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Blackmagic eGPU Pro Discontinued

arvinsim said:
Yeah, let's gloss over the eGPU issue with the Mac Mini.
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There's been some drivers issues with AMD mentioned extensively, mainly to do with undercooked ones for RDNA, but also seemingly affecting the older Polaris ones.

Obviously you'd expect these to be ironed out soon but it's another issue to add to the list. My impression is that the number of users demanding a headless Mac they can add graphics card is too small to be worth addressing by Apple with a box that will allow internal upgrades like PC desktop users are used to. A headless MacBook Pro 16" anyone?

Far easier to put all this into a nice iMac case and put a nice screen on it. :)
 
iAssimilated said:
Oh, I understand it alright. The design of the BM Pro was beautiful (love the cooling aspect and love the look), but costing $600 extra, it was something I could give up.
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Sure, I wish they were a bit less expensive too... just like I wish that for the new Mac Pro. :) But, good design, especially at lower quantities, costs money. I'm not sure if you've seen the disassemble videos and such, but that's not something you're going to easily replicate with a home-build.

I only have the 580 (ie. non-pro) version right now, so it wasn't $600 more (is the Pro one really $600 more? I haven't done the calculations, but that sounds rather high), but there's no way I could have spent the time to try and create something that did similar for anywhere near the cost difference.

Trust me, I'd have *loved* to buy one of the other eGPU cases out there and spent days researching. No one makes anything like it.

galangel said:
Sad story, hope other companies will not abandon this concept
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Where did you get the impression they were abandoning the concept?
 
deconstruct60 said:
Less money or less noise ? "home brew" isn't necessarily going to address the latter. Cheaper is self-evident true as there are other options out there now.
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Yes, the low noise AND ability to run 100% 24/7 365 with no noise.

Also, while the cost is a factor, I think the difference is often dramatized. I think people seem to find the cheapest seemingly equivalent card and then the cheapest eGPU case for that 'what should it cost' number in their head.

Keep mind, too, that my eGPU is my dock-like device, as it has a bunch more ports on it, so I didn't have to buy one of those (and most eGPUs do, to be fair, but the ports and capabilities vary).
 
SteveW928 said:
One of the two similar products in the lineup... because the reason stated in the article, at least until we have some other reason to think they are lying.
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Yeah. If Apple has stopped major unit buying the Vega 56 , then I'm not sure who else would be buying enough to keep that product going. Both Nvidia and AMD have newer product that significantly overlaps that space. So the add-in-cards can't be doing all that great for the general gaming market. Apple is a bit overdue to upgrade the iMac Pro. If that is the last volume 'customer' for the Vega 56 then it is probably at end of new production. (there is some inventory out there tagged for replacement parts but AMD isn't scheduling fabrication orders with Global Foundary. )


Apple is still putting in substantive orders for the baseline 580 chip because the 580X using that die. 580X is probably not going away any time soon. Hence the other product is couple to a die that is still 'moving'.

Bottom line, Blackmagic is probably only buying what Apple buys. In that Mac product bow wave to 'exist'.
 
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SteveW928 said:
One of the two similar products in the lineup... because the reason stated in the article, at least until we have some other reason to think they are lying.
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I wasn't accusing them of lying. I was stating that, for the time being, whether there will be a successor product isn't publicly known.

And it's not like there aren't other AMD cards they could put in there, so…
 
chucker23n1 said:
I wasn't accusing them of lying. I was stating that, for the time being, whether there will be a successor product isn't publicly known.

And it's not like there aren't other AMD cards they could put in there, so…
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The post you responded to was about abandoning the concept. I was pointing out the concept isn't abandoned because they stopped producing one product in a lineup of similar concept.

That said, yeah, I hope they come out with a high-end replacement using a newer GPU. The concept is awesome, it just needs to keep up-to-date with the GPUs available.
 
SteveW928 said:
The post you responded to was about abandoning the concept. I was pointing out the concept isn't abandoned because they stopped producing one product in a lineup of similar concept.
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I think it's still a fair question to ask.

Yes, they still have the other product, but that one, too, uses an AMD GPU from 2017.

SteveW928 said:
That said, yeah, I hope they come out with a high-end replacement using a newer GPU. The concept is awesome, it just needs to keep up-to-date with the GPUs available.
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Yup.
 
