Is running two monitors off a 2017 MacBook Pro 13” too much for the computer to handle?

Solution 1:

No, it’s not too much for the 13 but it does get hot. The 15 churns out even more power in my experience, so I would stick with 13 inch models or the 2018 Air if you want less heat with the current generations of MacBook Pro.

I would get a stand and not run in closed clamshell mode and also consider a Mac mini and an Air or iPad if you can let your desktop run cooler and not need a MacBook Pro.

We buy Macs at work to run Adobe products as well. I have about 250 people globally that push their MBP hard all day in closed clamshell mode and we've had a handful of failures like you describe - KP / GPU halts / then need a repair. People that do not have one or someone new to running them without fail say "these are running too hot" - all 250 just run hot - especially driving pixels or doing video chat in MS teams for instance. Some even KP / GPU halt occasionally and never need repair (or haven't yet). The repair rate is less than 1% for us even when we push these hard / all day / CPU hot / closed / driving two displays.