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What kinds of graphics issues exist on the MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)?

Yebubbleman

Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
Original poster
May 20, 2010
6,051
2,638
Los Angeles, CA
It's not the Mac I'm going to buy for myself (as, sadly, I have started to come to terms with the fact that my Mac needs aren't high end and that most of them are better and more affordably served by Windows PCs), but I do consult for others that do buy high end MacBook Pros, so I am curious. I'm aware of the loud fan speeds and, to put it bluntly, inefficient GPU usage when it comes to external displays. What other GPU related issues exist with the 16-inch MacBook Pro? Do they fail? Or is it that they're loud and maybe run too hot? Am curious.

I've been recommending those that I consult to wait on 13-inch MacBook Pro purchases following the Apple Silicon transition announcement and rumors suggesting that machine would be among the first to make the jump (and within this calendar year) and to only buy the Intel model if they absolutely need Boot Camp or x86 virtualization support (a boat I'm in as a soon-to-be 2020 Intel Four-Port 13" MacBook Pro buyer). But given that rumors seem to point to a 2H 2021 launch date for the Apple Silicon successor to the Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro, I can't tell people who need this machine for their livelihood to wait that long. Any info on reliability issues would be super helpful! Thanks!
 
None from a hardware perspective--it appears to be a very reliable system. There are issues with how it plays with external displays (specifically some displays with some connections tend to make the fans go bat crap wild, and the dGPU is set to draw a massive amount of power even at idle with an external display + clamshell open = more heat), microstuttering when on the iGPU, and weird behavior when switching from the iGPU to dGPU when certain apps are open, but all of these appear to be software related.
 
Mine has been very reliable. I don't use an external display and the only time the fans make audible noise is when I am doing a tight compute-bound task like model training.

I never had issues with the graphics failing on my 2015 15", 2018 15", or now 2019 16". There was Radeon-gate back in 2011-2012, but that was Nvidia+Apple fault and Apple has not used Nvidia GPUs since then.
 
Yebubbleman said:
It's not the Mac I'm going to buy for myself (as, sadly, I have started to come to terms with the fact that my Mac needs aren't high end and that most of them are better and more affordably served by Windows PCs), but I do consult for others that do buy high end MacBook Pros, so I am curious. I'm aware of the loud fan speeds and, to put it bluntly, inefficient GPU usage when it comes to external displays. What other GPU related issues exist with the 16-inch MacBook Pro? Do they fail? Or is it that they're loud and maybe run too hot? Am curious.

I've been recommending those that I consult to wait on 13-inch MacBook Pro purchases following the Apple Silicon transition announcement and rumors suggesting that machine would be among the first to make the jump (and within this calendar year) and to only buy the Intel model if they absolutely need Boot Camp or x86 virtualization support (a boat I'm in as a soon-to-be 2020 Intel Four-Port 13" MacBook Pro buyer). But given that rumors seem to point to a 2H 2021 launch date for the Apple Silicon successor to the Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro, I can't tell people who need this machine for their livelihood to wait that long. Any info on reliability issues would be super helpful! Thanks!
Click to expand...

The conclusion from all the threads on this topic seems to be that the 16" works perfectly fine as long as you go for the 5600M GPU. The lower end GPU options seems to work fine as long as you only use the internal display.
So, if you need multiple monitors it might be an idea to look at an eGPU or the 5600M.

Fingers crossed, Apple will give us one more Intel update where something similar to the 5600M will be the default option instead of an $800? upgrade.
 
Mine is equipped with the Pro 5500M and continues to work flawlessly since I got in November 2019.
 
I have the mid-line 16" with the 5500M and it has worked properly. I've also not heard of any other anecdotal issues amongst friends and colleagues with similar machines.
 
Did you stop to think that their use case, like mine, is not centered around an external display and as such do not experience the issues related to that usage? It DOES need to be noted that for those not using external displays this Mac works very well without excessive fan noise.

Mine also works as expected, but I also don't connect it to an external display. Do the fans ramp up from time to time? They do, but usually when I expect them to and it's not exceedingly loud when it happens.

Maybe Apple will update the display driver and tame things a bit when Big Sur releases next month?
 
Adobe has had some issues with the 5500m since I received mine last year. Almost a year in, they're tied it to the use of OpenGL and have me using prerelease builds running on Metal that seem to fix issues (though it has other issues). Specifically this has been problematic in Illustrator and Photoshop (also has a use Metal option that fixes things).

Random crashing - 24.0.3

I have a brand new 16" MacBook Pro. OS: Catalina 10.15.2. 32Gb Ram. 2.4 Gz Processor. Illustrator 2020 v24.0.3 The app is constantly, randomly crashing. When waking up machine (10 min auto sleep) there is a message waiting that Illustrator has unexpectedly quit. ,And, now it seems hung up on...
illustrator.uservoice.com
 
Not paid trolls...likely just folks that use it in a way that hasnt resulted in the weakness being exposed. You have to use external displays to experience it, and as this is a laptop, not all users will do this. They might not use external displays at all. I'm currently using mine (8-core/5500M) with two displays and the clamshell open...and it indeed has the inexplicable 20 watt draw but as these are QHD displays the fans are currently at idle with CPU PECI at about 150F...it would be much lower if that 20W draw didnt happen at idle, and this would also slow the process of fans ramping under CPU load as this GPU draw increases total heat (and it DOES reduce overall performance, especially single core performance). It's something that should be noted, but how big of an issue it is depends on usage and how sensitive someone is to fan noise.

It is not a perfect computer (mostly due to software support) but it is a very, very good design nonetheless. It would certainly be better if Apple addressed the dGPU and iGPU issues, all of which seem software related. As it stands right now, especially if someone wants to use multiple 4K (or 5K, 6K) displays or a 4K+ with the clamshell open simultaneously, they should be aware that these systems can be loud unless they are purchasing the 5600M GPU option, and so this might not be a perfect match for someone wanting a quiet system + multiple extremely high resolution displays. In sum, someone should test this thoroughly during the two week period to be sure the system works for them.
 
Do these issues occur in Windows 10 (via Boot Camp)? If they don't, then this is clearly a software problem. If they do, then it more points to hardware. Though, I'm inclined to believe it's software. Apple has ALWAYS had issues with multi-monitor implementations. It's the one basic computer function they still can't get right after 20 years of macOS/OS X/Mac OS X.
 
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