egpu Experiments in eGPUs and my Horrible Decision to Buy a MacBook.

[Eggicus Roundplumpius]

Well, the title says the first and foremost: I regret everything. Nevertheless, I'm in this hole now and so I need to make camp.

 

I have a 16" MacBook Pro with an i9-9880H and a 5600M. Despite the 5600M being a very competent chip, I failed to realise something: it puts heat into the same cooler as the CPU. When gaming, they have to share the same credit card cooler and it has some, ahem, interesting side effects. Namely, the CPU will almost never go above 2Ghz when gaming. It'll usually just sit around 1.78Ghz or 1.67Ghz. Sometimes, if it's feeling extra miserable, it'll even go down to 1.3Ghz which is a very fun experience. I'm well aware this is a cooling issue because Throttlestop is telling me BDPROCHOT basically constantly. Fun fact: the MacBook Pro 16" will actually throttle even if the CPU is well below 90 degrees celsius. Why? Well, the VRMs overheat! Fun, that.

 

Anyway, question of the day: would an eGPU, effectively removing the 5600M from the cooling problem, at least get me to base clock while gaming? My reasoning is simply that if the internal GPU is doing nothing, it aught to give the CPU more breathing room, right? I mean, it'd still be like moving from a rubber mask to a pillow - still a smothering that will eventually chime the bells of death by warpage - but an improvement?

 

If anyone has access to at least similar hardware, I'd love to hear what your results were.

[AnotherGlenn]

No, not really. You will have the exact same issue regardless of it using an eGPU. MacBooks in general are known for their very poor thermals.

[8tg]

For the cost of a decent egpu you’d be better off just selling the MacBook and buying a different machine, potentially running hackintosh

ideally one with an adequate cooling setup like a Lenovo/Dell/hp mobile workstation 

 

 

Pic related, a Thinkpad P73’s Heatsink.

[Chris Pratt]

The thermals of the MacBook design aesthetic are just terrible. That's one of the major reasons Apple went back to their own silicon, and particularly ARM-based at that. They weren't willing to compromise their design for proper cooling, so they went with internals with less thermal load instead. Even without the GPU, the Intel CPU will thermal throttle.

[Roswell]

Those numbers are way out of line with what I see on mine. Are you doing this in bootcamp?

 

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

For the cost of a decent egpu you’d be better off just selling the MacBook and buying a different machine, potentially running hackintosh

ideally one with an adequate cooling setup like a Lenovo/Dell/hp mobile workstation 

 

 

Pic related, a Thinkpad P73’s Heatsink.

The 16 inch MacBook Pro that OP is talking about has a better (or at worst, equal) cooling solution than what you're posting. Their temps and throttling aren't normal for this model... there's something weird going on.

 

[8tg]

52 minutes ago, Roswell said:

The 16 inch MacBook Pro that OP is talking about has a better (or at worst, equal) cooling solution than what you're posting.

I’m certain a nearly un-vented chassis with a single gigantic heat pipe is managing to outperform or at least be on par with a properly vented Heatsink setup in a machine that handles twice the TDP and doesn’t thermal throttle.

It’s almost like having the air intake be a thin slot right above the exhaust is a terrible idea.

[Roswell]

7 minutes ago, 8tg said:

I’m certain a nearly un-vented chassis with a single gigantic heat pipe is managing to outperform or at least be on par with a properly vented Heatsink setup in a machine that handles twice the TDP and doesn’t thermal throttle.

It’s almost like having the air intake be a thin slot right above the exhaust is a terrible idea.

There’s big vents on each side and then two more under the hinge.

 

I think you’re thinking of the previous 15 inch model that ran from 2016-18. Those are the ones that had throttling issues.

[BondiBlue]

1 hour ago, 8tg said:

I’m certain a nearly un-vented chassis with a single gigantic heat pipe is managing to outperform or at least be on par with a properly vented Heatsink setup in a machine that handles twice the TDP and doesn’t thermal throttle.

It’s almost like having the air intake be a thin slot right above the exhaust is a terrible idea.

That's not correct at all. The 16" MBP has a decent amount of ventilation, and it's not just by the exhaust. 

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Laptops and Pre-Build Systems