If you are serious about gaming on a laptop, then finding the best external video card enclosure for your personal needs is a great idea. An Ideal eGPU Companion for Your Mac or PC. The gaming gurus at Razer have always been good at supporting Macs - despite the fact that Apple has traditionally turned its nose up at gaming on the Mac - and its Core range of eGPU enclosures has been Mac-compatible for quite a long time. The 2019 Mac Pro might be the best Mac desktop ever by a long shot, but the Mac mini is the best value desktop Mac, and it remains my favorite desktop Mac to this day. The XG Station Pro is sold 'unpopulated' - without a graphics card - and installing your own graphics card involves removing and replacing multiple screws and metal plates as you open up the case and then put it back together again. To be precise, an eGPU actually consists of two components that you normally have to buy separately. I, like many others, hoped that it'd be possible to easily use an egpu with a macbook pro to have a solid mobile gaming rig. AppleInsider has affiliate partnerships and may earn commission on products purchased through affiliate links. There are also specialist companies, such as Sonnet and Blackmagic, that just focus on making eGPU enclosures and other upgrade products for Macs and PCs. There are a few eGPUs that are sold with a graphics card already installed inside, such as the Blackmagic eGPU and Sonnet Puck that we review here. While there is a considerable number of docks on the market, there is almost certainly one that will work for you, despite the bewildering array of choice. Docks typically have external power sources, which enable power delivery functionality. The Puck includes a built-in graphics card, but measures just 51mm high, 152mm wide and 130mm deep. It's also worth pointing out that the Radeon graphics card allowed us to activate additional graphics options - such as MSAA (multi-sample anti-aliasing) - that aren't normally available with the Mac mini's integrated graphics. Simply put, a Thunderbolt 3 dock plugs into a Thunderbolt 3 port, and in exchange provides a multitude of other connections. (There are lots of Windows PCs that have Thunderbolt 3 these days too and, in fact, many of the eGPU enclosures that are on sale at the moment are designed by PC manufacturers for their own gaming PCs and laptops.). While AppleInsider first looked at it at the start of 2018, the dock is still actively in use by one writer after all of this time. Here's the crazy thing; nowadays I'm running fcpx without any eGPU. The Vega 64, Radeon VII and 5700 XT are all great and powerful graphics cards for eGPUs, but which one is … Once you've chosen the eGPU that's best for you, you'll want to read about How to use an eGPU with a Mac. With a starting price of $699, the Mac mini offers blazing performance and remains the most flexible desktop Mac. The sheer size of the Core X also means that it has room for a large internal power supply, which can drive even the most powerful graphics cards and still charge up a laptop at the same time. In rare situations, there is the opportunity to add a hard drive to an eGPU enclosure, turning it into an external storage device. The PCIe expansion slot inside the enclosure is also a standard component, so it should allow you to insert any graphics card made by AMD or nVidia, the two big companies that dominate the GPU market these days. In the meantime, here's our round-up of the best eGPU enclosures that can turn your Mac into a real graphics powerhouse. This pro device can turn its hand to a spot of off-duty gaming as well - lifting the Mac Mini's performance from just 25fps in Batman: Arkham Asylum to a speedy 67fps, even on the game's 'extreme' graphics settings. There's just a single Thunderbolt 3 port on the back that lets you connect the Core X to your Mac, but no other ports or connectors at all (and the video connectors for external monitors will be part of the graphics card that you supply yourself). In 2019 you would specify that fcpx use the eGPU instead of the igp, and it would push that eGPU utilization for all tasks. AppleInsider would highly suggest the CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 3 Plus (TS3 Plus) as an excellent example of a dock that should work for most people. Best eGPU for Mac: Mantiz Saturn Pro, Razer Core X Chroma and ASUS XG Station Pro. Apple doesn't support nVidia's GeForce graphics cards on macOS, but the Core X will work with a wide range of AMD cards when used with a Mac, from the low-cost RX 470 up to the professional-level Radeon Pro and Vega cards. There can't be many people who need four monitors, and we wouldn't have minded swapping one or two of those video interfaces for some extra USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt ports instead. The first consideration is what ports are required. But, unfortunately, many Macs and MacBook models still rely on 'integrated graphics' to handle graphics, video and animation work. Apple's website currently lists these GPUs as being compatible with macOS: You should also remember that the high-end Radeon Pro and Vega graphics cards require a lot of power, so you should always check with the manufacturer of your eGPU enclosure to make sure that its internal power supply is suitable for the graphics card that you plan to use (most manufacturers do have this info on their web site, along with a list of compatible graphics cards). “ But on Catalina, Apple doesn’t allow that software to install, so no power delivery.“. Speaking of power delivery, it is worth investing in a dock that offers enough to provide power to your MacBook for use and for recharging. 47 'eGPU' stories. By doing this via a dock, the port that would have been used for power is instead freed up for use for both power and for data transfer, enabling it to be fully usable. Functionally, they work similarly to a dock, in that they connect over Thunderbolt 3, can potentially provide power delivery, and performs a function. And while the Mac mini could only manage 14.5fps with the high-tier Aztec test in GFXBench the XG Station Pro cruised ahead at a smooth 90fps. It doesn't have room for an internal power supply, though, so you have to plug it into an external power 'brick' - although you can at least put that down on the floor to keep it out of the way. Instead of relying on having multiple adapters to connect your devices to a MacBook via the few Thunderbolt 3 ports, you instead have one unit that you connect everything through. Another thing we really like about Sonnet eGPUs is that it’… However, we tested the more powerful model, which has a Radeon RX 570 and costs £648/$499. Think of it as a USB hub, but instead of simply providing more of the same port, the dock usually includes a selection of commonly-used connections, alongside more Thunderbolt 3 ports. In fact Sonnet Breakaway Boxes were the first to be endorsed by Appleand marketed to Apple developers to help encourage the development of VR and AI apps on macOS. The advent of Thunderbolt 3, a high-bandwidth 40Gbps connection and power delivery over a single small cable, led to an explosion of user-friendly plug-and-play docks that consumers can easily install and use with relative ease. Apple’s latest Mac mini is the first to feature the company’s own M1 chip inside. By However, its new eGPU Pro steps right up to a professional-level Radeon RX Vega 56 with 8GB of video memory. There have been a lot of rumours flying around about Apple developing some sort of headset or glasses that will bring virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) to the Mac and iOS devices. Compatible graphics cards: Radeon RX 570 and RX 580, and Radeon Pro WX7100. Macs are often criticised for being overpriced and underpowered - especially when it comes to the kind of graphics performance that is needed for the latest 3D games, or for professional video-editing and animation software. This guide should work the same for any eGPU that is compatible with macOS … The simplest answer is to have more connection options. And, at 230mm high, 165mm wide and 370mm deep, it will need plenty of desk space if you want to sit it beside your Mac (especially as Razer's Thunderbolt cable is only 0.5m long, so you'll have to buy a longer cable if you want to move the Core X down on to the floor). While it is possible to connect a Thunderbolt 3 dock to a computer's USB-C port, or a USB-C dock to a Thunderbolt 3 port, the maximum possible bandwidth will be 10Gbps instead of 40Gbps, as well as potential limitations on power delivery. 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