Substance90
macrumors 6502a
Huh? Ryzen is not a little better. It destroys anything Intel has in this price bracket.
Apple Shares Recommended Graphics Cards and Chassis in New eGPU Support Document for macOS High Sierra 10.13.4
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
lec0rsaire
macrumors 68000
I would wait unless you need it now. Vega is as expensive as nVidia’s high end GPUs and if Apple offers nVidia support you will regret that decision. eGPU support is still a beta feature.
[doublepost=1522788393][/doublepost]
I wouldn’t hold my breath for a new keyboard before the next generation MBPs. They certainly won’t offer the 2015 keyboard on any MBP refresh coming out this year or the next. It’s safe to say this type of keyboard design is here to stay. However the trackpad is the best it’s ever been. You can’t imagine how great it feels on the 15” models. It’s the first time I’ve never felt compelled to use a mouse with notebook. While the older keyboards feel more natural, you get used to the new keyboard pretty quickly. It really doesn’t deserve all of the hate it’s gotten. Much of the criticism comes from people who don’t even own one of these notebooks.
R2FX
macrumors regular
1. It was 8600 GT chip-gate
2. Not specific to Apple MacBooks only, there were others that got affected by it
3. Nvidia paid for the repairs
4. Early 2013 iMac & mid 2012 to mid 2014 MacBook Pro’s had all Kepler GPU’s (GTX 750-780 in desktops and 650m-750m in laptops). I still rock high spec’ed mid 2014 MacBook Pro with 750m
All this while he’s saying this with his tin foil hat on.... not exactly a great reference
For Apple’s use case AMD is just better at OpenCL and more willing to work with them on customized GPU’s (trash can Mac Pro GPU’s or iMac 5K). While I agree that they both need their egos checked, i think it’s Nvidia that should show more humility and Apple to stop acting like a petulant child. Especially with official eGPU support & upcoming modular Mac Pro it should be a priority for Nvidia to get back in game with Macs
#my2cents
And what about the tragic single thread performance and no TB3?
conradwt
macrumors member
At this time, Apple is really pushing Metal over OpenCL. For example, the iMac Pro currently support OpenCL 1.2 when the OpenCL 2.0 (mid-2013) and 2.1 (late 2015) specifications were available. Thus, my WWDC 2018 wishlist includes the following:
- Vulkan 1.x and OpenCL 2.x support
Last edited:
When we first purchased cylindrical Mac Pros, we tested CUDA card in Sonnet Thunderbolt enclosure, and Adobe Premiere ignored the CUDA card. That is, we could not turn on CUDA support and had to use OpenCL. As the external video card couldn't be used to drive a monitor, and the CUDA chip couldn't be used either, there was no sense in proceeding, and we removed the Nvidia CUDA card from the Sonnet.
I would be very interested to know how others were able to use CUDA in Thunderbolt enclosures (or did CUDA work, but not for Premiere?)!
ActionableMango
macrumors G3
That question is way above my pay grade. I'd ask again in a more targeted forum with experienced experts, like egpu.io.
Vaguely speaking though, the CUDA driver requires the Nvidia driver, and the Nvidia driver doesn't like eGPUs. You need to run a script to get around that.
The other problem is that this is all really beta/unsupported stuff and anything can change at any time. For example Apple suddenly and recently blocked everything but TB3, so your cylindrical Mac Pro is now off the table unless there's going to be a workaround fix for older Thunderbolt ports too.
Last edited:
jclmavg
macrumors regular
A patch for this is now available.
jonathanbruce
macrumors regular
I was hoping somebody would also pick up on the many issues over the the "scandal", if I can call it that!
Yes, to me it sounds like both parties are (still) behaving like immature children.
To my knowledge I don't actually remember of having any pc or Mac that I have used actually had nVidia cards in so I'm not the guy to go preaching on here to anyone that AMD is better since I actually don't know, that's my honest opinion.
Yes, it's good to see eGPUs being supported and I will probably get one and eventually get another Radeon Pro WX card or something better... when I actually NEED to! My current setups don't need anything like that..yet!
Linus is OK, but he is more PC (narrow-minded) than Mac anyway and also has his own agenda which is fine by me, so long as he doesn't drop any more products! He is fun to watch though !!
Jack Burton
macrumors 6502a
According to an article on 9 to 5 Mac, this is the reason using an external card to drive an external display takes a speed hit:
Internal display
Only one GPU can drive a display at any given time, and only the internal GPU (either discrete or integrated) can drive an internal display on a Mac.
That said, it is possible for developers to render their application on an external GPU and present the application on the internal display. Developers will need to add support for this within their apps/
"The downside to doing this is that, as noted, only internal GPUs can drive an internal display. Hence, draw data will need to be copied from the external GPU to the internal GPU handling the internal display output."
Although the same is true when moving draw data between a discrete and integrated GPU, the overhead is much less because PCIe bandwidth between the two internal GPUs is faster than external Thunderbolt 3 bandwidth.
External display
For the fastest and most efficient eGPU-driven performance, you’ll want to pair an external display with your external graphics setup. You’ll want a display with DisplayPort and HDMI connectivity so that you can connect directly from the graphics card to your display.
The nice thing about having an external display setup is that games run on the external display reap immediate performance benefits without any updates. This is especially noticeable on underpowered machines like the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro.
I'll take whatever I can. I mainly want to use EGPU to compute, but it's good to know I can simply run an external monitor on my iMac for driving GPU bound renderings in real time engines like Unity, Unreal, or uRender (formerly tachyon render)
Internal display
Only one GPU can drive a display at any given time, and only the internal GPU (either discrete or integrated) can drive an internal display on a Mac.
