15in or 13in with two external monitors?

[questionwonder]

Would the 15in with it's dedicated GPU be better when connecting 2 external monitors or is the integrated GPU in the 13in plenty good?

90% of my work is programming and the rest is web browsing.
I'd like to get a new Macbook Pro soon, either the current model or the next generation, hopefully coming soon!

I'm planning on getting two nice monitors that have high refresh rates. Don't know which ones yet, but I was looking at some nice 16:10, hearing they are better for programmers?

Will the dedicated GPU's of the 15in be better for 2 external monitors? Ex. will I get a higher refresh rate or resolution when using the dedicated GPU vs the integrated one in the 13in?

 

[Stephen.R]

I would suggest this depends entirely on which monitors you intend to use.

I use 2x 4K displays (both Dell 24" P2415Q) with a 2018 Mac mini with Intel UHD630 graphics (and no eGPU yet). It works fine at the 'default' resolution (straight @2x rendering, aka "looks like 1920x1080") but pushing it to a more appropriately sized (IMO) rendered resolution (i.e. looks like 2304x1296 would be perfect for me) is too much for the iGPU - it will render them but it has some glitches and lag sometimes.

Given that the Mini officially supports 3x 4K displays, and the 13" MBP officially supports only 2x 4K displays, I'd suggest (and I guess someone can confirm the specifics of UHD630 vs Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645/655) that it'll be at best on similar terms performance wise to the Mini.


If you can afford it, I personally would get the 15 (IMO a 15" + 1x display would be better than a 13" + 2x displays, if your budget is tight).

My work is about 80% reading and writing code/etc of some kind - if I'm not in the IDE, I'm likely in a shell. I found my Dell's to be fine for this (they're 16:9), and I've briefly dabbled with running them at 90º (i.e. vertical) to get more vertical space, but honestly the 'regular' layout works pretty well to me.

 

[Valdna]

Running 2 external(FHD) + internal on 2019 13in 2.4
Working fine.
May lag a little if you have a heavy build going and high bitrate video playing, but works perfectly fine.