As many people are still running on Intel Macs might consider the one of the new eGPU Pucks from Sonnet, I wanted to share my experience.
I took delivery of the Sonnet eGPU Puck RX 5700 yesterday, hoping it could drive both of my LG UltraFine 5K displays without me having to listen to the fans going nuts and the occasional thermal throttling, as it does when I drive them from my MacBook Pro 16" (dGPU: 5500M).
Unpacking the eGPU, the size positively surprised me, but as soon as I set it up with just a single 5K display and the laptop in clamshell mode, the eGPU fan started spinning and making a "worse than MPB fan noise" even on low RPMs. This went on while idling or doing very simple non-GPU tasks. Comparably my MacBook Pro is completely silent driving just a single 5K display in clamshell mode. The eGPU did stop spinning a few times but would start again just five seconds later.
I sent Sonnet a recording of the noise thinking I might have gotten a faulty unit, however they confirmed that it is how it should sound like and further, to expect the fan to be on most of the time, as it's a performance GPU. They also said to expect the around the same noise level from the 5500 XT.
It's worth noting that performance wise the eGPU did score 85% higher than the 5500M in Geekbench 5's compute test, so it might be good for some specific use cases if you can tolerate the noise, even when idling. But with the high price tag and equally high noise level, I'd recommend against the eGPU. It seems Sonnet could have made a better product if they invested more into the design, I suspect a better fan would have gotten them far.
I took delivery of the Sonnet eGPU Puck RX 5700 yesterday, hoping it could drive both of my LG UltraFine 5K displays without me having to listen to the fans going nuts and the occasional thermal throttling, as it does when I drive them from my MacBook Pro 16" (dGPU: 5500M).
Unpacking the eGPU, the size positively surprised me, but as soon as I set it up with just a single 5K display and the laptop in clamshell mode, the eGPU fan started spinning and making a "worse than MPB fan noise" even on low RPMs. This went on while idling or doing very simple non-GPU tasks. Comparably my MacBook Pro is completely silent driving just a single 5K display in clamshell mode. The eGPU did stop spinning a few times but would start again just five seconds later.
I sent Sonnet a recording of the noise thinking I might have gotten a faulty unit, however they confirmed that it is how it should sound like and further, to expect the fan to be on most of the time, as it's a performance GPU. They also said to expect the around the same noise level from the 5500 XT.
It's worth noting that performance wise the eGPU did score 85% higher than the 5500M in Geekbench 5's compute test, so it might be good for some specific use cases if you can tolerate the noise, even when idling. But with the high price tag and equally high noise level, I'd recommend against the eGPU. It seems Sonnet could have made a better product if they invested more into the design, I suspect a better fan would have gotten them far.
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