It's slow if you compare it to a desktop gaming PC, but it's faster then all the Macs, except for the Pro line. One big advantage is it allows Mac users to get into virtual reality and play modern games with acceptable frame rates.
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Hands-On With Apple's New $699 Blackmagic eGPU
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It's slow if you compare it to a desktop gaming PC, but it's faster then all the Macs, except for the Pro line. One big advantage is it allows Mac users to get into virtual reality and play modern games with acceptable frame rates.
As I said, it's awfully expensive for the performance on offer. It's bettered by something as pedestrian as a GTX1060 or RX580, either of which are half the cost or less.
And it's not replaceable - you're buying a dead end, which strikes me as unwise at best.
It depends... what are the alternatives, and what do they cost? How do they compare? It kind of is what it is.
It is an RX580... but by the time you put one in a ***NOISY*** other eGPU case, you'll be close to the same price.
Yes, eGPU boxes are expensive. Have you never priced them?
Hopefully that will change one of these days, and other variations of something like this will come out too. Eventually the prices will start to come down a bit.
It isn't that the price of this is necessarily out of line of what I'd have expected, but more they didn't put a bit faster GPU in it for that price. Maybe they have a more pricy one coming with a Vega in it or something. How knows?
No, it is a Radeon Pro 580, not an RX-580. They are not the same: https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare/Radeon-RX-580-vs-Radeon-Pro-580/3736vs3933
This is one more piece of information that confirms that, at the best, the Mac product line is rudderless. No clear vision or leadership ... similar to the Siri team.
At worst, the entire company lacks any kind of product leadership ... or just plain leadership. It's all about counting the "beans" and pushing out any and everything that will bring in more "beans".
Dear Apple Board of Directors,
Please end Tim Cook's reign of mediocrity already. Slowly clean house of the executive with the exception of Federighi.
Your company is dying from the inside out. Cure the disease now while you still can. We saw this phenomenon before back in the 1980s.
At worst, the entire company lacks any kind of product leadership ... or just plain leadership. It's all about counting the "beans" and pushing out any and everything that will bring in more "beans".
Dear Apple Board of Directors,
Please end Tim Cook's reign of mediocrity already. Slowly clean house of the executive with the exception of Federighi.
Your company is dying from the inside out. Cure the disease now while you still can. We saw this phenomenon before back in the 1980s.
The pro 580 in the iMac is down clocked about 10-15% to reduce heat. There's also a difference between reference/Founders edition cards and the ones from MSI, ASUS, who sell overcloked versions of the cards. Same chip, but with aftermarket cooling to increase memory and GPU clock speeds. That is why the Apple version is always slower.
http://gpuboss.com/graphics-card/Radeon-Pro-580
Gpu
GPU brand AMD
GPU name Polaris 20
Clock speed 1,257 MHz
Turbo clock speed 1,340 MHz
Is dual GPU No
Reference card None
Raw Performance
Shading units 2,304
Texture mapping units 144
Render output processors 32
Compute units 36
Pixel rate 42.9 GPixel/s
Texture rate 193 GTexel/s
Floating-point performance 6,175 GFLOPS
http://gpuboss.com/graphics-card/Radeon-RX-580
Gpu
GPU brand AMD
GPU name Polaris 20
Clock speed 1,257 MHz
Turbo clock speed 1,340 MHz
Is dual GPU No
Reference card None
Raw Performance
Shading units 2,304
Texture mapping units 144
Render output processors 32
Compute units 36
Pixel rate 42.88 GPixel/s
Texture rate 193 GTexel/s
Floating-point performance 6,175 GFLOPS
They are identical, but it's up to Apple to decide what frequencies they run at to reduce heat.
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Actually, it is. You expected more power for that price point. You expected more horsepower at that price means the current offering should cost less.
Would be supremely awesome if the upcoming Mac Pro with very high end GPUs could serve as a high end eGPU for the MBP’s!
Since the card is around $250, that's $450 for the enclosure, which is expensive considering the limitations. It would be a lot easier to justify that if you could swap the card.
--Eric
See above... but I'm a bit surprised you posted this based on that link, as it tells pretty much nothing.
Well, or say a Vega for $999 or whatever. I didn't exactly have a price point in mind, I'm just a bit surprised that if they went through the effort, they didn't make it a higher end GPU.
If you take into account that other eGPUs cost $300 to $400+ and aren't nearly as well designed, you aren't all that far off, just adding up the parts and margin to account for design costs.
