2018 Mac Mini + Black Magic eGPU + Catalina?

[MikeGS3]

Hi,

I just purchased a Black Magic eGPU to use with my 2018 Mac Mini. It should arrive tomorrow 2nd of April. I’m already using Catalina (latest), but I’m seeing online reports that this combination does not work. Can anyone advise, yes it does or no it doesn’t?

I want to go for the Black Magic because I will be using it in a home music studio, so need it to be quiet as possible.

 

[WP31]

I have a 2018 MacMini (MM) connected to two monitors, one via a BlackMagic eGPU (BMeGPU):
* MM = 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, 32GB DDR4 Ram, Intel UHD Graphics 630
* One monitor = MM->BMeGPU->LG5k UltraFine all via Thunderbolt 3 (TB3)
* The other is MM->LG 43" Ultrawide via TB3->OWC TB3 Dock->Apple TB3 to TB2 adaptor->TB2 Cable->LG Ultrawide

It works great and is quiet. The MM fans spin up before the BMeGPU does. No problems starting up, logging in, etc. I don't do audio, photo, or video production. It's all 'normal' business uses - documents, spreadsheets, communications, calendars, video teleconferences, web, etc.

Any questions?

 

[MikeGS3]

I have a 2018 MacMini (MM) connected to two monitors, one via a BlackMagic eGPU (BMeGPU):
* MM = 3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, 32GB DDR4 Ram, Intel UHD Graphics 630
* One monitor = MM->BMeGPU->LG5k UltraFine all via Thunderbolt 3 (TB3)
* The other is MM->LG 43" Ultrawide via TB3->OWC TB3 Dock->Apple TB3 to TB2 adaptor->TB2 Cable->LG Ultrawide

It works great and is quiet. The MM fans spin up before the BMeGPU does. No problems starting up, logging in, etc. I don't do audio, photo, or video production. It's all 'normal' business uses - documents, spreadsheets, communications, calendars, video teleconferences, web, etc.

Any questions?

Hi WP31,

Thanks for your response.

That's good news, so can I assume you are also using the above set up on Catalina?

 

[WP31]

Hey Mike - yup. I just upgraded to 10.15.4 a day or two ago, seems mostly ok. I am having one odd issue that might or might not be related to the OS/eGPU. I have Photos.app set to "prefer the external GPU" (it's a setting in app info) and like to use it on my 5k monitor because of the HiDPI. Anyway, since I've upgraded, when I open photos.app on my non-eGPU/LGUW monitor it automatically closes and I have to open it again. Then if I lever the app on the non-eGPU monitor and select a recent photo the app closes. In both instances it does not generate a crash/error report, it just closes. I'm not sure if it's a photos.app issue, a macOS issue, or some combination. All things said, it's a pretty minor issue for me right now so I'm not really spending a lot of time trying to figure it out.

 

[MikeGS3]

Hi WP31,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Good to hear to the most part it seems to be working okay. I don’t really use the photos app so hopefully things will run smoothly.

It should be arriving today I’ll update with my experience.

 

[MikeGS3]

Well, it arrived, I plugged it into the Minni using a thunderbolt 3 cable and then plugged in my Samsung Ultrawide to the BM eGPU (also using a t3 cable), powered up and....

It all works as expected! I've now gone through and set most of my apps to "Prefer external GPU". The mini is definitely quieter in general. I'll give a good workout over the next few days.

PS... Anyone know how to get the Finder app to use the eGPU?

 

[WP31]

great!