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chucker23n1 said:
Yes, they still have the other product, but that one, too, uses an AMD GPU from 2017.
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Keep in mind that it came out in 2018.

They just need a refresh, though what would the base model get? Isn't the 580 still a pretty popular non-high-end GPU for people who need a real GPU? Yes, the higher-end one should certainly get an update.

Also... for people out there considering their options, be sure to look at some benchmarks and tests in software products when budgeting for a GPU. When people say it is an old GPU or slow or such, that is often in comparison to the latest-and-greatest which you may or may not need. You don't necessarily need to spend a bunch more money to get X% more performance unless you need it or can justify it based on time-savings.

I often see charts that use the 580 as a base and then a huge bar showing how much faster some other GPU is... until you see a similar chart that includes the iGPU, the 580, and the latest thing.
 
SteveW928 said:
Keep in mind that it came out in 2018.

They just need a refresh, though what would the base model get? Isn't the 580 still a pretty popular non-high-end GPU for people who need a real GPU? Yes, the higher-end one should certainly get an update.
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Well…

An RX 5500 can be had at $180 retail now, so that sounds like a good base model.

Meanwhile, the RX 5700 XT (a.k.a. Navi 10 XT) is $410.

And again, those are retail prices; Blackmagic can probably get them for cheaper in bulk.

Add some markup, and selling them at the existing $699 and $1199 price points seems doable.

SteveW928 said:
Also... for people out there considering their options, be sure to look at some benchmarks and tests in software products when budgeting for a GPU. When people say it is an old GPU or slow or such, that is often in comparison to the latest-and-greatest which you may or may not need. You don't necessarily need to spend a bunch more money to get X% more performance unless you need it or can justify it based on time-savings.
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Oh, absolutely.

The thing is, though, for those with a Mac with only Intel graphics (Mac mini and any MacBook that isn't the 16-inch Pro, including any 13-inch Pro!), if you want even medium-level graphics performance, eGPU is basically your only option.

If you already have a dedicated GPU (most iMac models, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, the iMac Pro and Mac Pro), an eGPU should IMHO only be considered for rather high-end needs.

(And if your scenario is gaming, consider if you're better off just going with a separate PC or console. You'll save a fair amount of money, and get a greater selection of games.)
 
chucker23n1 said:
An RX 5500
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Very slightly off-topic, but does anyone know if macOS has drivers for these? I'm slowly coming to a decision on en eGPU, I'd originally planed for a 570 or 580, but it seems they're the worst offenders for weird behaviour, whereas 5700 at least seems slightly more reliable.

My needs are simple - no games, no 3d - I just want to be able to run 2x 4K displays at a scaled resolution, so the 5500 seems like a much better buy to me. (A tip about turning off transparency actually helps a lot running with just the iGPU but occasionally things are still not as smooth as they could be)
 
Stephen.R said:
Very slightly off-topic, but does anyone know if macOS has drivers for these? I'm slowly coming to a decision on en eGPU, I'd originally planed for a 570 or 580, but it seems they're the worst offenders for weird behaviour, whereas 5700 at least seems slightly more reliable.
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Oh, this is a good point.

macOS does have some Navi drivers; the 16-inch MacBook Pro has a 5300M or 5500M.

So maybe those drivers can be used with the RX 5500 (and/or maybe macOS has drivers for those, too).
 
Stephen.R said:
Very slightly off-topic, but does anyone know if macOS has drivers for these? I'm slowly coming to a decision on en eGPU, I'd originally planed for a 570 or 580, but it seems they're the worst offenders for weird behaviour, whereas 5700 at least seems slightly more reliable.

My needs are simple - no games, no 3d - I just want to be able to run 2x 4K displays at a scaled resolution, so the 5500 seems like a much better buy to me. (A tip about turning off transparency actually helps a lot running with just the iGPU but occasionally things are still not as smooth as they could be)
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chucker23n1 said:
Oh, this is a good point.

macOS does have some Navi drivers; the 16-inch MacBook Pro has a 5300M or 5500M.

