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tskwara

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 6, 2010
103
85
Bought an in-store high-spec version on Friday and have been working with it since then. Thought it would be helpful to provide some feedback to buyers on the fence.

This MacBook Pro has the following specifications:
  • 16" MacBook Pro in Space Gray
  • i9 Processor at 2.4 GHz
  • 32 GB RAM
  • 2 TB SSD
  • AMD 5500M w/8 GB VRAM
  • Apple Leather Sleeve Black
  • AppleCare+
After a couple days of use, I've done the following activities:
  • Installed all my daily-use apps (categories: design, develop, entertainment, productivity).
  • Wired up all necessary Git repos.
  • Rebuilt all apps and dependancies (Xcode stuff).
  • Played a bit with Ableton Live.
  • Listen to a bunch of music to test speakers being talked about.
  • Typed a bunch of stuff to really feel out the new keyboard.
Observations:
  • Feels slightly bigger and heavier than 2019 15", but my backpack handles it fine and I don't really notice the difference.
  • Keyboard at first seemed like such a throwback, but frankly feels quite right and no longer a focus point. Right and tight.
  • Physical escape key and separate Touch ID: balanced and refined, thinking the design team feels really good about this version, they should.
  • Touch Bar size refined as part of Esc key and Touch ID changes: appropriately resized and first citizen.
  • Trackpad spacing feels nice and well thought out: slight increase in space between lower keys and pad top.
  • Speakers: WTF. Never expect built-in speakers to sound great, these really do sound incredible.
  • Screen: Funny to not know the exact dimension changes off hand, but thinking it's +0.6". Regardless, size is noticeably bigger and quite nice for use cases requiring a lot of info (Xcode for me).
  • Sound from 1/8" jack: my audio gear sounds smooth as expected.
  • Performance: build times from Xcode are quick, allowing a fluid build-test-fix cycle that promotes focus on the right stuff.
Overall the updated 16" MacBook Pro feels very much like a refined design. I can't say I've been particularly bothered by a lot of things many have brought up about previous models. This is odd since I program for a living, working with some of the most high-profile clients around. This involves using Mac equipment 12 x 7, but not just one computer. To be truly efficient, I use an iMac Pro, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. This assortment of equipment allows me to use what's appropriate at the time of inspiration. Safe to say that the 16" MacBook Pro will likely change things up for me - in a good way.
 
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ilikewhey

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2014
3,616
4,680
nyc upper east
Thanks for the feedback, can you test how loud it gets under load, that’s the one major improvement I’m looking forward the most, my 15 sounds like a jet taking off.
 
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SMC23

macrumors member
Nov 15, 2019
43
14
Wow that’s an awesome spec. You went all out! Did you end up with AppleCare as well? I think I am getting close to finalizing my configuration so thanks for your review.
 

tskwara

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 6, 2010
103
85
Thanks for the feedback, can you test how loud it gets under load, that’s the one major improvement I’m looking forward the most, my 15 sounds like a jet taking off.


Under load for me is a full rebuild of code in Xcode. The fans do come on, but are off after about 2 minutes. My expectation is not for silence during heavy loads. I've been around teams of devs where all hardware have fans blowing away during compile cycles. That's not just Apple hardware...

To help with your question more specifically, my early impressions of fan sound of the 16" MBP are similar to what I observed when using an iMac and comparing to the same task when using an iMac Pro. The fan does come on, but it's much more quiet.
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Wow that’s an awesome spec. You went all out! Did you end up with AppleCare as well? I think I am getting close to finalizing my configuration so thanks for your review.

I updated my specs to include that I bought AppleCare+.

AppleCare+ saved me a gazillion on accidental damage, so I buy it when it makes sense.
 
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miroki

macrumors member
Nov 8, 2018
44
9
I am a Java developer trying to decide the right RAM and SSD sizes. do you think 32G is more than enough or 64G should be taken into consideration? thx
 

joelhinch

macrumors 6502
Oct 2, 2012
382
764
I am a Java developer trying to decide the right RAM and SSD sizes. do you think 32G is more than enough or 64G should be taken into consideration? thx

I ordered OPs model but with 64GB. 32GB is enough, for today. But I use a lot of RAM.
 
