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How-To: eGPU for Mini 

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seble said:
Ah, I'm here in the land of Brexit, also known as the UK - so we don't get the same awesome prices as you guys get on eGPU enclosures. Sonnet Breakway remains the cheapest enclosure I've seen but I'm glad you've got confidence in it! I'll review prices again but I'm thinking that's what I'm going to go for enclosure wise and go with the Vega 56. I guess we'll see about the RAM type...
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I upgraded the PSU to the Seasonic Focus 650W today. It was straight forward and took 5 minutes. Either the SFX or the SFX-L (mine was this) form factor will work.

As a bonus, after upgrading the PSU, I noticed that the enclosure was much quieter than with the stock PSU when the GPU is at load. I played Division 2 for a few hours without any issues.

I saw power draw spike to 440W while playing Division 2. I know the Mac Mini has a 150W PSU. In the best case, it means the GPU was drawing 290W which is pretty close to the 300W max of the stock PSU. I still think the stock PSU is adequate, but I think I'd prefer to have some buffer and the increased quietness is definitely welcome.

For sure. The Sonnet has my vote of confidence. Knowing what I know now, I would buy the Sonnet over the Razer Core X and upgrade the PSU if I had to do it again.
 
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adamk77 said:
I upgraded the PSU to the Seasonic Focus 650W today. It was straight forward and took 5 minutes. Either the SFX or the SFX-L (mine was this) form factor will work.

As a bonus, after upgrading the PSU, I noticed that the enclosure was much quieter than with the stock PSU when the GPU is at load. I played Division 2 for a few hours without any issues.

I saw power draw spike to 440W while playing Division 2. I know the Mac Mini has a 150W PSU. In the best case, it means the GPU was drawing 290W which is pretty close to the 300W max of the stock PSU. I still think the stock PSU is adequate, but I think I'd prefer to have some buffer and the increased quietness is definitely welcome.

For sure. The Sonnet has my vote of confidence. Knowing what I now now, I would buy the Sonnet over the Razer Core X and upgrade the PSU if I had to do it again.
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This is fantastic news! You've cemented in my mind that I'm going to go for the cheapest sonnet Box and upgrade the PSU when I want to eek more (stable) power out of the GPU. Thanks for your insight!
 
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seble said:
This is fantastic news! You've cemented in my mind that I'm going to go for the cheapest sonnet Box and upgrade the PSU when I want to eek more (stable) power out of the GPU. Thanks for your insight!
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No problem! It sounds like a great choice. I think it's the quietest + most economical 650W solution (if you choose to upgrade the PSU). Definitely let me know how it works out for you!
 
adamk77 said:
I upgraded the PSU to the Seasonic Focus 650W today. It was straight forward and took 5 minutes. Either the SFX or the SFX-L (mine was this) form factor will work.

As a bonus, after upgrading the PSU, I noticed that the enclosure was much quieter than with the stock PSU when the GPU is at load. I played Division 2 for a few hours without any issues.

I saw power draw spike to 440W while playing Division 2. I know the Mac Mini has a 150W PSU. In the best case, it means the GPU was drawing 290W which is pretty close to the 300W max of the stock PSU. I still think the stock PSU is adequate, but I think I'd prefer to have some buffer and the increased quietness is definitely welcome.

For sure. The Sonnet has my vote of confidence. Knowing what I know now, I would buy the Sonnet over the Razer Core X and upgrade the PSU if I had to do it again.
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bring this over to your thread :)

this is one solid reason also as we already have 3 computers going and this is a huge thing I try to do is make things quiet
and worth a upgrade price alone !!!
for PSU I try to go by the half rule and peak efficiency so something in that 600 range would be good

the moment I read the razer core case had a 60mm fan I was like NOPE

glad ya spun this thread off on its own ! good info
lucky I have a killer PC for gaming when I want :) I just need to recruit all my PS friends as I can over and then find a new clan :) hahahahaha
 
Honumaui said:
bring this over to your thread :)

this is one solid reason also as we already have 3 computers going and this is a huge thing I try to do is make things quiet
and worth a upgrade price alone !!!
for PSU I try to go by the half rule and peak efficiency so something in that 600 range would be good

the moment I read the razer core case had a 60mm fan I was like NOPE

glad ya spun this thread off on its own ! good info
lucky I have a killer PC for gaming when I want :) I just need to recruit all my PS friends as I can over and then find a new clan :) hahahahaha
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Yup, agreed!

The Sonnet 550W is a great deal, too. That Silverstone PSU retails for $95 on Amazon here in the States, so it's actually cheaper to buy the 550W ($280) version than to upgrade to the 550W yourself from the 350W version ($200 + $95).

The fan in the 650W is a Akasa AK-FN059 and it goes for anywhere around $12 - $20. The fan in the 350W and 550W is quiet. I wonder how much quieter the Akasa AK-FN059 and how much "higher performing" (as stated by Sonnet) it is.
 
