If you’re not familiar, eGPU is short for an external GPU (graphics processing unit) and refers to the ability for a computer (usually a laptop) to be able to use a GPU or graphics card in an external housing as if it was built into the computer. (Which, I’m well aware, makes me a great candidate for the M1. With High Sierra, Apple has finally given native eGPU support to Macs and MacBooks. Honestly, if it didn’t cook my system, I’d just run on the internal GPU all the time, regardless of the degraded performance. This left me with a bad taste in my mouth for the clunkiness that is an eGPU. (Anecdotally, my system crashes stopped when I switched to a shorter TB cable.)
If your Thunderbolt cable or OS implementation isn’t perfect, you’ll see system crashes frequently, not to mention if your cable gets yanked. This puts your system at all sorts of stability risks, which I’ve personally seen. You’re taking a core system component like the GPU and stringing it outside of your machine.
However, like you said, it just hasn’t panned out, and it reminds me of other neato ideas over the years there were technical feats but were in retrospect kinda dumb (dual video cards, dual dial-up modems–yes that was a thing for a hot 5 minutes in the '90s).
It seems like a gimmick of the time when we were awed by the bandwidth and external bus capabilities of Thunderbolt 3, and thought it would be amazing to have a full-powered GPU on a lightweight mobile device. When I do it over (in a couple of years when this system is needing replaced), I have no interest in the eGPU route.
APPLE EGPU SUPPORT PRO
Remember how 5 years ago there was all this hype and excitement over eGPU options for laptops by Razer, Dell, Apple, etc? It didn’t just stagnate and disappear for no reason.Īs the owner of the Blackmagic eGPU Pro with a MacBook Pro 2018, I firmly agree with your assessment. In a lot of ways it was like SLI setups where the in-theory concept was fine but actual use-cases turned out to be rather limited. But there's clearly a lot of work ahead.Ĭheck out Apple's official eGPU support page for a list of the computers, graphics cards and eGPU enclosures that currently work.The industry tried the eGPU route and… it hasn’t really panned out. Official Apple support is a major milestone toward that goal.
APPLE EGPU SUPPORT WINDOWS
(Search that page for "The Ugly" to see a chart depicting just how much worse.)Īfter playing with the Razer Core eGPU and a pair of thin Windows laptops, I'm personally super excited about a future where eGPUs could make traditional desktops obsolete.
APPLE EGPU SUPPORT UPDATE
Technically, the feature had been kinda-sorta enabled in MacOS since High Sierra first launched, but this latest update brings official compatibility for a host of external GPU enclosures and AMD graphics cards, plus the abilities to hot-swap and/or safely disconnect an eGPU by tapping a button in the operating system.
APPLE EGPU SUPPORT PC
That day has arrived: MacOS High Sierra 10.13.4 now officially supports eGPUs, letting you plug a box containing a desktop graphics card into a laptop or all-in-one PC to drastically up its graphics performance and hook up additional monitors. yet.Īpple promised it would let you tap into the power of an external graphics card with your late-model MacBook Pro, iMac Pro and 2017 iMac. Neither it nor this Nvidia GPU officially work with Apple computers. The Razer Core, an external graphics box for Windows laptops.