I just can’t see myself spending that much on a laptop. I can’t productively use my laptop for day to day use without connecting it to two external monitors and keyboard anyway.
You can get an 8 Core 27 inch 5K iMac $100 cheaper, with less thermal constraints.
Having one desktop-powerful machine that can turn into a laptop when you unplug it from its dock and go with me anywhere is well worth the extra $100. And I'm saying this as someone with a dedicated desktop just for rendering/games. The desktop gives me customization and upgradability but the fact that I lose portability is huge and I'll never, ever own just a desktop machine. I'd prefer to own a laptop that can do my desktop duties when docked.
that's the theory, but in real life the macbook won't sustain 5ghz for very long at all, even less so with 8 cores. It simply can't get rid of the heat fast enough and throttles the speed to stay under thermal limits (while still toasting your balls).
The situation isn't helped by the GPU inside the same slim mbpro chassis that also gets super hot, it's particularly bad when you run mixed CPU/GPU workloads like rendering. So your desktop ends up being much faster for continuous workloads, even if on paper they both have 8-core 5ghz CPUs.
I had the 2018 6-core i9 mbpro. Got rid of it, if I were to buy a new mbpro again I would get a 4-core one.
So for GPU intensive workloads at least, it seems to make more sense to get a lower spec’d laptop for the road and an external GPU as a docking station if you need the portability.
Apple has a couple of eGPUs they made with Blackmagic (AMD RX580 - you don't want this one - and Vega 56), very slick looking and silent but unfortunately GPUs not user upgradeable and not great value for money.
You can use most tb3 eGPU enclosures and an AMD GPU of your choice. Vega64 prob the best choice now, Navi around the corner, can't use NVidia at all thanks to Apple. It'll cost you less than the official Apple eGPU and the GPU will be upgradeable
You can get an 8 Core 27 inch 5K iMac $100 cheaper, with less thermal constraints.
Sure I would take one if my company paid for it.