Apple's $1,199 Blackmagic eGPU Pro Now Available for Purchase, Delivers Mid-January

[nwcs]

I love it when clueless people mouth off on here. This was created in collaboration with Apple and Apple initiated the project. Do some research before trying to correct other people.
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How is it not justified? They’re charging a ridiculous amount for an eGPU that can’t even be upgraded! Apple deserve to be partially blamed for a product that they commissioned and then worked on.

In today’s world, especially business, upgradability is simply not as useful as you’d think. Again, I have never made a stance on the worthiness of the project. Only that people seem to be laying the blame on Apple and making all sorts of leaps of logic without any factual evidence. If someone can produce evidence that Apple commissioned this, effectively designed it, is using Blackmagic to sell it so it doesn’t affect their lineup, etc. (all things people have said in this thread) then I’ll stand corrected. I’ll be waiting.

Edit: people seem hung up on the word collaborated. That can mean literally anything from design to how best to handle TB to something else. It doesn’t describe the degree to which there was collaboration.

 

[edude03]

Snark and complaining aside, anyone know if the dual thunderbolt port 3 ports allow you to drive 2 5K Ultrafine displays from the Vega 56? If so this would be a game changer / worth the money for me as I'd be able to switch from

2x Dell 2715K (~ $2000 each)
1x WX 8200 (~1000, required to get 4 displayport ports)
1x Akitio Node Pro (~400)
1x Dodocool USB-C dock (~35)
1x Logictech C920 (~150)

to

2x 5K Ultrafines (~2400)
1x Blackmagic eGPU (~1200)

Saving me a bit of money, gaining me some ports, and making my system more reliable (the firmware on the dells is super buggy)

Edit: Scratch that, it has two thunderbolt ports, one to connect to the macbook, one to connect to a monitor or something. Same as the Akitio Node pro.

 

[mattopotamus]

If you need this product, you probably bought the wrong computer.

 

[iBungie]

Snark and complaining aside, anyone know if the dual thunderbolt port 3 ports allow you to drive 2 5K Ultrafine displays from the Vega 56? If so this would be a game changer / worth the money for me as I'd be able to switch from

2x Dell 2715K (~ $2000 each)
1x WX 8200 (~1000, required to get 4 displayport ports)
1x Akitio Node Pro (~400)
1x Dodocool USB-C dock (~35)
1x Logictech C920 (~150)

to

2x 5K Ultrafines (~2400)
1x Blackmagic eGPU (~1200)

Saving me a bit of money, gaining me some ports, and making my system more reliable (the firmware on the dells is super buggy)

[doublepost=1545399608][/doublepost]Might the eGPU only have one thunderbolt bus meaning max of one 5K display (which requires 2 display port signals combined through TB3)?

Depending upon the computer you are using you may be able to drive a second 5K display direct from that giving you your hoped for dual 5K set up.

Can anyone confirm or correct this?

 

[edude03]

iBungie - I can, but the dual connection is finnicky. The order you remove and add the monitors matters which is why I'm looking for / using a single cable solution

 

[citysnaps]

In today’s world, especially business, upgradability is simply not as useful as you’d think. Again, I have never made a stance on the worthiness of the project. Only that people seem to be laying the blame on Apple and making all sorts of leaps of logic without any factual evidence. If someone can produce evidence that Apple commissioned this, effectively designed it, is using Blackmagic to sell it so it doesn’t affect their lineup, etc. (all things people have said in this thread) then I’ll stand corrected. I’ll be waiting.

Edit: people seem hung up on the word collaborated. That can mean literally anything from design to how best to handle TB to something else. It doesn’t describe the degree to which there was collaboration.

Exactly and well said.

Sadly, some want the eGPU to be an official Apple product so bad and cling to the word "collaboration" so blame can be laid on Apple for a product that many would likely not ever use, anyway.

As you suggested, most likely, the collaboration was respect to the TB 3 interface and the functionality of the downstream "dock" of extra expansion ports (Two TB-3, four USB-3, Display Port, and HDMI-2.0) with the ability to charge a connected MacBook Pro, all over a single cable - an outstanding feature that Apple would certainly want to be in on. LG's collaboration with Apple a year or so ago for a display with similar expansion port features for a MBP was very similar.

There's a role for BM's eGPU - especially if a lot of your work is performed on a MBP. If it doesn't meet your (not meaning you personally) needs, then simply look elsewhere for a product that does. Using the device as a means for yet another opportunity to trash Apple is just childish and immature.

 

[hdrummon]

Just get an Akitio Node Pro and a Vega 64. Faster, and under $800.

Akito says this on their site for the Node Pro:

• Not designed for use with graphics cards."