I wish it would cost less (I'd like a new Porsche 911 for $40k too, please!), but I don't think it is as out of line as is being expressed here.
Well, and as I said above, eGPU cases cost $300-400+. So, it's more expensive, but also not 'apples to apples'. And, yes, if there were a good one with swappable GPU card, I'd prefer that. But, for my needs, there isn't.
Take a look here:
https://egpu.io/external-gpu-buyers-guide-2018/
No doubt. That would be really cool (pardon the pun). But, there have been some reports of an eGPU helping keep the laptops cooler (as the internal GPU doesn't have to work hard, so the laptop doesn't have to get rid of CPU + GPU heat).
Yeah, exactly. I'm not how these people are calculating it. I get that they don't like the fact that they can't just swap in another card... fair enough. But you can't compare the price of a raw GPU 'card' to the price of this. Once you add a reasonably good eGPU case, you're right in the same price range... but maybe with a better GPU, sure.
And, then further limit it to TB3.
I don't know what the heck they are doing with all this limiting of what could be great expandability/extendability.
I get that there is even more performance decrease on TB2, but there is on TB3. Especially until they get some new Macs out with TB3, adding one of these to a TB2 Mac would make a lot of sense. (I know you can hack it, but Apple should directly support it.)
Well said!
I only take a bit of exception with the last sentence. Yes, that could be the situation. But, this is also a much better designed case/device that isn't like any of the options I've yet seen on the market. I have no issue putting cards into cases (I used to build machines and servers quite often). But, I don't want a leaf-blower on my desk while working, or especially while recording!
Yeah, if only Apple would release one with 4-cores and TB3.
Well, this seems more aimed at Apple's new 'pro' audience of laptop owners who have lots of money (not necessarily all the various high-end pros... who probably won't use a laptop in the first place).
And, gaming is a whole different thing. While the marketing on the Blackmagic site shows gaming, that seems more an aside to it's primary purpose. But, for someone with a 13" MBP (or other TB3 machines), it might make gaming much more possible where it wasn't previously. That's probably worth $700 if you're not buying a whole new machine.
Thanks for the feedback. This is the aspect that really draws me to this product. Hopefully others will make eGPU variations with a bit more focus on quality and quiet. I'd love to see a broad range of these things.
Yeah, from the reviews I've read, none of the other eGPUs on the market are currently an option... just way too noisy.
Asus ROG GX700VO has a detchable watercooler. looks terrible but is pretty cool. literally
it is a silent unit. if it had an upgradable card, like other units have, it wouldnt be a silent anymore. Fans on cards are quite loud. the key idea here is that you can use it without being distracted from the noise. if the noise doesnt bother you, you have some alternatives there to buy. i prefer silence, not jet turbines near me.
secondly, it has a usb hub and tb3 connections.
thirdly, it can charge your laptop.
fourtly, it works with lg 5k.
fifhtly, it is a plug-and-play unit. no hassle, just use it. okay, at the moment you need to run a script to get it power to use more widely and/or with an internal monitor. but that shouldnt take more then couple of minutes...
it is difficult to find a box that provides all of those above althought there are already comming differend solutions - unfortunately none of them will provide silence because the card itself causes the noise. so, this the best solution for getting better performance and some gaming especially with 13” macbook without noisy fans.
if you prefer to upgrade the gpu in the future, then you need to give up the dream having a silent unit - cant have both at the moment. of course blackmagic could have give a another model with better graphics, eg. with vega. but the price would be quite high.
please show proof, cause every other sites especially egpu.io stated all graphic cards lose on average 10-20 percent performance due to tb3 limitation.
https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/pcie-slot-dgpu-vs-thunderbolt-3-egpu-internal-display-test/
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not true, my asus strip 1070 with 3 fans is in the low 20-30 dbs when i play far cry 5 and other graphic demanding games.
[doublepost=1532029644][/doublepost]https://www.amazon.com/Mantiz-Thunderbolt-Certified-External-interface/dp/B0745H6GTX
the mantis venus is 350 on amazon. rx 580 is for sale around 250. total 600. same price as the black magic except, you can upgrade the card later.
btw every tb3 egpu solution is plug and play, charges 87w to the laptop. the black magic does not have that exclusive advantage.
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Yeah, same here. If someone were to do it with stock cards, I'd think it would have to be a pretty elaborate setup, if even possible. It would probably end up costing more. You'd have to remove the stock fans and then apply some kind of cooling.