So maybe those drivers can be used with the RX 5500 (and/or maybe macOS has drivers for those, too).
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Apple's latest update of their eGPU page (updated just 4 days ago) show support for 5700 as long as you're using macOS Catalina. Obviously as @chucker23n1 says Apple are using the 5300M/5500M in the MacBook Pro. I would say the Catalina driver issues are such that I would be tempted to leave it for a bit.

Your use case makes a basic GPU acceptable but you're in the realm where the enclosure could easily cost more than the GPU you were intending to use if you had been confident enough to pick the RX570.
 
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sublunar said:
Apple's latest update of their eGPU page (updated just 4 days ago) show support for 5700 as long as you're using macOS Catalina. Obviously as @chucker23n1 says Apple are using the 5300M/5500M in the MacBook Pro.
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Oh, nice, I didn't even think to check their support page.

(I can't really comment on pricing or quality; eGPU isn't for me.)
 
chucker23n1 said:
Well…

An RX 5500 can be had at $180 retail now, so that sounds like a good base model.

Meanwhile, the RX 5700 XT (a.k.a. Navi 10 XT) is $410.

And again, those are retail prices; Blackmagic can probably get them for cheaper in bulk.

Add some markup, and selling them at the existing $699 and $1199 price points seems doable.
Click to expand...


Yeah, that sounds reasonable. I don't know much about RX 5500 vs RX 580. Wouldn't the RX 5700 be a bit of a downgrade compared to what it had previously? But, maybe going top-of-the-line wouldn't gain that much but add too much cost?

One thing to watch on prices, is how much RAM. I noticed with the Mac Pro add option, people were quoting $400'ish for the price and complaining about Apple's markup, but I think Apple's card has 2x the RAM as the ones most people are buying.

But, bottom line for me, I'd love to see Blackmagic maintain a 'regular' and 'pro' model of eGPU with this design, keeping whatever is the reasonable 'normal' and 'high-end' GPUs in each model. I hope that is what is going on here... though one would think it would be best to have the replacement when you announce you're dropping the current.

chucker23n1 said:
Oh, absolutely.

The thing is, though, for those with a Mac with only Intel graphics (Mac mini and any MacBook that isn't the 16-inch Pro, including any 13-inch Pro!), if you want even medium-level graphics performance, eGPU is basically your only option.

If you already have a dedicated GPU (most iMac models, the 16-inch MacBook Pro, the iMac Pro and Mac Pro), an eGPU should IMHO only be considered for rather high-end needs.

(And if your scenario is gaming, consider if you're better off just going with a separate PC or console. You'll save a fair amount of money, and get a greater selection of games.)
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Agreed, or the other issue might be to off-load some heat generation (especially laptops). I don't know if that would make much difference with the iGPU models, but should with the dGPU ones.

re: gaming - Yeah, for sure if you like console gaming (which I do). Although aside from space/clutter considerations, you could get a pretty nice eGPU for the cost of a gaming PC rig. But, if you have the space, I guess having 2 machines has advantages too. You could always use the PC to run Folding@home (w/ GPU!) while you're using your Mac.
 
sublunar said:
Your use case makes a basic GPU acceptable but you're in the realm where the enclosure could easily cost more than the GPU you were intending to use if you had been confident enough to pick the RX570.
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Oh the enclosure absolutely will be more expensive - local cost for an Akitio Node (the original one) is 14.9K, the 570 is about 3.5K, the 5500 is about 6K (this is all in Thai Baht) - but it's also priced significantly higher than US pricing anyway - not sure if it's import duties or just opportunistic pricing really.


chucker23n1 said:
macOS does have some Navi drivers; the 16-inch MacBook Pro has a 5300M or 5500M.

So maybe those drivers can be used with the RX 5500 (and/or maybe macOS has drivers for those, too).
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I did a little search, and came across this guy
which seems to indicate that the 5500 works fine - he even got a damn login screen! (which is apparently something others have had issues with).
 
Another nice thing about the Blackmagic... (at least if you have a mini)
mini stack.jpg


It saves a lot of desktop space, and adds a bit to the cooling.
Not sure if this would be Apple-approved, but the mini seems pretty strong to handle it.
 
I feel bad about the people who paid a premium for this and now its no longer a product line that Black Magic is persuing. I did question the fact that you couldn't change the GPU, its not ideal in that sense, and other egpus make more financial sense, so that's probably why it failed
 
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