Macbook Pro 16 Fan Advice (yes i know about the other thread) :)

[adgoodma]

I've been watching the 'hot and noisy thread' for months now...

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an-external-monitor.2211747/

I have been waiting to purchase a new MBP- to see how the new 16 inch versions perform. I use my current 2015 15inch for two main purposes- Photoshop and Lightroom for photography and now, online teaching. Many hours on Google Meet with the clearly unnecessary ecamm live app running so I can project fun graphics onto my google meet for my 6th graders during class. I run a 27'' 4k Dell as a second screen as well.
My 2015 is now slowing down and stuttering quite a bit now, so it is time to upgrade..
I have purchased both a 5500 8gb and 5600m both with 32gb of ram.. I have read the 'hot and noisy' thread so I was not surprised to hear the fans running with the external monitor- in both variants of the graphics card with just chrome open.

What options do I have:

Keep the 5600m and deal with the fan noise- (with screen open and in clamshell mode fans run loud)
Keep the 5500 and get an egpu(wont the egpu be loud as well?)
Get a mac mini with egpu


Basically is there anyway (other than downloading a fan management software) to get these fans not to run so high with google meet?
Which computer setup would you recommend?

Thanks!

 

[pugxiwawa]

In my opinion if you don't need the portability either an iMac or Mac mini with minimum i5 and upgraded ram to 32gb would fit your need better. I'm not sure you even need egpu in your use case, as the integrated gpu works perfectly fine for Photoshop and Lightroom, as long as you don't plan on gaming on it. I would say 95% of the time my 2018 i5 mini is completely silent and with 4 TB3 ports it's a really a versatile little box. Just curious, is there a specific reason why you think you might need the 10k Mac Pro?

 

[bill-p]

Or you can just use Safari instead of Chrome and wait for Big Sur.

I am very amazed how few people know how much of a resource hog Chrome is. You can thank the feud between Apple and Google for that.

P.S.: by extension, that also means every other Google application will run worse on a Mac compared to all other platforms.

 

[adgoodma]

In my opinion if you don't need the portability either an iMac or Mac mini with minimum i5 and upgraded ram to 32gb would fit your need better. I'm not sure you even need egpu in your use case, as the integrated gpu works perfectly fine for Photoshop and Lightroom, as long as you don't plan on gaming on it. I would say 95% of the time my 2018 i5 mini is completely silent and with 4 TB3 ports it's a really a versatile little box. Just curious, is there a specific reason why you think you might need the 10k Mac Pro?

I did try a 13 inch mbp last year and i noticed that without the graphics card, running a second monitor, small things like animations in keynote would stutter-

Or you can just use Safari instead of Chrome and wait for Big Sur.

I am very amazed how few people know how much of a resource hog Chrome is. You can thank the feud between Apple and Google for that.

Unfortunately- some of the google apps don't run on safari- and the screen share functions don't work correctly outside of chrome either..

 

[adgoodma]

In my opinion if you don't need the portability either an iMac or Mac mini with minimum i5 and upgraded ram to 32gb would fit your need better. I'm not sure you even need egpu in your use case, as the integrated gpu works perfectly fine for Photoshop and Lightroom, as long as you don't plan on gaming on it. I would say 95% of the time my 2018 i5 mini is completely silent and with 4 TB3 ports it's a really a versatile little box. Just curious, is there a specific reason why you think you might need the 10k Mac Pro?

I tried a 13 MBP last year and without the graphics it would stutter on things like keynote animations when using a second screen. Now using ecamm for broadcasts it overwhelmed my 2015 mbp

 

[pugxiwawa]

I tried a 13 MBP last year and without the graphics it would stutter on things like keynote animations when using a second screen. Now using ecamm for broadcasts it overwhelmed my 2015 mbp

I see. Then iMac should be better equipped to handle your needs, even the base model. I just don’t think macbook with intel chips is very good at handling any video calls (FaceTime, G Meet, Zoom...etc). The fan will come on no matter which graphic card you upgrade to.

 

[adgoodma]

I see. Then iMac should be better equipped to handle your needs, even the base model. I just don’t think macbook with intel chips is very good at handling any video calls (FaceTime, G Meet, Zoom...etc). The fan will come on no matter which graphic card you upgrade to.

That's kind of what I thought- I didnt really notice a difference between the 5500 and the 5600- both got the fans running at the same speed. An external gpu wont make any difference either? The fans will still run on that I assume...

 

[bill-p]

I did try a 13 inch mbp last year and i noticed that without the graphics card, running a second monitor, small things like animations in keynote would stutter-

Unfortunately- some of the google apps don't run on safari- and the screen share functions don't work correctly outside of chrome either..

I still have my 2018 13" here, and yeah, compared to the 16", it's a night and day difference in terms of performance. Especially because I run a high resolution monitor at scaled resolution. The 13" is not up to that task at all. Some folks probably have lower tolerance for performance levels, but for me, if I'm paying this much for a computer solely for the purpose of driving an external display, it should at least deliver on performance.

That said, I'd say... of all of the options above, perhaps one thing you can look at is... the 2013 Mac Pro. It's "trash" according to some, but it still has one of the highest specs for the money (12-core CPU, 64GB RAM, replaceable SSD), and the cooling system is actually very decent. We still have one at home and it is quieter than all other Macs when it's running any Google app.

P.S.: for Google apps, the GPU won't matter so much. You're running into high CPU usage, and you need a Mac that has good CPU performance and cooling, essentially.

 

[Grohowiak]

In my opinion if you don't need the portability either an iMac or Mac mini with minimum i5 and upgraded ram to 32gb would fit your need better. I'm not sure you even need egpu in your use case, as the integrated gpu works perfectly fine for Photoshop and Lightroom, as long as you don't plan on gaming on it. I would say 95% of the time my 2018 i5 mini is completely silent and with 4 TB3 ports it's a really a versatile little box. Just curious, is there a specific reason why you think you might need the 10k Mac Pro?

Photoshop and lightrom lag a lot when using integrated graphics even on 1080p.
Add animation or a hi rez bursh and the whole thing slows to a crawl.
Drag to work like that.

If you need a laptop get the 16" with the 5300 gpu and then add eGPU for stationary use.
Even the 16" base has 6 cores. Of course the fans will say hello the second you start using it so keep that in mind.
Apple is great but just like any mortals they also have to bow to the laws of thermodynamics. At least for now

 

[antipodean]

If quiet running is a priority, you might consider the blackmagic eGPU. While it uses the now rather old 580 and is non-upgradable, it runs whisper quiet (18 dB at full load). I have a 2020 13” (i7/32GB/1TB) with external 4K (@retina 2560x1440) via the BlackMagic eGPU and it is silent for light to moderate use (eg 4K YouTube video in Chrome, internal and external displays both active). MBP fans @ 0rpm, eGPU inaudible.
I had thought the 5600m could run an external monitor without fans kicking up, so your report is a little disappointing to read. Perhaps Google Meet is particularly demanding for some reason? More than Zoom or Teams?