 

[edude03]

Just get an Akitio Node Pro and a Vega 64. Faster, and under $800.

I have that setup and it doesn't actually work because:

- The Vega 64 draws more power than the node supplies, causing random reboots (of the GPU only)
- The Vega 64 doesn't seem to support MST in OSX so dual cable monitors don't work
- The Node Pro is already $400, so were are you going to find a brand new Vega 64 for $400?
- The node pro doesn't have any ports, so you need to add a USB-C dock if you want any ports.

 

[notabadname]

Ouch! "You're killing me Smalls"

 

[Ploki]

asus vega 56
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814126180&Description=vega 56&cm_re=vega_56-_-14-126-180-_-Product

mantiz venus with 4 usb 3.0 in back and 2 in the front, gigabyte ethernet. and build in psu enough to power vega 64.
https://www.amazon.com/Mantiz-Thunderbolt-Certified-External-interface/dp/B0745H6GTX

total cost. 810 usd.

so 300$ premium and you can drive a Thunderbolt display + its silent.
I'm not saying its the cheapest solution, just saying it has some of perks other setups don't.
[doublepost=1545407491][/doublepost]

500euro for 650w PSU ? sorry I have to speak up about this as this price estimation is way off. It is closer to 125euro for this PSU. I honestly do not understand the people here defending the pricing. You are welcome to pay what you want and have it look cool on your desk... but stop spreading this fiction.

It's not a 650W PSU, it's an enclosure with 650W SPU (the sonnet one).
Why would I list a PSU? You cannot run an eGPU with just the card and PSU.

As i said later, you can get cheaper enclosures like Razer or Asus, but that wasn't my point.
I'm not spreading fiction, you can't read.

 

[cmwade77]

Apple, here is a crazy thought: Instead of trying to get people to buy a very expensive computer, then add a very expensive eGPU, why not go back to the days when you used to make a Pro computer that consumers could upgrade with standard video cards? At bare minimum, go back to the days when you offered systems with high end video cards built-in.

 

[Ploki]

I wasn't talking about upgrading aftermarket. I meant that some Macs have DGPs built-in, and don't really need this eGPU. The primary market for this is Mac laptops.

Mac Laptop, Mac Mini, and iMacs with poor graphics, yes.
Pretty much every mac except the iMac Pro.
[doublepost=1545407683][/doublepost]

Apple, here is a crazy thought: Instead of trying to get people to buy a very expensive computer, then add a very expensive eGPU, why not go back to the days when you used to make a Pro computer that consumers could upgrade with standard video cards? At bare minimum, go back to the days when you offered systems with high end video cards built-in.

iMac Pro has a high end video card, so they still offer that.
So does the MBP 15" with Vega20.
Vega 20 is probably the best dGPU offering ever in a 15" MBP.

 

[msama]

Prediction: The delivery date will not slip on these.

 

[Ethosik]

I’m surprised MacRumors didn’t pick up on the story that a few days ago Adobe updated Premiere Pro on Windows to natively export Apple ProRes. Supposedly they had to negotiate with Apple to make this happen.

Why is that relevant? Because it may have honestly been the last reason to edit video on a Mac over a PC and now that’s gone.

I make indie films and ProRes is still very much the standard for delivery to encoding houses and distributors. Now I don’t have to jump through hoops and use hacks to export it on my Windows desktop.

I used to think I’d switch to Macs eventually but it no longer makes any sense. 99.9% of my time on my desktop is spent in Adobe programs, Resolve, Office, or Chrome. At this point, I wouldn’t even care if the OS was just a black screen with links to open those programs, as long as those programs run well. I do all my more personal stuff on my iPhone anyway. The desktop is for work and if I’m in the OS, I’m not doing work.

I just edited and am now color grading a feature film shot in 8K Redcode Raw on a Windows machine that is several years old. It only took a $400 new GPU I dropped in, and then I even sold my old GPU for $125. I was convinced I was going to have to go to NASA to work on this crazy footage (especially color grading and noise reducing it). Nope... $275.

Nope. Sorry. I’m no longer supporting Adobe if I possibly can use an alternative. This stupid “renting” software is so annoying. I was a CC member since it started. Guess what? I no longer have access to Photoshop or Illustrator or Premiere Pro even though I spent so much money.

Meanwhile $300 for FCPX is a bargain. And I get to keep it without a monthly charge.

I also moved to Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. I still need to use After Effects due to plugins .
[doublepost=1545408144][/doublepost]

asus vega 56
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814126180&Description=vega 56&cm_re=vega_56-_-14-126-180-_-Product

mantiz venus with 4 usb 3.0 in back and 2 in the front, gigabyte ethernet. and build in psu enough to power vega 64.
https://www.amazon.com/Mantiz-Thunderbolt-Certified-External-interface/dp/B0745H6GTX

total cost. 810 usd.