Great link, thanks!
[doublepost=1532030137][/doublepost]
Hmm, if that's the same model/setup AI tested, here is what they said about the noise:
"Regarding noise, the Mantiz MZ-02 with the refinements is a bit quieter. As we first tested, idle under little load at three feet away, the enclosure peaks at 45 dBA. Under full load with the Radeon RX 580, it hits 66 dBA. The new version of the case is a bit quieter, peaking at 42 dBA under little load, and 61 dBA under full load."
That said, we still don't know what peak noise for the Blackmagic is, but I've seen a few user-reviews that say it is quite quiet, even under load. I just don't know numbers.
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yeah i forgot to mention mantis in their wisdom decided to include a 90mm high rpm fan that is quite noisy. but its a easy fix. all you have to do is remove the 90mm exhaust/intake fan and ur gucci.
the noise of the egpu is up to how well cooled the gpu is. all the top tier graphic cards such as gigabyte aorus or asus strix or evga super clock have dual or triple fan setup, which is virtually silent even when fully underlload, i know cause i have these models in my mining rig.
check out this link.
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-radeon-rx-580-strix-review,8.html
Yes, the BlackMagic eGPU is targeted at Pros. Please consider that not all pros want or need a Mac Pro under their desk. The designers I work with are either using a 2015 27" Retina 5K iMac or a top spec 2015 15" MacBook Pro. The designers had all used 2012 27" iMacs before several expressed an interest in trying a MacBook Pro instead, due to possible travel needs. Well, those travel needs never materialized to the extent that we thought and the MacBook Pros have fared rather well, however, there are two distinct disadvantages - they are RAM constrained, and as Production requirements changed over the past 3 years, it is apparent that 32GB is the bare minimum for the work they do (I have 32GB in the iMacs and never hear a complaint), and the other issue has been the constant fan noise as the RADEON M370X struggles to drive the 30" Apple Cinema Display(2560x1440) and the 27" Dell P2715Q 4K Display (3840x2160) that are hooked up via the Thunderbolt 2 ports (one direct, one via an El Gato TB2 Dock). Now that it is nearing the day when we will need to lease new computers, its time to move past 13 year old displays and embrace better color fidelity and higher resolutions. That most likely is going to mean at least one LG 27" UltraFine 5K display and one BenQ SW271 display. Running both of those displays off of a 2018 15" MacBook Pro is not something I want to repeat. Long story, short, I will seriously consider the BlackMagic eGPU. It's quiet, it looks decent, it doesn't require any assembly relative to DIY solutions, it takes up less space on the designer's desks so it won't end up on the floor and it will allow me to connect both displays to a GPU that is way less thermally constrained than the RX560X in the 2018 MacBook Pro. Should one break, I can easily take it to the Apple Store and have it replaced. It is also small enough to be stuck in a bag and taken home should the designer need to do so. It is from a reputable company with a vested interest in making Pro workflows faster (macOS, Windows and Linux) and it was developed in collaboration with Apple.
BlackMagic chose this approach, which is their perogative. Perhaps, if BlackMagic is successful with this one, they will introduce a Vega 56 or Vega 64 version as well, but since this is a growing category and a new one to them, they took a conservative approach. The market will decide if it was the correct approach.
There are plenty of other options out there for you and other users to choose from - approximately 18 based on the chart at eGPU.io - https://egpu.io/external-gpu-buyers-guide-2018/ - so I think the market is pretty well served at this point.
No...you are right, no gamer is going to buy this...but Marketing 101 teaches that you should make sure to address all possible target markets for your product where feasible, so as not to have them feel excluded, which becomes implicit by failing to mentioning them in your campaign.
Cool, thanks for the update and that link. I was wondering if some of those cases could be 'hacked' to be more quiet, as I've experimented with fans in the past. There are some really nice magnetic bearing fans I've used in the past that are quite quiet.
But, maybe quiet is somewhat relative here? That chart (on the link) lists the most quiet one under load at 37db, which I've seen listed as like 1db more noisy than a 15" MBP under full load... which I consider to be fairly noisy, or at least noise of a particularly annoying kind. The tone of the noise is also important, I guess, not just the level.
I should also add, that in addition to being annoying... I also do of audio/video recording (podcast, screen tutorial, YouTube, etc.) and prefer a condenser mic (vs dynamic), so I need to keep the sound environment pretty clean. Though, since we moved, I'm getting more outside noise anyway... so might have to switch to a dynamic mic, which would be a bit less fussy... but I'd still be annoyed by it.
