At some point though, a project needs to be finished. That is the purpose of a deadline.
You must also hate the fact that Apple has deprecated OpenCL.
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Apple's Upcoming BlackMagic eGPU Pro Delayed Until December
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At some point though, a project needs to be finished. That is the purpose of a deadline.
You must also hate the fact that Apple has deprecated OpenCL.
It's the self-imposed "heartbeat" of new-release times. Apple of yore would pretty much just not say ANYTHING about a product until it was DONE, and THEN organize an event to introduce it.
Over the years, that has gradually morphed into a fairly-regular (and yearly!) schedule of "updates"; so regular that when things seem to be "late" even by a few weeks (like the most recent iPad/Mac event on 10/30/18), the natives start to get nervous.
This forces Apple's ENTIRE product-development cycle to ALSO adopt these arbitrary deadlines, and the result is what you see: More products that aren't QUITE ready for prime-time when the announced (projected) release date hits.
FORTUNATELY, Apple has elected to take the LITTLE "beating" that comes from blowing a deadline by (usually) a short period, rather than the HUGE beating that comes from releasing a product/update that has major issues.
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As long as the Sonnet eGPU box has sufficient Power Supply, I would think that it would work just fine. The Mac mini has no idea how much power the eGPU is requiring; nor should it.
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The going price for a Vega 64 card with 8 GB of HBM2 memory is around $500 FOR THE CARD ITSELF!
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?N=100007709 601301447&IsNodeId=1&Submit=ENE
Now, we have to add a power supply, case, packaging, agency-approvals times howevermany countries, etc, etc.
So, no, the price is high; but it IS actually justified.
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Likely came down to power supply and/or cooling limitations in the mini.
I do hope, however, that they figure a way to update the mini to include an Intel/Vega CPU/GPU SoC.
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They ran out of power supply and/or cooling, I would imagine.
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They've had over 40 years to do so...
I'd somehow missed that detail. I would have assumed it would have been upgradeable, especially for that much. Wow.
If these were upgradeable, I don't think there'd be anything to complain about pricing-wise because they are VERY NICE enclosures. I made the determination to buy one of these (before returning it) because I came to the conclusion that the likelihood of me upgrading my graphics card before the enclosure reached the end of its lifespan was low.
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No.
It's because a lot of the AI software is written in CUDA, which is nVidia-proprietary, rather than being written in the GPU-agnostic OpenCL.
The parts you listed are in no way $600-$700. Not even $300. It’s overpriced. Other companies have made the same setup for hundreds less. Also the box does not have a Vega 64 it’s a Vega 56 so all the more reason the pricing is not justified at all.
Only because people started writing in CUDA, and now that AMD has some pretty spiffy GPUs themselves, there is still a dearth of ready-to-use AI libraries for OpenCL.
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Others have agreed that the BlackMagic eGPU Pro is high, but not egregiously so; considering it is the ONLY eGPU enclosure that will let you drive that LG 5k display with Thunderbolt.
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The pricing for Vega cards seems to approach noise in its randomness.
Others have agreed that the BlackMagic eGPU Pro is high, but not egregiously so; considering it is the ONLY eGPU enclosure that will let you drive that LG 5k display with Thunderbolt.
That GPU costs $400-500. How they hell did they manage to make a $700+ enclosure? Also, why do Apple consumers consistently allow themselves to get ripped off like this?
Fer Ged's Sake people stop missing the obvious:
-Custom GPU not off the shelf GPU. This has been tailored to run quietly.
-Industry leading design and portability
-Literally almost silent. Everyone using off the shelf cards in eGPU boxes have a noisy experience.
-Has 4 full speed USB ports and a Thunderbolt port to drive a 5K display. No other eGPU chassis has this.
Yes it is expensive but pros make money and they don't want a noisy box when they are trying to listen to the audio tracks in editing apps.
If you just want eGPU for gaming then you can get the cheaper noisy options because gamers always used to the noise of hot GPUs.
Apple writes the device driver stack for AMD GPGPUs in macOS. Nvidia designs that people are whining about have never produced better results for Apple. Heating issues have been a constant with Nvidia cards, not to mention pricing is even worse. No, Apple has ZERO interest in CUDA and extending Nvidia's tax to the world on its hardware.
The Blackmagic Polaris product most likely will see the 590 be the standard as it's a good 15-20% improvement over the RX 580.
The first cards that will have a much tighter heat envelope will be on the 7nm fab, and post Polaris and Vega, ala NAVI and Vega yet announced successor.
People should really wait for the Consumer Electronics Show to see what AMD is announcing for upcoming GPU architectures.
