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Hands-On With Apple's New $699 Blackmagic eGPU

Apple should get a grip and stop overpricing outdated hardware because it "looks good". I've been a Mac user for more than 12 years now and my MacBook Pro 15" touchbar from 2016 is just of poor quality. Seeing the pricetags go up and the quality go down is a sad evolution for what was once the go-to manufacturer for power-users. Adding this non-upgradeable, 1 year old GPU to boost performance a little won't change that.
 
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The only ones I see that it might be helpful, is the 13" MBP users, who want a lighter smaller MBP, don't need the performance of the 15" on the go, but want more performance at home connected to an external monitor.

Personally I have a 15" and the LG 5K, and if I was only using the 13" I might have considered this.

But, for a 2 years old GPU (the 580 is basically a rebranded 480 from july 2016), which is going to soon be replaced, and a non replaceable at that, this is absolutely throwing away money. Its revalue is null in a year, and as long as you don't use 5K monitor, you can get a good 4K monitor for cheaper plus an external upgradeable eGPU that support mac, and replace its GPU with a vega or the next generation later on.

So even if it is the first to support TB3, all it will do is feature on youtubers channels who got it for free, and encourange people to buy it even though that they aren't going to use it themselves for its uselessness.
 
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Cook to Ive: "I know it's a POS, but we're getting desperate! We need to do something!"
Ive:
IveSmugMush.png
 
Since the Blackmagic eGPU is not upgradable why didn't they build a Radeon Pro 580 into a 5k display and be done with it? That would have been elegant. The 580 would be able to power the 5k display for years to come. You can still use more eGPUs to add compute power for 3D rendering, video editing, etc anyway.
 
Not upgradeable!

Apple again finds a way to limit and rip off their customers, for no good reason.
 
The whole point of being able to replace the GPU is that you save money because you get to keep the rest of your computer. With this thing, you're paying so much, that this advantage is lost.

You end up with an eGPU that you can't even sell because it goes obsolete and is only compatible with a handful of machines. At least if you could use regular graphics cards, you could sell it to anyone with any kind of computer. Oh, and it would cost much less to begin with, and perform the same.

If you want desktop class performance, get a desktop. If you want a portable computer, also get a portable computer. You can get both, and still come out cheaper than this half-solution.
 
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nerdynerdynerdy said:
Apologies for some noobish questions on this subject:


Would this add any processing power to an iMac or iMac Pro which already has a similar/better GPU installed? I'm assuming software would need to take advantage of multiple GPUs.

Does it need a second monitor attached to work correctly when doing GPU render tasks?

Does having an external monitor on a single GPU machine render more slowly than no external monitor?


I appreciate that multiple GPU focused software isn't very common which lead to criticism of the nMP, but there are some applications (Resolve etc) that make some use of it.
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No one interested in responding to this v sober question? Seems apparent that Blackmagic has their own Resolve software in mind when designing this… and lead image on product page on their site shows it connected to an iMac + external display…
 
Even though this is a Blackmagic product, i very much feel Apple's influence in it. Some people may not like Blackmagic, but i am a big fan. I get as excited by a Blackmagic product announcement as i used to by Apple ones in the early 2000s. They always surprise me when they release new products, because they tend to cram them with brand new features for a price much lower than everyone else in the same market. Just look at what you get in their Television Studio Pro 4K vision mixer for the price compared to the competition.

This product just doesn't seem like them. Happy to be proved wrong, but i imagine if Blackmagic were to have created this purely by themselves, it would have been an upgradable GPU slot with NVidia support heavily advertised.
 
mmomega said:
Most of the $199 boxes I have seen come with decent power supplies to power most of all cards.
But when you put in a Vega56 or 64, then you're going to need the 500-600w varieties to keep them from powering down under load.

again, "usually"

but you are correct, there are about a dozen boxes currently around the $200-300 range that will completely run an RX580 'ish card.
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Use a gpu from a company that actually knows what efficiency means. A 1080 has a TDP of 180w and will never even spike above 300w.
[doublepost=1531994074][/doublepost]An eGPU solution...where you can’t swap out the gpu. Is this for real? Can someone enlighten me on this idioticy?
 
Is it possible to use a usb-c to minidisplayport Adapter to connect a 27“ Cinema Display via dp to the black magic?
 
I would have a problem with this eGPU if apple had made it the only one that works with macOS, but the fact that you can use the cheaper and/or upgradeable options means you have a choice either way so most people should be happy. Hopefully that support continues.

In my case I'm planning to replace my old 2012 Unibody 15" MBP and my iPad, with a quad core 13" MBP and eGPU, which is something I have been looking forward to do for years.
 
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I didn't think they would make the GPU un-upgradable, but it seems like they did. Thankfully there's alternatives that are deliberate bring-your-own-GPU type deals so this is just for people who aren't very tech savvy. Also would have hoped they'd have offered an RX Vega card at least as a higher priced option, but apparently not.
 
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baryon said:
The whole point of being able to replace the GPU is that you save money because you get to keep the rest of your computer. With this thing, you're paying so much, that this advantage is lost.

You end up with an eGPU that you can't even sell because it goes obsolete and is only compatible with a handful of machines. At least if you could use regular graphics cards, you could sell it to anyone with any kind of computer. Oh, and it would cost much less to begin with, and perform the same.

If you want desktop class performance, get a desktop. If you want a portable computer, also get a portable computer. You can get both, and still come out cheaper than this half-solution.
Click to expand...

I use a 13” Pro that I dock daily for work. The eGPU is so ridiculously underpowered that is struggles resizing word documents. I would be all over this if I could replace the GPU. At this price point, I would rather sell my current Mac and then upgrade to a 15” Pro
 
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so, if I add one of these types of boxes to my 2014 iMac 5K, it will increase speed in Adobe Premiere? I'd like to get another 3-4 years out of my current setup.
 
no, thanks. always limit it with something, restrict users to put a different card in, how typical for apple products lasr years
 
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mr_bam said:
Since the Blackmagic eGPU is not upgradable why didn't they build a Radeon Pro 580 into a 5k display and be done with it? That would have been elegant. The 580 would be able to power the 5k display for years to come. You can still use more eGPUs to add compute power for 3D rendering, video editing, etc anyway.
Click to expand...
I am hoping this will be the new Apple Display that they are working on. Built-in graphics cards so your under powered GPU laptops will benefit from a descrete built in GPU. Might cost an arm and a leg, but hey...it’s Apple.
 
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