I am playing all of my pc games with no issues. 32gb/5500 8gb. so it looks like no eGPU needed. 
Whilst the 16" MBP is a great machine for general use it runs too loud and too hot under stress, especially with external screens and peripherals attached.
So I now only use it as a standalone laptop, which is much better, but it shattered my dream of having just 1 Mac for all use, wherever I am. I ended up adding an M1 Mini for desktop use at home during the pandemic.
The 16" is heavy to carry around, but absolutely great to work on. I put a kickstand under it for better cooling as it still can take over the roomās noise levels once in a while, especially during Teams video calls. The effect can be noticed as the fans come on much less when used with the stand.
I recently solved the Windows issue on the M1 by using Windows 365. Expensive but a great service for all the Windows I need wherever I am. It is so good that I stopped using my Parallels instance of Windows 10 on the MBP 16 and use Windows 365 on that machine as well. Native Windows 10 performance and experience using virtually no Mac systems resources.
Given how the M1 Mini has performed - even under stress - I canāt wait for the next-gen M1 MBP and retire the 16", which in hindsight was not my best Apple buy and hasnāt seen anywhere near the use compared to previous generation MBPs. That said the pandemic has expedited the limitation of its use cases. When I bought the 16" MBP I must have been too eager to ditch my 2016 MBP with its third butterfly keyboard 
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I tried this with my 2017 mbp and it was fine for apps but games ignited the furnace fans. I traded it in and got the M1 for āfreeā but I bought an iMac 2020 for heavy lifting at home. My mbp16 is strictly mobile and I am really enjoying it. A great machine and I wish I had bought it immediately when it was released.
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I have a personal M1 MacBook Air and a work issued 2019 16inch MacBook Pro (upgraded RAM and hard drive space). I was using a 2020 5K iMac for my main machine when working from home, but my workplace is requiring use of their hardware to access confidential databases via VNC. I miss the 5K iMac, but now my wife loves it.
The speakers and the screen real estate of the 16 inch set it apart from the MacBook Air for me. Touch Bar is kind of interesting, but I donāt really use it very much. If I need to grab a laptop and sit on the couch to surf the web, etc., I usually grab the thinner and lighter MacBook Air. The weight difference of the 16 inch vs. the Air is noticeable in my bag. Theyāre both great laptops, either is the best Iāve ever had.
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Interesting for me to see this thread being bumped up as I recently had a similar dilemma. Choose a upgraded 13" intel MacBook Pro or a 13" MacBook Air M1. Many in this forum recommended M1 and I am inclined to agree as one of my pet peeves with the current 4-year-old MacBook Pro is that constant fan blowing (noise) and heat. Considering I have no advantage on screen size, I think that having a quiet computer will be good for my sanity 
I wrestled with it from the day I got my M1 Air in 2020. I found myself āmissing somethingā in the M1. I was an early user of Parallels and Crossovers Windows 10 and then Windows 11 as I attempted to apply band-aids to the M1 to bring it up to what I had on 2017 Macbook Pro. You could get most of the Windows productivity apps running but we have the same or superior apps in macOS. The problem was the gaming. Running Windows in a vm box gives you just the minumum in gaming. I could not even run my favorite game (Planet Zoo) which is far from those AAA first person shooters like Battlefield or Call of Duty.
So as the clock ticked down to the new M1x, I knew that if I wanted AppleCare+ on the Macbook Pro 16, I needed to act before they pulled them out of the store. Ultimately that was the deciding factor. A new one + AppleCare vs. a used one after the M1x are revealed. As I said before, the M1 is sitting unused in my closet now so obviously I am missing nothing. on my two year old intel architecture macbook pro 16.
ā¦and the m1x is not going anywhereā¦ it will be available a few years from now, even better, and maybe Apple and Microsoft will even have a Boot Camp ARM edition.
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Real Time Update:
Congrats on your new beasty Macbook Pros.
still happy with my purchase and no buyers remorse. The new machines are nice and I am excited about them but they are not what I want right now. 
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Will Apple continue to offer intel MacBooks in their websites? Iād think there are some workflows which still requires it.
When Tim Cook opened the Apple Event yesterday, he was talking about a two year transition and that Apple is one year into it. We all know that, but it was interesting that apparently he wanted to make that clear again: the transition is ongoing.
If you have a look at the online shop, you will see that there are no Intel MacBooks or MacBook Pros left (if I am not mistaken). The laptop lineup has finished its transition yesterday. The beefy desktops in the professionalsā offices are still Intel ones.
