they push. And they've conditioned you so much to drool over these numbers that you've lost the ability to see reality.

Honestly, I have to thank you for a laugh - because you tried to claim Razer is better at laptops than Apple, I learned today that it is a thing for PC gaming laptop makers to brag about how many watts their laptops can theoretically burn. It's absurd, and hilarious.

Not to mention the VRAM in GPUs for laptops are lot less than desktop versions. I can’t imagine running a 16 GB 4090, when my 24 GB 4090 runs out of memory on my workstation. Spending 4 K on a laptop with 16 GB GPU isn’t worth, when I can use 64 GB unified memory on my M1 Max.

 

[MrGunny94]

At the time I replaced the 16" intel with an M1 air and it was a night and day difference...