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adamk77 said:
Amazon prime is late, yet again. This makes it 5 times this month alone. It seems to be getting progressively worse.

I just canceled prime. The price keeps increasing and I don't use any of the other benefits besides prime shipping.
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If you complain with late deliveries you can get an extended month of prime.
I do so much volume at work that something is always off a few days or a week.
Haven't "paid" for Prime in quite some time due to all of the extensions.
 
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adamk77 said:
I'm not 100% sure if this is because of the PSU, but when I run a demanding game, my screen sometimes gets momentarily very dim like someone turned down the brightness way down.

It only happens in demanding games, when the fans on the GPU and the enclosure have kicked into high gear.

I think things are better when I set the GPU into a “power saving profile” inside AMD’s Wattman. I have not seen the screen dimming after I did this, but I need to test more to be sure.

My Mac Mini and the enclosure are both connected to a UPS that shows me how much power is being drawn. At idle in Windows, it’s around 80-100W. When in a game, I’ve seen it spike to 475W. It doesn’t stay there, but the fact that it spikes so high is a little too close for comfort given the relatively weak PSU of the enclosure. Though I'm sure that it's not all due to the GPU.

So I just decided to upgrade the PSU to the 650W. I was going to do it anyway in the future because I planned on flashing the Vega 56 with the Vega 64 firmware, which would definitely have made the stock PSU inadequate.
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It wasn't my PSU that was causing this issue. Even after upgrading to the 650W, I was seeing the same behavior. It turned out to be Windows notification somehow interfering with full screen mode, causing my screen to dim. I disabled it and all is good. I decided to keep the upgrade though, because of the quietness.
 
So what you're saying is, regardless of upgrading the PSU, the Sonnet 350 can happily handle an overclocked Vega 56?
 
seble said:
So what you're saying is, regardless of upgrading the PSU, the Sonnet 350 can happily handle an overclocked Vega 56?
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No, not overclocked Vega 56. I'm running mine at stock. For overclocked Vega 56, you want to upgrade the PSU.
 
IngerMan said:
Adam is it correct that you are running the Sonnet 350W enclosure but you eventually upgraded PSU 650Watt?
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I'm not OP but that's what he confirmed earlier on in the thread, and changed the connector pin for the eGPU
 
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ended up with the 350 case and the 580 GPU doing some testing with my current gear and some others that had the 56 for what this setup will do going to work
since this is 1 of 3 computers in the studio and not the top one so to say figured put that extra funds to more storage we need since this is not the box that gets pushed on GPU use
for sure I would say anyone with this as a main box look at the programs you use and decide the 56 or the 580
but the 56 would for sure be the best if budget allowed :)

so far impressed with the mini as a whole
the stock 350 is very quiet ran heaven benchmark for 30 minutes to see what it would do for noise and you could hear it but was not loud IMHO

the box is kinda basic in a sense of a basic case build which is fine BUT the parts seem to be top notch stock power supply the build of the green board etc..

reckon a few years I will see where GPU are and upgrade both PSU and GPU if when I need
 
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avxkim said:
Does your mac mini has power nap on? Mine accidentally wakes during the night, so does the eGPU blue lights. Have you experienced this? Also your 650W doesn't have power switch just like on 350w? So, basically every SFX 650W would be ok with sonnet box?
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My Mac Mini has Power Nap enabled. No, I haven't experienced it waking up during the night.

Yup, the 650W has a power switch on the back. As long as the PSU's form factor is SFX or SFX-U, it will be fine.
 
adamk77 said:
My Mac Mini has Power Nap enabled. No, I haven't experienced it waking up during the night.

Yup, the 650W has a power switch on the back. As long as the PSU's form factor is SFX or SFX-U, it will be fine.
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Have you changed sonnet's case fan as well with PSU? Or the stock one enough for Vega 56?
 
avxkim said:
Have you changed sonnet's case fan as well with PSU? Or the stock one enough for Vega 56?
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I have not changed the case fan. I was thinking of changing it, but the more I use it, I don't see any reason to. It works perfectly fine and it's quiet. I can barely that it's even on.
 
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adamk77 said:
I have not changed the case fan. I was thinking of changing it, but the more I use it, I don't see any reason to. It works perfectly fine and it's quiet. I can barely tell even if it's on.
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What's your Heaven 4.0 benchmark score? My is ~850 with RX 580 (Ultra / 1080p / 8x)
 
avxkim said:
Also, have you undervolted your gpu? I just can't find an easy to reflash my gpu without windows...
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Nope, the opposite! I use AMD's Wattman. I have it either in "Turbo" mode or have it manually overclocked.

For my use case though, there's nothing I do on my Mac that would require me to tweak my GPU like I do in Windows (for the games).
 
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