Regarding Intel: Its CEO Pat Gelsinger is hoping to win Apple back by outcompeting it. He hopes to make better chips than Apple does in the future. Have a look / listen. It may sound crazy. But honestly, that is the only way Intel can succeed: to become a good alternative again - or even better than its competitorsā¦ A very, very long way to goā¦ Especially when looking to the PC side. It is not as dramatic as it is for Intel with Macs, but AMDās Ryzen processors and Windows for ARM are not exactly what looks like a bright future for Intelā¦
Regarding Intel workflows on the Mac: For consumers? I do not think that there are workflows that require an Intel Mac as of today. I might miss something. What exactly is it that you do have in your mind? Windows virtualization is the only āworkflowā I can think about at the moment (while getting better and better on M1 Macs). Apple has done an impressive job with Rosetta and the M1 processor family: even software which is not optimized for the Mac is running just fine (I have not had any issues at all on my M1 MacBook Air). And developers seem to be quite good in getting native software for the M1 family to their customers. For professional users (professional as in non-marketing speech professional) there may be issues, but like Cook said: we still are in this transition period. The MacBook Pro is the first Pro Mac that has completed its transition to the M1. All other Pro Macs have not even started their transition. The desktop Macs (the bigger iMacs, the bigger Mac Minis and of course the Mac Pro) have not shown up so far. It will be interesting to see them appearing within the next 12 months. I am confident that even those professional workflows will be ready for the M1 familiy when the Pro Macs eventually will be available in 2022.
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I use my Intel Mac for running Windows software that doesnāt work on ARM Windows, testing x86 binaries when coding, playing AAA games, using a desktop-class eGPU for video rendering and being able to run full Windows 11 (x86), so I can prepare classes for users running Windows and test out ideas for future classes.
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My solution: I will use a headless PC for my Windows stuff. I will not bother with virtualization any more. And I will connect to it using RDP. This is when my Intel Mac Mini eventually will be replaced. Whenever that might happen.
I think the ship has sailed for a Mac being a dedicated PC. Windows will continue to work on a Mac (with the limitations you have mentioned, some of them are in place because of Microsoft), but it will not be a full-fledged Windows PC in the near future. Bootcamp already kind of has been like a neglected child in recent years. And this transition is the final nail in the coffin. I think that Apple would like to have it differently but they need Microsoft for that. And Microsoft does not show much enthusiasm with its ARM branch. ARM PCs are a sad thing right now: they run Windows but they have severe issues with software adaption. And as long as ARM PCs have issues, virtualized ARM PCs on a Mac will not be betterā¦
So, for use cases like the one you mentioned an Intel Mac still is a good option. But time is running out and when the M1 Macs will become the new normal, Intel Macs might show that their days are numbered software wise.
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If Apple sticks to their current policy a seven year countdown started the year @macsorcery ās Intel MacBook Pro was made. After that āApple discontinues all hardware service for obsolete products, with the sole exception of Mac notebooks that are eligible for an additional battery-only repair period. Service providers cannot order parts for obsolete products.ā
Five years is not too bad, but like you said Intel software may be another matter. And that probably has occurred to an MPU. Iāve always said choose your software first and let that determine what hardware is required.
Looks to me like he made the right choice for his situation.
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I always ran my Windows PC from work side by side with my own Mac when working from home. I couldnāt imagine āpollutingā my own Mac with Windows stuff, making the mental and physical shifts required to switch back and forth on the same machine, or putting up with the hundred and one little incompatibilities. Windows PCs are cheap (or provided by work.). Why put yourself through that?
I use parallels most of the time (except for gaming), and Iāve never had a single issue. Being able to launch Windows apps instantly in Mac OS means I never have to switch between operating systems, which is my preferred way to work.
My Windows 11 image is on an external SSD. I also have boot camp for Windows 10 and gaming and it doesnāt interfere with MacOS in any way or form.
I much prefer MacBooks to Windows laptops and need the portability of a laptop as I often need to take it into work for demonstrations. I also cannot do with a low-end one as I teach data analysis and need decent performance. An equivalent Windows laptop is around ā¬2000 and I am self employed so it doesnāt make any sense for me.
Glad to hear it works for you. You donāt mention the need to run all sorts of enterprise software and to fit into the computing environment of a 25,000-employee company.
We were all given well-specād laptops and required to take them home each night in case our office burned down 
or it snowed two feet over night. Even good PCs are relatively cheap and justifiable in a work context.
You can probably get really good deals on such slightly-out-of-date Macs right now - potentially cheaper than an equivalent PC laptop and for sure something that will last longer.
If the 2019 model does what you need (maybe better than the 2021 model as you say) that makes a lot of sense.
the key to your statement is āfrom homeāā¦ some of us require or just want both when were traveling for work or play. This is where the issue gets cloudy. The beauty of the Macbook Pro was we could have both in one shiny metal wrapper. Those days are going away now.
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I can understand your position. I never found myself wanting to do anything on my Windows laptop except work. And for work I needed a Windows laptop. Now that Iām retired, Microsoft is no longer a part of my life.
They are, and I truly do lament them too, but those days are being replaced by days in which the computer on our desktop or in our bag is being used mainly as a device that shuffles windows around and runs javascript front end software for cloud based applications. Even gaming is starting to go that way.
Weāre not there yet and we may never get 100% of the way, but for nearly everyone and for nearly every use case thatās what computing will look like, and much sooner than most of us realize.
I think that you made the right choice for yourself. Iām not yet ready to trade in my 16" MBP for one of these new machines either, but for a few years now Iāve been gradually shocked (is that a thing?) at how little the thing Iām actually working with matters anymore and how much less it matters every year. Itās a little sad in some ways.
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