As long as the card mostly complies with the reference specification, they are able to be used in an eGPU enclosure. Support is not limited to any specific card vendor. Suggested enclosures come from companies like PowerColor, Sonnet, and OWC - but others can work as well.
These include the Radeon RX 570 and RX 580, the Radeon Pro WX 71, and finally the Radeon RX Vega 56, 64, and Vega Frontier Edition Air. This is long awaited news for many, and promises to supercharge post production users on the go.Īre you going to add a eGPU to your Mac? Let us know what you think in the comments.In a support page posted on late Thursday, the company suggests several AMD video cards. If you’re on the fence thinking about replacing an older Mac, this news may be enough to push you into a decision on a new Macbook Pro or iMac. I am sure many of you with older Thunderbolt 2 equipped Macs will be asking if you will be able to use an eGPU too. It will need mains power, so it’s not an unplugged solution.
With an integrated Radeon RX570, the Mac compatible Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Puck Radeon RX 570 provides 4GB of GDDR 5 GPU memory in a compact form factor that you can throw in your gear bag or backpack and hit the road.
Open Activity Monitor, then choose Window > GPU History.Īpple have so far listed only the Radeon GPU’s below:īe sure to check the full requirements explained in the Apple configuration document to make sure you match up the right eGPU enclosure for the GPU you want to use.įor mobile post production users that carry a Macbook Pro with them on set, or for editing and grading on the road, the new Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Puck could be just what you’ve been waiting for. View the activity levels of built-in and external GPUs.Use the menu bar item to safely disconnect the eGPU.Connect an eGPU while a user is logged inConnect more than one eGPU using the multiple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on your Mac.Use an eGPU with your MacBook Pro while its built-in display is closed.Charge your MacBook Pro while using the eGPU.Use virtual reality headsets plugged into the eGPU.Connect additional external monitors and displays.Accelerate applications that use Metal, OpenGL, and OpenCL.With eGPU support in macOS 10.13.4, you can: Now the wait is over, and Apple have released the requirements in a new document, which you should definitely familiarise yourself with if you’re planning to take the plunge.
I witnessed a Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Box unofficially running a Radeon GPU on a MacBook Pro twelve months ago at NAB 2017 but it required some back-end tweaking and was very “unofficial”. Thunderbolt 3 allows you to utilise 4 lanes of PCI Express with a total bandwidth of 2750MB/sec outside of your host system.Ī Thunderbolt to PCIe enclosure, such as the Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box provides power and high bandwidth PCIe for compatible desktop cards, not only GPU’s but even video I/O cards and non-GPU cards such as the RED ROCKET-X.
Better late than never, Apple will now officially add Mac eGPU drivers for Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs in MacOS 10.13.4.