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Velin

macrumors 68020
Jul 23, 2008
2,118
2,179
Hearst Castle
I am a Java developer trying to decide the right RAM and SSD sizes. do you think 32G is more than enough or 64G should be taken into consideration? thx

I just went through this. 32GB should be more than enough for the life of the machine, that's a lot of RAM in a portable device. In fact, I ordered the 16GB RAM and the 512GB SSD version of the Pro. Even with the huge databases I work with, SSD + Thunderbolt 3 should be sufficient. As for the SSD, the 1TB and 2TB versions are pricey, and in some cases I prefer to work off a TB3 SSD to quickly switch from portable to iMac and other desktops.
 

MrTemple

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2013
482
1,171
Canadian Pacific North Wilderness
I ordered OPs model but with 64GB. 32GB is enough, for today. But I use a lot of RAM.

Yep. Maxing the ram is the single best thing you can do to boost the longevity of your Mac.

RAM squeeze is the biggest performance sap on most people’s ‘everything use’ machines.

My late 2013 15-inch with 16gb is just starting to chug after six years of heavy multitask use.
16gb was mostly overkill in 2013 (though not entirely), but if I’d gone with 8gb, I’d have needed a new machine years ago.

If you plan to upgrade in a few years 32gb is fine.

But 64gb means you don’t have to upgrade in a few years. (Not to mention boosting the resale quite a bit if you do upgrade in a few years.)

Plus, the amount of ram websites and background services and cloud whoozits and whatzits are taking up these days seems to be growing at an accelerating pace. So chances are real good that you’ll be hitting the memory management soft ceiling sooner than you’d think with 32gb.
 
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Strangedream

macrumors 6502a
Sep 15, 2019
661
546
London, UK
That's the specs I was considering, but I think I'll wait for the 2020 model. As stupid as it sounds my OCD forbids me to buy a 2019 model.
 

TP18

macrumors member
Mar 16, 2015
60
3
Also on a late 2013:) What specs are you getting?

Not sure what CPU to get? And not sure if 4 GB to 8GB GPU will make a huge difference for me as I only do programming and photo editing with Lightroom.

but want 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

will the GPU and CPU make a difference heat wise?

Yep. Maxing the ram is the single best thing you can do to boost the longevity of your Mac.

RAM squeeze is the biggest performance sap on most people’s ‘everything use’ machines.

My late 2013 15-inch with 16gb is just starting to chug after six years of heavy multitask use.
16gb was mostly overkill in 2013 (though not entirely), but if I’d gone with 8gb, I’d have needed a new machine years ago.

If you plan to upgrade in a few years 32gb is fine.

But 64gb means you don’t have to upgrade in a few years. (Not to mention boosting the resale quite a bit if you do upgrade in a few years.)

Plus, the amount of ram websites and background services and cloud whoozits and whatzits are taking up these days seems to be growing at an accelerating pace. So chances are real good that you’ll be hitting the memory management soft ceiling sooner than you’d think with 32gb.
 

joelhinch

macrumors 6502
Oct 2, 2012
382
764
Yep. Maxing the ram is the single best thing you can do to boost the longevity of your Mac.

RAM squeeze is the biggest performance sap on most people’s ‘everything use’ machines.

My late 2013 15-inch with 16gb is just starting to chug after six years of heavy multitask use.
16gb was mostly overkill in 2013 (though not entirely), but if I’d gone with 8gb, I’d have needed a new machine years ago.

If you plan to upgrade in a few years 32gb is fine.

But 64gb means you don’t have to upgrade in a few years. (Not to mention boosting the resale quite a bit if you do upgrade in a few years.)

