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Suitable MBP for VM use?

A

AppleOrOrange

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 19, 2020
2
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I have been following recent updates in Mac lineup and looking for buying advice. Currently have an older Macbook air and Thinkpad, trying to consolidate to one machine.

-Would be using macOS and 1-2 VM:s at the same time
-General tasks, light development, photoshop in macOs, no gaming or video editing
-One win 10 VM for MS office and Teams work
-One linux VM for testing and other light usage

Generally absolutely hate fan noise and aiming for balanced setup regarding heat generation and performance.

Would 2020 13” i5/16/512 be enough or should I go for 16” for better performance? Is 16gb RAM enough or should I upgrade to 32gb?

I will be docked to one 27” 4k monitor for 50% of the time and otherwise move around house or be mobile. Would 16” be too big for mobility? I am heavily invested in Apple ecosystem, but should I also consider pc laptop (like X1 Extreme)?
 
AppleOrOrange said:
I have been following recent updates in Mac lineup and looking for buying advice. Currently have an older Macbook air and Thinkpad, trying to consolidate to one machine.

-Would be using macOS and 1-2 VM:s at the same time
-General tasks, light development, photoshop in macOs, no gaming or video editing
-One win 10 VM for MS office and Teams work
-One linux VM for testing and other light usage

Generally absolutely hate fan noise and aiming for balanced setup regarding heat generation and performance.

Would 2020 13” i5/16/512 be enough or should I go for 16” for better performance? Is 16gb RAM enough or should I upgrade to 32gb?

I will be docked to one 27” 4k monitor for 50% of the time and otherwise move around house or be mobile. Would 16” be too big for mobility? I am heavily invested in Apple ecosystem, but should I also consider pc laptop (like X1 Extreme)?
Click to expand...
With 1 Windows 10 VM (4GB allocated), I generally don’t notice fan noise until Windows installs an update. Then it quickly ramps down. I’m not sure how it would act with 2 VMs at the same time. My guess is that the fans would kick on. I have the Ice Lake i5/16/512 model.
 
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Performance seems to be reasonable even for the 13” model. Are you using it with the external monitor? Would that create lag or more noice?
 
KPOM said:
With 1 Windows 10 VM (4GB allocated), I generally don’t notice fan noise until Windows installs an update. Then it quickly ramps down. I’m not sure how it would act with 2 VMs at the same time. My guess is that the fans would kick on. I have the Ice Lake i5/16/512 model.
Click to expand...

I've got something similar going here - a Windows 10 VM with 4GB and a Linux one with 4GB. They behaving exactly as you say - there's no fan noise unless you're hammering the CPU or Windows is installing its updates!

Its the i5/16/512 model here.
 
AppleOrOrange said:
Performance seems to be reasonable even for the 13” model. Are you using it with the external monitor? Would that create lag or more noice?
Click to expand...
It depends on what is running in the second monitor. 4K video in Chrome will cause the fans to go on even without a VM. But Office likely won’t.
 
I had 2015 15 in MacBook Pro with 16gb and had VM. It lagged and the VM didn’t response effectively. Granted my programs on parallels needed more Gb than 8 gb. Since then I have had 2018 15in and 2019 16in with 32gb. Has made all the difference. 15in for my husband and I have the 16in. Base models but increased the ram and ssd.
Just giving my perspective.
 
As others have said your better off getting a dedicated desktop for virtualization, ideally a workstation grade tower with a Xeon processor on board (used ThinkStations can had for some deep discounts). And a good chunk of RAM onboard depending the applications you're running.

But if your dead set on staying on macOS and staying mobile the MBP 16 is probably the next best thing. I run just one VM on my 16 inch and see temps climb to 85C on the core. It doesn't handle VMs very well, especially when connected to an external display which is why I always fall back to my tower when booting up VMs.
 
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