That said, it is possible for developers to render their application on an external GPU and present the application on the internal display. Developers will need to add support for this within their apps/
"The downside to doing this is that, as noted, only internal GPUs can drive an internal display. Hence, draw data will need to be copied from the external GPU to the internal GPU handling the internal display output."
Although the same is true when moving draw data between a discrete and integrated GPU, the overhead is much less because PCIe bandwidth between the two internal GPUs is faster than external Thunderbolt 3 bandwidth.
External display
For the fastest and most efficient eGPU-driven performance, you’ll want to pair an external display with your external graphics setup. You’ll want a display with DisplayPort and HDMI connectivity so that you can connect directly from the graphics card to your display.
The nice thing about having an external display setup is that games run on the external display reap immediate performance benefits without any updates. This is especially noticeable on underpowered machines like the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro.
I'll take whatever I can. I mainly want to use EGPU to compute, but it's good to know I can simply run an external monitor on my iMac for driving GPU bound renderings in real time engines like Unity, Unreal, or uRender (formerly tachyon render)
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
e1me5
macrumors 6502a
Do you have any more info about this patch?
mac_4eva
macrumors member
Here's the patch: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/script-enable-egpu-on-tb1-2-macs-on-macos-10-13-4/paged/1/ Hope it works for ya'll 
e1me5
macrumors 6502a
Thank you very much!!Here's the patch: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/script-enable-egpu-on-tb1-2-macs-on-macos-10-13-4/paged/1/ Hope it works for ya'll
mmomega
macrumors demi-god
I am using a 1080Ti in an Akitio Node right now on a new Mac Pro with LG 34UC98 UltraWide Monitor over DP from the 1080Ti.
I have not specifically tried Premiere yet but all of the other Adobe apps I use, Media Encoder, Lightroom, Photoshop all see the 1080 as if it is a native GPU and Media Encoder gives me the option for OpenCL, Metal or CUDA.
I do not see why Premiere would show any different but if you are interested I can install the trial version tomorrow and check for you.
coanmenell
macrumors newbie
I just switched from AMD to the GeForce 1050 Ti 4GB and I am having terrible performance issues. Running on Mac OS fortnite and FFXIV have been terrible. thinking about running bootcamp and see if windows performs better. but do you think I am doing something wrong with the drivers?
Attachments
BaccaBossMC
macrumors regular
Are you using the special Pascal Drivers for macOS from NVIDIA? Ensure that you are using those special drivers instead of the normal drivers.
coanmenell
macrumors newbie
Not sure. I downloaded the NVIDIA driver experience but I will look in to this. I do have a problem now though where I cant boot in to OSX from windows. The computer only tries to boot windows and I have no time to hold command keys. Holding option doesnt do anything either. I took out the windows drive too but the computer doesnt auto recognize the mac OSX drive. My thread is here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-2010-bootcamp-major-issue-please-help.2115458/
Steve the Developer
macrumors newbie
If Apple refreshes the Mac Mini and it has a Thunderbolt 3 port, the answer is YES !
The current 2014 model still being sold only supports Thunderbolt 1, the answer is NO !
[doublepost=1524355404][/doublepost]
On my app, Fractal Architect, Metal outperforms OpenCL using eGPU for heavy compute tasks. On the internal GPUs, the reverse is true.
As a developer, I don't see Apple wanting to spend money on GPU compute. Because of this, I doubt they will step up to the latest version of OpenCL.
[doublepost=1524356867][/doublepost]
AMD has been winning the most OEM deals by far. Playstation, Xbox, Apple ...
You really have to "serve & support" your big customers at a reasonable price.
But, Apple does need to support Nvidia GPUs for professional apps. I think they should make it possible for Mac App store sandboxed apps to support CUDA too. Perhaps they need to create a way for key 3rd party drivers like CUDA, to be installed in a way that makes those 3rd party drivers callable by Mac App Store sandboxed apps. (Today sandboxed apps cannot.)
Nvidia's support for CUDA is huge. They have all sorts of tools, like the essential CUDA debugger, while Apple provides no support for debugging either Metal or OpenCL. CUDA is the "Gold Standard" for GPU compute.
AMD does have a tool that will convert your CUDA application so that your CUDA application will work on AMD GPUs. So even AMD is bowing before the dominance of CUDA in the real world over OpenCL.
I do not know how well their tool works, but it is an impressive step to supporting CUDA on AMD GPUs.
My own app can use either OpenCL, Metal, or CUDA for GPU compute rendering. On Nvidia GPUs, CUDA beats OpenCL.
But, with eGPU and the AMD Vega GPUs, either OpenCL or Metal give exceptional performance at a great price.
sd70mac
macrumors member
The Vega Frontier edition definitely is one.
fairuz
macrumors 68020
The drivers just suck. I learned the hard way never to use Nvidia graphics on a Mac. I've got a 660 in my Mac Pro, and it does anything I want in Windows with no issues. In macOS, there are all sorts of bugs that either cause performance problems or glitches.
itsamacthing
macrumors 6502a
Are all Vega 64 cards supported? Gigabyte? Asus? I'm using an Asus and my system crashed during wake from sleep.
mac_4eva
macrumors member
It is now possible to accelerate all apps on the eGPU on macOS with a little trick I discovered over at egpu.io: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/potentially-accelerate-all-applications-on-egpu-macos-10-13-4/
I also made it into a script for convenience which is here on Github: https://github.com/mayankk2308/set-egpu
Also for people wishing to use NVIDIA eGPU on macOS:
https://github.com/mayankk2308/purge-wrangler
I also made it into a script for convenience which is here on Github: https://github.com/mayankk2308/set-egpu
Also for people wishing to use NVIDIA eGPU on macOS:
https://github.com/mayankk2308/purge-wrangler
How is the status on using NVIDIA on MBP running Ubuntu Linux?