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WHY are Nvidia GPUs not supported???

Because it means adding a ton of graphic support for an entire line of GPUs that no Mac currently supports. Macs already uses AMD in their machines, so adding support for those is simple.

Also keep in mind that this is Apple's recommended list. Nvidia offers Mac drivers for their cards. You can use them. Apple just doesn't guarantee compatibility.
 
The Vega 64 seems like a decent card? (My PC has a 1080 Ti, full disclosure.)
Vega 64 barely matches GTX 1080. (Even my PC has a 1080 Ti, full disclosure.) We are still waiting for Nvidia driver for 10.13.4
 
why would I buy eGPU if I can get Internet GPU. Streaming games for a 2 months now.
 
Good news overall. Lack of "official" Nvidia support is somewhat concerning, but don't count AMD out, they also make some very good cards. I've built plenty of gaming PCs, and have used cards from both manufacturers quite successfully - I generally buy whichever card is the "best bang for the buck" at the chosen price-point at the time, and surprisingly it isn't always Nvidia despite the considerable gamer-fanboy-bias towards the brand. My current rig has an 8gb AMD r9 390 (to which I added an after-market liquid-cooler) that allows me to game stereoscopically very well with games using massive amounts of VRAM (FO4, for example, routinely eats up more than 7gb of VRAM with all the high-quality texture mods that I use). At the time it happened to be the best bang for the $$$ I was willing to spend, and having 8gb of VRAM turned out to be a huge advantage as I'm not lagging while the system swaps textures in and out between VRAM and system RAM. If I was building this rig today instead of more than 2 years ago (or, when I upgrade the video card) there is a very good change I would end up going Nvidia, but I would certainly give both manufacturer's cards a look before deciding.
 
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Vega 64 barely matches GTX 1080. (Even my PC has a 1080 Ti, full disclosure.) We are still waiting for Nvidia driver for 10.13.4
I have been saying this. I am not sure why some believe that the Vega 64 is better than the Gtx 1080 (or the 1080 TI) for that matter. Maybe in raw compute, but that's about it. For gaming and benchmarks, the GTX 1080 beats the 64 in several instances.
 
Does this work with thunderbolt 1 or 2?

Yes it does. Not officially supported by apple of course.

I have the eGPU dev kit from apple, the one that come with the Pulse 580.

To make it work I bought apple TB2 to TB3 adapter, which is bidirectional. I plugged the male end of the adapter in the eGPU breakout box, then used a standard thunderbolt cable from my Mac mini 2012 to the female end of the adapter.

Edit: It worked with the betas, but I sold the setup before the final came out. According to people who posted later in this thread it no longer does.
 
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Does this mean i could buy say the cheapest iMac and connect an eGPU to it to make it better for gaming/video editing etc? So hopefully saving money from buying the mid priced iMac?
 
The only possible reason for me to get this is to use Navidia GPU because Apple only uses AMD GPU in the MBP. After all these waiting, another disappointment from Apple.
I'm not fond of AMD either, but RX580 is still way faster than what you have in the MBP. If you don't need Nvidia-specific features, it's a decent card.
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Not for raw compute though. And Apple wants to use OpenCL instead of CUDA so they go AMD.
Do you have a source for the speed comparison? I've always seen that Nvidia cards are faster for machine learning computations too. I always thought Apple's reason for using AMD was to fight against CUDA and the rest of Nvidia's anti-open stance.
 
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A lot of wrong information given in this thread. Please be aware that
  • TB 1/2 did work but does no longer work
  • Bootcamp support would need an EFI update which does not exist. Booting Windows often results in a hard to solve Windows error 12 (not enough resources for the PCI devices)
  • Nvidia drivers exist, but they do not support eGPU out of the box
  • only those TB3 PCI boxes work, which are explicitely sold with eGPU support for Mac
Research egpu.io for all the problems and tutorials. I did a lot of trial and error. If you want it to work, please just use exactly the things that Apple recommends.
 