$1,199 - $810 is still not a $800 premium like some people are saying.
[doublepost=1545408326][/doublepost]

In today’s world, especially business, upgradability is simply not as useful as you’d think. Again, I have never made a stance on the worthiness of the project. Only that people seem to be laying the blame on Apple and making all sorts of leaps of logic without any factual evidence. If someone can produce evidence that Apple commissioned this, effectively designed it, is using Blackmagic to sell it so it doesn’t affect their lineup, etc. (all things people have said in this thread) then I’ll stand corrected. I’ll be waiting.

Edit: people seem hung up on the word collaborated. That can mean literally anything from design to how best to handle TB to something else. It doesn’t describe the degree to which there was collaboration.

Couldn’t it also mean that Apple officially supports it too? If you have issues with your Razer eGPU enclosure and your own graphics card, good luck getting support from Apple.

 

[ilikewhey]

so 300$ premium and you can drive a Thunderbolt display + its silent.
I'm not saying its the cheapest solution, just saying it has some of perks other setups don't.
[doublepost=1545407491][/doublepost]
It's not a 650W PSU, it's an enclosure with 650W SPU (the sonnet one).
Why would I list a PSU? You cannot run an eGPU with just the card and PSU.

As i said later, you can get cheaper enclosures like Razer or Asus, but that wasn't my point.
I'm not spreading fiction, you can't read.

its 300 premium with no upgradability, where with my mantiz i can slap in the next gen 7nm amd gpu thats coming out next year.

with egpu you don't really need a thunderbolt display, plenty of other 5k monitors on the market now that works fine with displayports which all vega and pascal gpu supports.

the only perk i see is for really lazy people who couldn't spend 10 mins putting a gpu inside an egpu bracket

as for silence, the strix vega uses 3 fans and it is pretty silent, i have a pascal strix in my gaming mini pc and i can barely hear the fans spinning.

i do admit there is a market for this device, however niche it is, but for the more practical users building your own egpu route such as the two items i listed above is definitely the way to go.

 

[Ethosik]

its 300 premium with no upgradability, where with my mantiz i can slap in the next gen 7nm amd gpu thats coming out next year.

with egpu you don't really need a thunderbolt display, plenty of other 5k monitors on the market now that works fine with displayports which all vega and pascal gpu supports.

as for silence, the strix vega uses 3 fans and it is pretty silent, i have a pascal strix in my gaming mini pc and i can barely hear the fans spinning.

i do admit there is a market for this device, however niche it is, but for the more practical users building your own egpu route such as the two items i listed above is definitely the way to go.

Not necessarily. This is the same even comparing Dell computers to custom built ones. For doing work on these, you don’t want to be the support. You want the company. If there’s any issues with your setup, the eGPU enclosure company can blame the card and the card company can blame the enclosure. I have experienced this with custom built computers. It resulted in many hours of missed jobs. I would rather get support from fewer places than everyone pointing fingers.

I no longer build my own computers because of this. It’s fine if you just game or enjoy building computers. But I’m doing work on here. I don’t want to be my own IT support staff too. Just reach out to Apple or Dell when my computer has issues.

 

[ilikewhey]

Not necessarily. This is the same even comparing Dell computers to custom built ones. For doing work on these, you don’t want to be the support. You want the company. If there’s any issues with your setup, the eGPU enclosure company can blame the card and the card company can blame the enclosure. I have experienced this with custom built computers. It resulted in many hours of missed jobs. I would rather get support from fewer places than everyone pointing fingers.

I no longer build my own computers because of this. It’s fine if you just game or enjoy building computers. But I’m doing work on here. I don’t want to be my own IT support staff too. Just reach out to Apple or Dell when my computer has issues.

fair point, personal diagnostic is a luxury many do not enjoy.

 

[Ploki]

its 300 premium with no upgradability, where with my mantiz i can slap in the next gen 7nm amd gpu thats coming out next year.

with egpu you don't really need a thunderbolt display, plenty of other 5k monitors on the market now that works fine with displayports which all vega and pascal gpu supports.

the only perk i see is for really lazy people who couldn't spend 10 mins putting a gpu inside an egpu bracket

as for silence, the strix vega uses 3 fans and it is pretty silent, i have a pascal strix in my gaming mini pc and i can barely hear the fans spinning.

i do admit there is a market for this device, however niche it is, but for the more practical users building your own egpu route such as the two items i listed above is definitely the way to go.