Plus, the amount of ram websites and background services and cloud whoozits and whatzits are taking up these days seems to be growing at an accelerating pace. So chances are real good that you’ll be hitting the memory management soft ceiling sooner than you’d think with 32gb.

Yep. I often have my CRM open in Firefox with 10+ CRM tabs which along takes up 6GB memory. And MS Teams uses 1GB. Add some Chrome tabs. Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. 16GB is swapping. Add a Win 10 VM, give that 16GB. 32+ GB now in use. Add another VM. 32GB is now swapping.
 
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MrTemple

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2013
482
1,171
Canadian Pacific North Wilderness
Also on a late 2013:) What specs are you getting?

Not sure what CPU to get? And not sure if 4 GB to 8GB GPU will make a huge difference for me as I only do programming and photo editing with Lightroom.

but want 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD.

will the GPU and CPU make a difference heat wise?

I’m getting 64gb. For the reasons I mentioned and for what @joelhinch says in the comment just above this.

I’d rather get max ram than ANY other upgrade. Macs are FANTASTIC at managing memory, but all those fancy techniques are ultimately slowing the machine down greatly.

Open Activity Monitor some time. Don’t just look at the ram used displays (that’s after the memory management ‘soft-ceiling’ is hit). Take a look at how much RAM each process is using in the memory tab. Notice how much is compressed. That's part of the 'soft ceiling' management and it's slowing me down.

For example, on my machine right now, the memory management display says I'm using 12.3GB (with 1.2GB compressed), but when I copy and paste into excel and add up all the memory in use by each process it comes out at 21.8GB used and 9.98gb compressed.

Apple's memory management tab is VERY misleading.

It’s nuts how much each webpage/process eats up. And 3 years from now, it’ll be worse.

I’m not very spartan with my safari tabs and apps. After a week of use my machine has a million things open and I’m switching back and forth so much my OS probably can diagnose me with OCD. 🤣

If I kept things spartan, or planned to upgrade in three years, I’d probably stick with 32gb



I’m getting the 2.3 i9. The 2.4 seems like a waste. Two more cores over the i7 will make a difference in almost everything I do, but a sniffle more clock speed in each core will never really make much difference for me.

I’m also splashing out for the 8gb in the GPU. Not sureI need it, but Apple’s doing more and more wizardry with using the GPU for non-graphics tasks, and it was so cheap so...

And finally I got a 1tb. I got the 512gb in my current Mac and I’ve been bumping into disk space limits quite a bit. I’ve got most of my stuff on external gigabit-connected drives, so 1tb should be fine for every-day-carry.
 
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ux4all

macrumors regular
Jan 26, 2009
187
44
Chicago, IL, USA
I'm on the fence about throwing down on the dGPU... I need 2TB on board... just the nature of my life I guess.

When the funds become available, this is my next ride (there's only so much you can do with a gaming PC lol)
 

tskwara

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 6, 2010
103
85
When you got the machine, did you reinstall the os? Or did you just use it?

I reinstalled macOS.

The macOS installed in the 16" MacBook Pro is a forked version (special version). I don't know why it is, but because of this my latest macOS boot flash drive was not being recognized during the recovery process (to re-install).

When I received the machine, I quickly got up and running and allowed the latest supplemental update to proceed. This updates the recovery partition as well. Afterwards, booting into the recovery partition and reinstalling results in a fresh and up-to-date install, with no extras (i.e. no GarageBand, iWork).
[automerge]1574094288[/automerge]
It's amazing that we can debate over 32GB vs 64GB RAM in a portable machine. My first computer was an Atari 800...

My iMac Pro has 64GB and I use it for continuous integration of Xcode apps (fairly intense task). Looking at the RAM usage during this activity, 32GB RAM would have been fine. Although having 64GB fits well with my intent to keep this iMac Pro around.

Future-proofing my MacBook Pro isn't something as important to me, historically I've not held on to a portable for more than a year. Nice thing about Apple hardware is great resale value.
 