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I wish Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron would put more resources in making more memory chip for GPUs. the shortage of memory is one reason why there is a scarcity in Graphic Cards. Only some blame should go to cyrpto miners.

I personally feel like Nvidia and AMD are holding chips back so that they can manufacture the newer generation of graphic cards.

People are blaming the miners because they are responsible for this shortage. I have seen the modern GPU market since the beginning with Diamond Monster 3D and the 3dfx Voodoo. There’s never been anything like this. Usually the flagship card would be sold out in the beginning due to strong enthusiast demand and lower yields but there was never any trouble buying the stuff in the middle. You would at least find the vanilla version. The best performing third party versions would sell better but again not like this. Not even when stuff like Far Cry, Half Life 2 and Doom 3 launched and more people had PCs.
 
Does this work with thunderbolt 1 or 2?
To elaborate. eGPU will work natively in MacOS 10.13.1 and 10.13.2. My Mac Mini 2012 quad i7 is a very useful machine after adding an eGPU last year. Now it is stuck on 10.13.2 forever because Apple specifically removed the functionality of the eGPU for Thunderbolt 1 & 2. They could have left the capability in and just not supported it, but chose to cripple older machines instead. This really bothers me, intentionally removing the ability to upgrade a machine after allowing the upgrade previously. If you can remain on 10.13.2 for the life of the machine, then eGPU will work on TB 1 & 2.
 
I have been using an eGPU with my 2015 MBP, which is of course TB2. Does this release stop support for that? It has worked up to this point with the unofficial eGPU support in High Sierra. I want to know before upgrading.
 
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Does this mean i could buy say the cheapest iMac and connect an eGPU to it to make it better for gaming/video editing etc? So hopefully saving money from buying the mid priced iMac?

This isn't about money - you'll spend more money buying an eGPU chassis plus the card to go with it than you will on the price difference between entry-level and mid-priced Macs. This is about compute performance that you can't get otherwise - multiple, high-performance graphics cards that will be allocated to heavy work loads. Most typically, the Mac's internal graphics chip will mostly be working to support the display, while the external card(s) will be used for compute power.

I remember when the 2013 Mac Pro was introduced, and all the people who complained that they didn't want to buy a two-GPU configuration. Well, this is the alternative, folks - single GPU internal, and external box for extra compute power (and a somewhat wider/more up to date choice of GPUs). If you need a multi-GPU configuration, you aren't going to compare an entry-level Mac to Mac-plus-eGPU - you're going to compare the cost/performance of an iMac or MacBook Pro with eGPU to a Mac Pro (either the late 2013 or an earlier model with multiple GPU cards).
 
Nvidia > AMD gpu's. Not a smart choice to disregard Nvidia support.
Totally untrue. AMD now beats Nvidia in many ways: eGPU support, macOS drivers especially Metal and OpenCL completely destroy Nvidia which Mac drivers are becoming a joke. Vega architecture is awesome.
And beside this it is Nvidia fault, also when they understood they are far behind, announced eGPU "support" partner ship with infamous software thief BizonBox for overpriced, unofficial, hacked eGPU. Nice Nvidia....
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Does anyone know if having a eGPU gives any performance benefits to a brand new 5K iMac? I mean does the eGPU power the iMac screen at all?
Only Metal and OpenCL. OpenGL only is dev support it. eGPU is more for future Mac Pro, Mac mini and nowadays MacBook Pro. Anyway you can still use an external display with iMac and use 100% eGPU power.
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Vega 64 barely matches GTX 1080. (Even my PC has a 1080 Ti, full disclosure.) We are still waiting for Nvidia driver for 10.13.4
Not true at all. Vega destroy 1080 ti even with the old beta bugged and slow drivers
http://barefeats.com/early_vega.html
Anyway Nvidia drivers for macOS are terrible and especially not stable
 
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