Yeah, I think this is a big point that people are missing. In fact, I have to wonder if Apple didn't plan this into what looks like poor thermal handling we're seeing on the 6-core MBP. Maybe if you plug one of these in, you get a lot better performance out of the CPUs.
But the noise... yeah... I ***HATE*** that wound up higher-pitch noise of a laptop running hard. I'd already have a 13" MBP and one of these on order if I weren't afraid of that. I'm still thinking I might get a '13 Mac Pro or if possible, wait until fall/spring to see what Apple comes up with.
because the dB is logaritmic, there is significant difference between 18dB and 30dB. 30 dB on the desk will be annoying while 18dB is almost inaudible. most of the egpu boxes with gpu are also louder than 30dB.
and mantiz box has a fan and also the power supply has a fan which start spinning high under the load, then your rx580 has fans too. so the combination isnt silent at all and much more than 18 dB (=blackmagic).
every tb3 solutions arent plug-and-play and dont automaticly charge your laptop or even work with macbook. blackmagic has its advantage and it is truly plug-and-play solution for macs.
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Looking here - https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/radeon-rx-580See above... but I'm a bit surprised you posted this based on that link, as it tells pretty much nothing.
Well, or say a Vega for $999 or whatever. I didn't exactly have a price point in mind, I'm just a bit surprised that if they went through the effort, they didn't make it a higher end GPU.
If you take into account that other eGPUs cost $300 to $400+ and aren't nearly as well designed, you aren't all that far off, just adding up the parts and margin to account for design costs.
I wish it would cost less (I'd like a new Porsche 911 for $40k too, please!), but I don't think it is as out of line as is being expressed here.
Well, and as I said above, eGPU cases cost $300-400+. So, it's more expensive, but also not 'apples to apples'. And, yes, if there were a good one with swappable GPU card, I'd prefer that. But, for my needs, there isn't.
Take a look here:
https://egpu.io/external-gpu-buyers-guide-2018/
- and here - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/blackmagicegpu/techspecs/W-DRE-10
It seems the main differences I see between the two are the Base Clock - 1200MHz (BM 580 Pro) vs 1257MHz (RX580) and the Memory Clock, which is quite a bit slower than the RX580 - 1693MHz (BM 580 Pro) vs 2000MHz (RX580).
The slower Memory Clock also seems to affect the stated bandwidth for the BM eGPU, which is 217GB/s, 39GB/s less than the RX580 at 256GB/s.
Because there is no card in-between the Radeon Pro 580/RX580 and the Vega 56/64, I believe the 580 Pro was chosen simply because it was more economical and the market would be more receptive to a $699 eGPU than a $999 or $1199 eGPU, since not only do the Vega 56/64 cost more, they would require a larger power supply and more robust cooling solution than the Radeon Pro 580.
Since this is an entirely new product category for BlackMagic, I believe the opted to take a more cautious and conservative approach that had a greater chance for success. I, for one, hope they are successful.
Right, which is why the PC version will always be faster. Those are the base clocks, while the PC versions have boost mode, and even further if you buy from ASUS, Gigabyte, XFX ect, they typically overclock them even further out of the box, with their own custom cooling. BM didn't even mention boost, which is a shame, cause I bet that card can be overclocked a lot, without reaching thermals.
To be fair, I'd like to get a peak reading for the Blackmagic. Their copy says 'as low as' ~18db. That might be the idle rating, though the way they have it designed, hopefully the under load won't be much different than idle. But, we'd need to know that first to do that kind of comparison.
The key seems to be lots of surface area with a big fan, moving warm air the direction it naturally wants to go. This doesn't seem like rocket-science, so I always wonder why so many PC makers and PC peripheral makers have such a tough time with it (horizontal, obstructed air-flow, with tiny shrill fans). Maybe I should go into business, lol.
That's much better.
So, basically there isn't anything 'pro' about the Pro 580, it's just a marketing term. It's an RX580 that they've played with the clock frequencies to suit their design... and it seems, actually made it slower. So, more like 580 Jr.
But yeah, I hope we see all kind of competition in this field. I haven't paid much attention to it on the PC side of things, but if all of it goes TB3 (or TB4, etc.) and the boxes can work with both platforms, etc. I'd think this could be a popular trend. What home user wouldn't want to have a little laptop they can also do higher end stuff/gaming with?... let alone the pro possibilities (like plugging in 4 of them or such).