2019 MacBook Pro 16" 8-Core 2.4GHz i9 150FPS

[figure1a]

FPS were jumping around between 140 and 160 so I'm gonna call it 150. This is a fully maxed out 2019 16" MBP.

[mattjgerard]

Impressive, that's more than my old dual XEON hp 640z. Love that laptop, is the only one in the mac lineup I wold even think of replaceing my tried and true 2015 15" with. So many dollars though....

Wonder if the thermal system of the laptop will allow it to sustain that rate for while as the machine heats up, or if it will throttle it?

[richardfunnell]

@mattjgerard Don't want to hijack this thread, but I'm taking my 16" MBP to the Apple Store today to get it checked out. Even using only a percentage of the available cores, my laptop loses power while running KeyShot (or testing through Intel power gadget) while plugged in.

No throttling, but getting a red battery symbol while plugged in is a PITA :/

[br3ttman]

Figure1a - I was curious to hear about how well your MacBook is performing as I've ordered the same model, due to ship this coming Friday.  However, it'd be nice to know if you're having the same issues as RichardFunnell?

[Furniture_Guy]

Just got a new one myself and use it for everything BUT Keyshot...

Perry (Furniture_Guy)

[figure1a]

@mattjgerard Don't want to hijack this thread, but I'm taking my 16" MBP to the Apple Store today to get it checked out. Even using only a percentage of the available cores, my laptop loses power while running KeyShot (or testing through Intel power gadget) while plugged in.

No throttling, but getting a red battery symbol while plugged in is a PITA :/

The 16" is a power hog. Even plugged in to the 96W power adapter that Apple supplies, the machine will pull more power than the power adapter can supply and then will start to canabilize it's own battery to the point that it drains the battery as you experienced. I've done lots of power tests on the MBPs for the past two years as I make a portable battery solution for the USB-C MBPs call the Powrbloc. The biggest question we get from customers is if the Powrbloc will can fully power the 16" MBP and I have to tell them "no" it won't just like the Apple supplied power adapter won't either.

[figure1a]

Figure1a - I was curious to hear about how well your MacBook is performing as I've ordered the same model, due to ship this coming Friday.  However, it'd be nice to know if you're having the same issues as RichardFunnell?

I've actually only been using my 16" as my day to day laptop which means like email/web and some light Photoshop so I haven't really put the 16" machine through the paces. But I've talked with many people that have the same issue as Richard.

[mattjgerard]

Dang, what a stupid thing for apple to do. "Hey lets make a thing that can't do what we made it to do!"

Ugh. They make it so easy to hate them. I love the touch bar, I love the screens, I love the OS. I just don't love the price they charge for a laptop that has to eat its own resources to work.

[br3ttman]

RichardFunnel, have you by chance heard anything back from Apple?

Thank you all for your sharing!  I so love my portable MacBook workflow.  My 2013 set-up has been a workhorse for me for nearly 7 years, but I typically need to run my final renderings on it overnight and it just doesn't run KeyShot 9.0 very well.  I'd sure like a newer faster set-up, but I still want it to run flat out for up to a few hours for queued renderings, if necessary.  Looks like I might cancel my backordered 2019 MacBook 16". 

I'm checking in with Apple as well, and share what I find.

[br3ttman]

Another question for figure1a and richardfunnell:  So if you just left your new MacBook Pro 16" plugged in and running KeyShot, after the battery drains, does it then just shutdown altogether?  Or does it hobble along at a significantly reduced FPS?

[figure1a]

Another question for figure1a and richardfunnell:  So if you just left your new MacBook Pro 16" plugged in and running KeyShot, after the battery drains, does it then just shutdown altogether?  Or does it hobble along at a significantly reduced FPS?

I've never run it all the way down. But an overnight render might do the trick as that would surely have all the processors firing at 100% as using significant power. Someone would have to measure how many watts a 16" MBP running full tilt is pulling and figure out the difference of what the 96W power supply can supply and then do the math on how many hours it would kill the internal battery as well. I believe the internal battery capacity is 100Wh.

[richardfunnell]

Just a quick update from my end, got my laptop back last night.
To start with, this laptop isn't my primary computer (using a Threadripper workstation for most of my work), so this has only really been an issue while doing KeyShot training. That said, it's been a pain.

