Upgrade CPU with Intel 12th or 13th generation on 2019 16” MacBook Pro

These machines were lemons. I usually recommend people sell them while people will overpay for bad design and get the M2 14/16" but strongly encourage them to try a 16" since it's not a lightweight like the 14". Pro or Max is negligible depending on if you need it, or want things like the 1TB SSD/32GB RAM without waiting for example (like I want 32GB/1TB so I'd go M2 Max to get it that way from the store). THERE IS A REASON YOU STILL SEE PEOPLE LIKE ME RUNNING AROUND WITH 2014/15 SYSTEMS. WE AVOIDED THESE DUE TO THE CPU COOLING FAIL AND USB-C DESIGN. We're waking up and the days of paying $900+ for these monstrosities is closing any day; anyone who passed might as well avoid it, and anyone dumping one needs to dump it ASAP!

The 16" fits well with the former 17" and 15" users (I loved the screen when I tried one with the M1, but I remember the weight of the 17" and run a 2014/15 15"), but the size tends to be a bit much for the ones who aren't familiar with how big and heavy they are. CPU swapping these is like if you put lipstick on a pig that gets too big to move on it's own. You might as well turn the pig into bacon (or in the case of the 2019 16", $800-900 or so to upgrade) and walk.

It took getting rid of Ive and Intel CPUs to get rid of these issues, and having someone who understands users who run the machines hard. The M1's were already insane so the M2 is just turning the dial a bit more. Apple Silicon can run things like the Affinity suite way faster than Intel ever did, even the V1 Affinity SW (but I suspect V2 will be better on the M2 Macs). That said, I own the entire V2 suite and got it for $100 during the launch sale and got $260 in free plugins later so it's a matter of sticking with V2 despite buying in at $100. Nowadays the V2 upgrade is $128+the $260 bundle for free for V1 owners, or $170 without extras (new purchases).

@nick - As soon as I saw the thermals in the 2016 systems where encountering I had my misgivings. Intels failure should have had someone in Apple having a Plan-B in process for the 2018/19 models. Not building a workable system which was going to be used for image/video rendering work was a big mistake!

At least the i5 & i7 chips while still too hot could be managed by over-riding the fans and making sure to keep both the vents clear as well as the fans and heatsink clean so you didn’t loose there cooling efficiency.

Just like a knife one needs to use it properly! That also holds true here. I do agree the i9 shouldn’t have been sold and any one owning one likely bought it as a status symbol not a working pro with very few exceptions.

@danj That’s why my recommendation is to sell now and move to the M series. These were flawed beyond repair.

I would argue most people can dump these and run, but I also know some genuinely can’t and will just have to take the hit when they get revalued appropriately.

I blame Jony Ive because right after he left the picture they undid all of the bad design elements.

Thank you both for your feedback. I would too keep i7 instead of i9 on macbook pro 2019/2020 for a matter of heat dissipation. However the 8 cores of the i7 are quite a limit for me. I make intensive use of virtualization, especially Windows but also Linux, and dividing cores between the virtual machine and macos cuts my CPU performance in two. I would therefore need a sufficient number of cores (as well as Ram) that would allow me to use both environments fluidly and without excessive slowdowns. For example, it appears that a simple app like Microsoft Excel, unlinke on macos, on windows can parallelize spreadsheet calculations on multiple cores, so for example 4 core are not enough for files with multiple and large sheets. I also thought about switching to M-silicon chips, however I'm not sure windows x86-64 app can work on windows arm side, because on the developer site there is no information about it. So it's pretty difficult for me take a decision

@haroldralde Right, but at least you see the rationale to dump these laptops if you can do so while people are paying top dollar. Eventually, there will be more of these vs demand as people realize these were total crap.

I have two apps of concern: Affinity Photo and Designer V1, but in the sense they aren't fully M2 optimized (meh, I got the full V2 suite for $100). In order to avoid issues I will have to adjust my workflow for V2, and keep V1 for legacy stuff and install V2 on anything M-Series, or install both and consider V1 a maintenance installation.

As far as Photoshop Elements (I only have this because some things use PS as a plugin link and I refuse to touch CC -_-, even if I could buy a copy of CS6 used I'd never be able to use it because of the 32-bit installers which Adobe refuses to update to force CC on the masses, and unfortunately did get their way) Adobe is an absolute dumpster fire about supporting non-SaaS products and bins critical things like CMYK and LAB/16 support to the CC cash cow. I also expect them to purposefully cut support early if it isn't SaaS to keep you buying, so I don't even try with Adobe. When it breaks, it breaks; especially things like Apple Silicon.