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TP18

macrumors member
Mar 16, 2015
60
3
I’m getting 64gb. For the reasons I mentioned and for what @joelhinch says in the comment just above this.

I’d rather get max ram than ANY other upgrade. Macs are FANTASTIC at managing memory, but all those fancy techniques are ultimately slowing the machine down greatly.

Open Activity Monitor some time. Don’t just look at the ram used displays (that’s after the memory management ‘soft-ceiling’ is hit). Take a look at how much RAM each process is using in the memory tab. Notice how much is compressed. That's part of the 'soft ceiling' management and it's slowing me down.

For example, on my machine right now, the memory management display says I'm using 12.3GB (with 1.2GB compressed), but when I copy and paste into excel and add up all the memory in use by each process it comes out at 21.8GB used and 9.98gb compressed.

Apple's memory management tab is VERY misleading.

It’s nuts how much each webpage/process eats up. And 3 years from now, it’ll be worse.

I’m not very spartan with my safari tabs and apps. After a week of use my machine has a million things open and I’m switching back and forth so much my OS probably can diagnose me with OCD. 🤣

If I kept things spartan, or planned to upgrade in three years, I’d probably stick with 32gb



I’m getting the 2.3 i9. The 2.4 seems like a waste. Two more cores over the i7 will make a difference in almost everything I do, but a sniffle more clock speed in each core will never really make much difference for me.

I’m also splashing out for the 8gb in the GPU. Not sureI need it, but Apple’s doing more and more wizardry with using the GPU for non-graphics tasks, and it was so cheap so...

And finally I got a 1tb. I got the 512gb in my current Mac and I’ve been bumping into disk space limits quite a bit. I’ve got most of my stuff on external gigabit-connected drives, so 1tb should be fine for every-day-carry.

Sounds good. Think I will get
2.3 i9, 32GB, 8GB GPU, 1TB IN Silver
 

jerryk

macrumors 604
Nov 3, 2011
7,421
4,207
SF Bay Area
I am a Java developer trying to decide the right RAM and SSD sizes. do you think 32G is more than enough or 64G should be taken into consideration? thx

I decided to stick with 32 GB even with VMs. I looked at the memory pressure graph and page fault rates on my 16 GB and it was only getting into the yellow range under my most complex scenarios. I replace machines ever few years, so will re-evaluate my needs in a 2 years or so. Who knows, with the increased availability of low cost, high performance cloud facilities and IDEs, maybe I will be moving down to an Air or an iPad.
 

MrTemple

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2013
482
1,171
Canadian Pacific North Wilderness
Sounds good. Think I will get
2.3 i9, 32GB, 8GB GPU, 1TB IN Silver

...

I decided to stick with 32 GB even with VMs. I looked at the memory pressure graph and page fault rates on my 16 GB and it was only getting into the yellow range under my most complex scenarios. I replace machines ever few years, so will re-evaluate my needs in a 2 years or so. Who knows, with the increased availability of low cost, high performance cloud facilities and IDEs, maybe I will be moving down to an Air or an iPad.

The memory graph in Activity Monitor can be misleading. It can show green even if you're swapping quite a bit.

For example, I've got surprisingly little running and my system is asking for over 22gb.

My memory pressure graph is well in the green, and I've theoretically got 3.6gb free ram, but that's only because the system has swapped or cached 10gb of memory (all of which is actually compressed, FYI).

This is the advanced memory management 'soft ceiling' that Apple does to avoid the 'hard ceiling' of memory thrash.


Screen Shot 2019-11-18 at 8.49.49 AM.png
 
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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,739
Physical escape key and separate Touch ID: balanced and refined, thinking the design team feels really good about this version, they should.
While not a large change, the addition of the escape key is a very welcome change.

Speakers: WTF. Never expect built-in speakers to sound great,
I've only heard positive reviews regarding the speakers. Apple has made some really nice inroads in speaker development.

Overall the updated 16" MacBook Pro feels very much like a refined design.
Yeah, with each successive release Apple has improved the overall design.
 
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