Navi 7nm will be great. I sound like I'm an AMD fan boy but reality is I sold my AMD shares and I have Nvidia shares but I always tell the truth. Nvidia's web drivers for Mac are craptacular and so is their lack of 10 bit color.
That eGPU is a custom ASIC from AMD for BlackMagic Design. The back ports alone should wake you up to that fact. The cooling system is their design. The casing and included power with Thunderbolt 3 ports also adds cost and all those are custom small footprint stamp outs by manufacturers who will bump up the cost.
They aren't slapping a Sapphire stock RX Vega 56 or Polaris into the box, bootstrapping a cheap venting system, a daughter card with TB3 ports and additional 85W dedicated power for computer charging and calling it a day.
Wake me when generic companies replicate that set up. I guarantee you it won't be $500.
Sapphire's boneheaded enclosure that will be a loud box that looks like a cheese grader brick w/ half the USB ports, no 85W power to charge the laptop/mac mini and relying solely on a stock GPGPU sells just for the box over $300 retail.
Oh look! Sapphire 56 from Newegg.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAGBA8412714
$723.90
Combined it's around $1100 and is an inferior product.
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I'm long on AMD shares. Bought in at $2.36/share. Have around 3k shares so far.
MacOS is just not worth it, not only the hardware is expensive my understanding is the performance of the cheaper product is always far better on the PC side. Apple became like a fashion brand name... its expensive just because it carries the Apple name not of any extra value
If you do that then this is what Tim Cook understands: No one is buying powerful hardware, then that means there is no market for high performance, cancel eGPU capabilities in all MacOS and install iphone CPUs in Mac Pros. This is what the customer wants!
If you do that then this is what Tim Cook understands: No one is buying powerful hardware, then that means there is no market for high performance, cancel eGPU capabilities in all MacOS and install iphone CPUs in Mac Pros. This is what the customer wants!
Yep, I know already. I was talking about diversity in their product line support. Considering that Apple removed code for CUDA support, then it wouldn't have taken much in further development for adding support for these eGPUs. However, just because they removed code doesn't necessitate that development hasn't continued or interest in reviving that development for these products won't come in the future. I'm indifferent about the subject and for what I use a PC for, then I don't argue for either one because each will serve my purpose. You would be surprised that a tactic to influence buying decisions with acquiring new customers comes at times for support of products which they never had interest in using or promoting. How many users would switch back to a Mac Pro if there were offerings for support of eGPUs with NVIDIA chips, even though, the Apple product itself may use AMD. I for one wouldn't mind a 5K iMac-like display with a replaceable/upgradeable GPU, as opposed to the eGPU solution. Hence, a MP, Mini, MBP being able to connect to the display which essentially is connecting to an eGPU in the display housing all the while being supplied PD. Especially, if the new MBP or MP with AMD graphics could crossfire with the displays built-in AMD GPU for added performance.
The Vega 56 was supposed to have an MSRP of $399...don’t know if it ever reached that but damn, $1200 for an eGPU is absurd...
For that cash you could buy an RTX 2080 and throw it in a number of different enclosures for a similar price.
For that cash you could buy an RTX 2080 and throw it in a number of different enclosures for a similar price.
You ought to read a bit of the thread before replying. Not every Vega is the same. You probably did a search on NewEgg and looked for the lowest price that came up and BINGO that's what you should be paying. If you look further down the page, you'll see that there are much more expensive configurations. The costliest version of a Vega is $724.
I don't know enough about this stuff to say exactly how much that BlackMagic eGPU Vega 56 should be, but based on all the features, it's certainly a lot closer to the $724 end than the $399 end. It's expensive, but you're not getting gouged.
And none of them would do exactly what the BlackMagic eGPU does. Those other enclosures would certainly be a better buy if you didn't need what the BlackMagic specifically has to offer, but it's not an apples to apples comparison.
Yeah, no. MSRP was supposed to be $399. This was stated in reviews back when the card was released. Prices got inflated due to the crypto craze. AIB cards are usually not 2x MSRP. And I don’t shop on Newegg. Cheers
Yeah, no. MSRP was supposed to be $399. This was stated in reviews back when the card was released. Prices got inflated due to the crypto craze. AIB cards are usually not 2x MSRP. And I don’t shop on Newegg. Cheers
MSRP is supposed to be $399 for a specific version of the GPU. That's akin to saying the Macbook Pro should be priced the same as the Macbook because they're both Macbooks.
Really? you''re talking ********. what can't any AI developer utilise any GPUs available; be they nvidia, AMD. or Intel?
I love this quote "This has been tailored to run quietly" hey Apple can you put the latest GPUs your machines? No? could you put them in a GPU enclosure? No? I see, could you cripple them to run in an enclosure? yes?, we good to go