"plenty" is an over statement tho, there's not many 27" 5K displays. I could actually only find one, that has 5K over a single displayport:
https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/iiyama/1406928/iiyama-prolite-xb2779qqs-review-5k-monitor-imac-style

The dell ultrasharp 5K is discontinued
and then there's the HP, also dual DP.

And there is no 4K 22" such as the LG UltraFine 4K (which can be cumbersomely adaptered to use the DP instead of usb-c)

It's not only the fans on the card, its also the PSU fan.

I agree wholeheartedly otherwise, and I will most certainly go the "DIY" way when i get an eGPU, probably a Razer tho.

 

[nwcs]

Couldn’t it also mean that Apple officially supports it too? If you have issues with your Razer eGPU enclosure and your own graphics card, good luck getting support from Apple.

Well, as far as I can tell it’s supported by Blackmagic: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/davinci-resolve-and-fusion

This seems to be the limit of Apple’s support:https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208897

My guess is that Apple’s collaboration is mostly in design, specifications, and selling it in their stores (enhanced visibility)

 

[ilikewhey]

"plenty" is an over statement tho, there's not many 27" 5K displays. I could actually only find one, that has 5K over a single displayport:
https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/iiyama/1406928/iiyama-prolite-xb2779qqs-review-5k-monitor-imac-style

The dell ultrasharp 5K is discontinued
and then there's the HP, also dual DP.

And there is no 4K 22" such as the LG UltraFine 4K (which can be cumbersomely adaptered to use the DP instead of usb-c)

It's not only the fans on the card, its also the PSU fan.

I agree wholeheartedly otherwise, and I will most certainly go the "DIY" way when i get an eGPU, probably a Razer tho.

ah yes i haven't been keeping up with monitor as of late, but dual displayport shouldn't be a problem since its gpu side of the business in terms of signal and processing.

as for psu fans, my mantiz psu that came with doesn't even spin up when i use my pascal cards. i since dc the case fan and its barely audible

 

[nwcs]

Apple, here is a crazy thought: Instead of trying to get people to buy a very expensive computer, then add a very expensive eGPU, why not go back to the days when you used to make a Pro computer that consumers could upgrade with standard video cards? At bare minimum, go back to the days when you offered systems with high end video cards built-in.

I definitely agree that I would love to see more upgradable computers. Absolutely. Sadly, though, the majority of people never upgraded anything. If the majority did over the years then this all-in-one concept wouldn’t have come to dominate. The reality is most people don’t value upgradability and want simplicity. The fact that so much of consumer electronics has moved to this model demonstrates it. I think it’s a big waster but it simply won’t happen until the majority of the buying public values it.

 

[Ploki]

I definitely agree that I would love to see more upgradable computers. Absolutely. Sadly, though, the majority of people never upgraded anything. If the majority did over the years then this all-in-one concept wouldn’t have come to dominate. The reality is most people don’t value upgradability and want simplicity. The fact that so much of consumer electronics has moved to this model demonstrates it. I think it’s a big waster but it simply won’t happen until the majority of the buying public values it.

The need to upgrade is smaller. We hit a ceiling of needs of an average consumer.
If they allow mouse on an iPad, Mac sales will probably halve.

 

[nwcs]

The need to upgrade is smaller. We hit a ceiling of needs of an average consumer.
If they allow mouse on an iPad, Mac sales will probably halve.

That is certainly true, the pace of growth has dramatically slowed with today’s available technology. Also people have to accept that the process of upgrading things in the old beige box was never really that simple. Sometimes upgrading ram was super easy but sometimes you had to remove a lot of things to get there and the risk of static increases since few people properly shield themselves. Upgrading drives is something the average person wouldn’t do. It is simply too difficult for most who would want it a painless process and the gains are marginal enough (even back in the day) that the cost/benefit ratio was worse than simply buying new.

 

[Ploki]

That is certainly true, the pace of growth has dramatically slowed with today’s available technology. Also people have to accept that the process of upgrading things in the old beige box was never really that simple. Sometimes upgrading ram was super easy but sometimes you had to remove a lot of things to get there and the risk of static increases since few people properly shield themselves. Upgrading drives is something the average person wouldn’t do. It is simply too difficult for most who would want it a painless process and the gains are marginal enough (even back in the day) that the cost/benefit ratio was worse than simply buying new.

Yep.
People simply buy an external disk. USB3.0 is fast enough for most. And they can keep it when they replace a computer (hooray!)

And professional computing equipment is becoming specialised and expensive.

Apple lost the truly professional video crowd with FCP X fiasco, so catering to that crowd with huge towers now is a wierd marketing strategy.

 

[hans1972]

Unless you love being ripped off, don’t buy this. It’s an absolute joke and just shows how little Apple care about its customers.

It is a third party product. Why are you not mad at Black Magic?