Out with the A1990, in with the A2141. The scissor keyboard marks a return on this reimagined and upsized MacBook Pro, after several years of controversy with the Butterfly Keyboard. It’s now called the Magic Keyboard, in line with the naming of other keyboard devices being sold. Screen real estate and resolution sees a bump-up, going up to 3072 x 1920 on a new 16″ display, keeping the 226 PPI. The processor also sees an upgrade over the last A1990, being one of the fewer Macs shipping with either a 9th or 10th generation intel CPU before the Apple Silicon transition. All CPU options for this model have a TDP of up to 45w.
Radeon Pro 5000M Series
Exclusive to the 2019 16″ MacBook Pro is the Radeon Pro 5300M, 5500M, and 5600M. The first two GPUs feature GDDR6, and the 5600M comes with HBM2, the latter which released as a BTO/CTO on June 15th 2020. These are extraordinarily powerful graphics cards, however also can be power hungry, rivaling the graphical power of some desktop GPUs. Although the A2141 chassis was improved over the A1990, there is still room left to be desired for a proper cooling solution. The VRMs in this laptop provided a lot of heat, in addition to the CPU/GPU.
The Intel UHD/HD line of Integrated Graphics continue trend of “vampire video” (that’s where the video bites into system memory). The 2006 Mac mini was the first Mac in a long, long time to do this, and more Macs started doing this in the late 2000’s – early 2010’s. Apple Silicon GPUs have unified memory, changing the traditional views on how system memory is used and shared throughout the system. The dedicated AMD GPU (dGPU) does not share it’s VRAM with the rest of the system, nor does it pull from the RAM.
Closed Lid Mode: All ‘Books support “lid closed” (or clamshell) mode, which leaves the built-in display off and dedicates all video RAM to an external display. To use closed lid mode, your ‘Book must be plugged into the AC adapter and connected to an external display and a USB or Bluetooth mouse and keyboard (you might also want to consider external speakers). Power up your ‘Book until the desktop appears on the external display and then close the lid. Your ‘Book will go to sleep, but you can wake it by moving the mouse or using the keyboard. The built-in display will remain off, and the external monitor will become your only display.
To resume use of the internal display, you need to disconnect the external display, put the computer to sleep, and then open the lid. This will wake up your ‘Book and restore use of the built-in display.
Battery life is claimed to be 11 hours of wireless productivity, 11 hours of iTunes movie playback, and up to 30 days of standby time.
Details
- Announced 2019.11.13
- Discontinued 2021.10.18
- Model: A2141 (EMC 3347)
- Identifier: MacBookPro16,1
- Order Number: MVVL2LL/A (Silver)
- MVVJ2LL/A (Space Gray)
Mac OS
- Requires macOS Catalina 10.15.1 (Build 19B2093)
Core System
Legend: L1i = L1 Instruction Cache, L1d = L1 Data cache
Sockets supported: FCBGA1440, PCIe revision: 3.0, max memory support: 128 GB
- Intel Core i7-9750H ($2399): 2.6 Ghz, 6 Cores, 12 Threads, 4.5 GHz Turbo
- 45W TDP, 14nm, Per-Core: 32KB L1i/32KB L1d, 256KB L2, Shared: 12 MB L3
- Comes with: MMX, SSE 4.2, AVX 2, EIST, XD Bit, VT-x, HTT, Optane, AES
- Intel Core i9-9980H($2799): 2.3 Ghz, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 4.8 GHz Turbo
- 45W TDP, 14nm, Per-Core: 32KB L1i/32KB L1d, 256KB L2, Shared: 16 MB L3
- Comes with: MMX, SSE 4.2, AVX 2, EIST, XD Bit, VT-x, HTT, Optane, AES
- Intel Core i7-9980HK ($2699/2999): 2.4 Ghz, 8 Cores, 16 Threads, 5.0 GHz Turbo
- 45W TDP, 14nm, Per-Core: 32KB L1i/32KB L1d, 256KB L2, Shared: 16 MB L3
- Comes with: MMX, SSE 4.2, AVX 2, EIST, XD Bit, VT-x, HTT, Optane, AES
- According to this link on Everymac.com: “This MacBook Pro was offered as a processor upgrade option for either the MacBook Pro “Core i7″ 2.6 16” 2019 or MacBook Pro “Core i9″ 2.3 16″ 2019. If otherwise stock configured, the price of the processor upgrade brought the total price to US$2699 or US$2999, respectively..”
Memory
- All models: 16/32/64 GB 2666 MHz PC4-21300 DDR4 SDRAM @41.8 GB/s
- 32 GB (+$400), 64 GB (+$800)
- Chipset supports up to 128GB but requires soldiering. Apple options: < 64 GB.
Video
- iGPU: Intel UHD 630, 1536 MB, 350 Mhz Base, 1.25 Ghz Max, 64GB Max VRAM allocation
- 16″ IPS TFT LED-backlit LCD Retina display, 3072 x 1920 @226PPI
- Note: All dGPUs have a TDP of <85w except the 5600M, which uses < 50w.
- dGPU: ($2399) AMD Radeon Pro 5300M, 4 GB GDDR6, Navi 14, 1280 Cores, RDNA 1.0, BGA-1125 chip package, 7nm TMSC, 6.4B transistors, equal to a desktop GTX 1050 TI or GTX 680.
1 GHz Base clock, 1.25 Ghz Boost, 1.5 Ghz Memory Clock (12 Gb/s effective) - dGPU: (+$100) AMD Radeon Pro 5500M, 4 GB GDDR6, Navi 14, 1280 Cores, RDNA 1.0, BGA-1125 chip package, 7nm TMSC, 6.4B transistors, about equal to a desktop Radeon RX 570/R9 290.
1 GHz Base clock, 1.45 Ghz Boost, 1.5 Ghz Memory Clock (12 Gb/s effective) - dGPU: (+$200) AMD Radeon Pro 5500M, 8 GB GDDR6
- dGPU: (+$800) AMD Radeon Pro 5600M, 8 GB HBM2 (394 GB/s), Navi 12, 2560 Cores, RDNA 1.0, 7nm TMSC, 6.4B transistors, about equal to a desktop Radeon R9 Fury/RX590, or a GTX 980, RX 580, RX 6500 XT, or GTX 1650 Super. 822 MHz Base clock, 1.144 Ghz Boost, 770 Mhz Memory Clock (1540 Mb/s effective)
Drives
- SSD: 512 GB, PCIe 3.0 x8, (~3 GB/s Read & Write)
- 1 TB (+$200), 2 TB (+$600), 4 TB (+$1200), 8 TB (+$2400)
- Optical drive: External only
Expansion/Misc
- USB: 4x USB-C style Thunderbolt 3 ports (40 Gb/s), with support for USB 3.1
- 3.5mm headphone jack
- Support for iPhone headset with remote and microphone
- WiFi: 802.11ac (a/g/b/n)
- Bluetooth: BT 5.0 built in
- 720p FaceTime Camera
- 3 Microphones
- “High‑fidelity six‑speaker system with force‑cancelling woofers”
- Wide stereo
- Charging via USB-C
Battery
- 11H Web / 11H iTunes Movies, 30 days standby.
- 100 W/h Li-Ion Polymer battery
Included Peripherals
- MacBook
- 96W Power Brick + Cord
Physical
- Size:H/W/D 0.64 x 14.09 x 9.68 in/1.62 x 35.79 x 24.59 cm
- Weight: 4.3 lb./2.0 kg
