My wife owns a 2016 maxed-out 13" MBP and loves the compact size for air travel. She also has an LG 5K monitor, which she plugs into at home for image editing and general computing. She's been shooting a Nikon D850 for close to 2 years now, and processing the RAW files in Lightroom and Photoshop put a real strain on her system (especially when using the external monitor). The fans get really loud and the computer slows to a crawl within the first few minutes of image processing. She has to close all open programs, but that only gives her minimal improvement in the smoothness of the editing process.
That all changed yesterday when I picked up a Blackmagic egpu (the non-pro version). It was remarkably easy to set up; just plugged the laptop into the egpu and then from the egpu to the LG monitor. Gone are the fans. Gone are the glitchy slow-downs. Everything runs silky smooth.
I was reluctant to buy the Blackmagic unit, because of the mixed to slightly negative reviews. But the vast majority of those reviews were by gamers or video editors, and many of the reviews were using a 15" MBP with discrete graphics for comparison. I figured I'd give the egpu a try, since LR and PS are much less taxing applications compared to games and video editing. And it works brilliantly! Just thought I'd add a photographer's experience with the Blackmagic egpu to the long list of gamer/video editor reviews.
That all changed yesterday when I picked up a Blackmagic egpu (the non-pro version). It was remarkably easy to set up; just plugged the laptop into the egpu and then from the egpu to the LG monitor. Gone are the fans. Gone are the glitchy slow-downs. Everything runs silky smooth.
I was reluctant to buy the Blackmagic unit, because of the mixed to slightly negative reviews. But the vast majority of those reviews were by gamers or video editors, and many of the reviews were using a 15" MBP with discrete graphics for comparison. I figured I'd give the egpu a try, since LR and PS are much less taxing applications compared to games and video editing. And it works brilliantly! Just thought I'd add a photographer's experience with the Blackmagic egpu to the long list of gamer/video editor reviews.