The Apple store ran a bunch of diagnostics, both with a remote and local series of tests to tax the machine including overnight. According to them, the machine is working fine. To be safe, they replaced my power brick (at my insistence) since it was the only thing that they didn't test.

So far today, I'm testing a scene on this laptop with a cycling animation using caustics at 100% usage in KeyShot. No drop in power so far, and the system seems to be stable. One change this time around is that I'm plugged directly into the wall instead of using a power strip. So either my brick was faulty, or power strips aren't all made the same (which is a likely possibility).

br3ttj, to follow up on your question: when the battery drains, everything starts lagging and slowing down. No shutdowns, just painfully slow interactions OS-wide.

The issue seems to be exacerbated when plugged into power strips (both mine and while traveling), so I'd say the issue is resolved with that caveat. Hope that clears it up?

[mattjgerard]

Well, glad to hear its better, but not glad to hear that they designed the power brick with such a fine line of tolerance to holding a charge to the battery that one would sneak through their QC process and be able to produce a scenario like that.

I do know that when rendering on my mac at home, KS will use EVERY cycle available on the CPU, so much so that if want to do anything else, I can't have the processor usage set to 100%. Even on my Monster PC here, if I'm at 100% I can't even check my email.

I've had similar issues with power strips. You'd think that they would just pass power through and be fine, but nope, some are so cheaply built (even brand name ones) that I don't trust them anymore, unless its an expensive one or a UPS.

[br3ttman]

Thank you all for sharing your experience and trouble shooting on your new 2019 16" MacBooks. It's been very helpful as I take delivery of mine this weekend.  One additional thought comes to mind as I read back through all your comments, in particular mattjgerard's last input:  Is KeyShot 9.1/9.2 more taxing compared to previous releases?  I run KeyShot 8 just fine on my 2013 MacBook Pro, and the initial release of 9.0 seemed to be fine, but now that I'm 9.2, it seems to be frequently locking up all my resources, even when I designate just 50% or 25% of my cores for KeyShot.

[br3ttman]

I promised I'd follow up with my KeyShot performance on my new 2019 MacBook Pro 16".  A big thanks to Figure1a, Richardfunnel, mattjgerard, and Furniture_Guy for their posts on this thread!

- Set-up:  2019 MacBook Pro 16" 8-Core 2.4GHz i9, 64Gb Ram,
- Time in Use:  I've had it 6 weeks now and it's running like a dream.
- FPS:  Like Figure1a, I'm getting around 150 fps with the camera bench mark.
- Power Draw:  No problems with it drawing power faster than the power supply could provide as encountered by Richardfunnel.  I went out of my way to challenge it by running KeyShot 8 and 9 simultaneously, all cores on KeyShot 9 running a rendering, all cores on KeyShot 8 setting up a scene, plus jumping around and manipulating large documents in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and running a Youtube video on Safari.  Battery stayed at 100% throughout.  I then unplugged the power supply with all the programs still running until the battery dropped to 75%.  Then I reattached the power supply, but the battery took about 25 mins to charge an additional 1%, so there wasn't much extra power available.
- Battery Power Only:  All out at 16 cores, it lasts only about 55-60 mins.  Found this out by accident when I forgot to plug in my power supply for an overnight rendering. Fortunately, it shut itself off with the battery at 1or 2%.
- KeyShot Auto Idle After Rendering Queue:  I was also pleasantly surprised to learn KeyShot now ramps down after finishing long renderings and queues, especially overnight, rather than continuing to run until I'd wake up to shut it down.
- Expensive?:  My MacBook build retails at $4200, but B&H Photo had a $400 discount, I opened a new freelance business banking account ($300 bonus) and a business credit card ($500 bonus) which I used to purchase it, and then with the capital expense against my taxes (~$1100 tax savings), the effective total price was only about $1900.
- Worth it? - Definitely!  Paired with a 12.9" 2018 iPad Pro, I have an extremely powerful, portable 2 screen workstation whether at the office, in a coffee shop, at a hotel, on an airplane, (or now in my basement Corona bunker), that allows me do all my professional 2D and 3D design work, in a portable package less than 1" thick and under 10 lbs (including my laptop bag and accessories.)
- Next Upgrade?  eGPU - I'd like to offload the longer renderings an animations to an eGPU, so I'm investigating hacks, patches, and/or Windows bootcamp interface with a Razer Core box and Nvidia cards.  Any tips?