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M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini Not Compatible With eGPUs
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Do you have a link to those benchmarks? I can't believe the SoC is capable of keeping up with modern nVidia/AMD offerings. Especially not, when all Apple compared themselves with yesterday was 'integrated graphics' on PCs.
I am a gamer, I ordered a PS5.
Yeah, sure, the Mac was already quite literally “infinitely” unappealing to gamers. That’s why every MacRumors story dealing with Mac GPUs is filled with questions from gamers asking about GPU performance, along with the inevitable Pavlovian spasms about how no one cares about the questions so many readers are discussing.
(Doubtless all these alleged “Mac gamers” don’t really exist, and all their fake questions are being made up by a vast multi-state criminal conspiracy determined to change the outcome of our MacRumors forum discussions.
)
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A vocal minority possibly? I’ve used one for years and love it, turned my 2017 MacBook Pro from an ultra book into something that could legitimately play AAA pc games (via bootcamp) meaning I didn’t have to buy some big gross gaming PC. I’m now left unsure what machine to buy moving forward...
Not that I want or need the eGPU, but only 16GB RAM and no 10GBETH Port == no love.
H.
I knew these MacBooks would be a dud, them locking down their OS even further is another killer for me. It ensures the Mac mini I have now will be my last Apple product I ever buy.
Yeh although now it's not x86 there will be no need or an eGPU since it can only play IOS games.
To be perfectly honest the 13” “Pro” is an insult to Pro machines, and I say that with a lot of respect for what Apple has impressively done with their own silicon. “Pro” used to be synonymous with “dedicated GPU” in terms of Macs but now they just throw the term about wherever they like. The 13” MacBook Pro is not a MacBook Pro in my eyes, and I’ve felt like this since they released the first 13” “Pro”.
I don't think it is that simple to take a ARM architecture and then employ an eGPU which was solely based on x86 architecture.
I don't think I recall seeing any ARM + eGPU combination right now.
I don't think I recall seeing any ARM + eGPU combination right now.
I’m happy with my 2019 MacBook 16” with 5600M I got from the Apple refurbished store last week for $2600.
There have been MacBook Pros without dedicated GPUs for more than a decade. Get over it.
It does not surprise me that there is no eGPU support. For some reason, I feel this was a known fact since like WWDC. This does not bother me. Now I might be an odd duck, but I own a 2018 Mac mini, with an eGPU with an Radeon 580 8Gig-ram. I play games like TW: Warhammer, 3k and so many more off of Steam. It’s not so much that games aren’t made for Mac. Most of them just aren’t given the love by the developers to support it. I am personally looking forward to seeing what my M1 MBP can do when I get it. Hopefully not to many games, so I can be more productive 🥱
You’re right. On the chart they showed about the future of the Mac’s GPU, since the GPU and CPU shared RAM, you could infer a couple things.
1. No slotted GPU’s (which means no Nvidia/AMD option)
2. No eGPU (because the bus latency would kill the performance)
That led to some folks saying that’s just what they mean for NOW, but it’ll change in the future, there’s no way they could cut out all graphic options, they HAVE to support eGPU’s if they have Thunderbolt, etc. Now that we have the confirmation from Apple... actually, I doubt it’ll change, much
Just leave off the “eGPU” part.
And neither supported the 6k Pro Display, so you can spin it either way really.
If it doesn't drive enough displays for you then it's obviously not a powerful enough chip, wait for the next one, there will probably be 4 or 5 in the full line up.
YES!
As we all know.... professionals say: “I don’t care if I can perform tasks 3x faster, for the same price! Can I play pc games??” Lol.
/s
That is cool. I have a feeling they may support eGPU again in the future, but I guess boot camp is never coming back.
I have a lot of gamer friends, but they are all using PCs except for one who uses a maxed-out iMac. All of my other Mac friends are casual users, professionals, creatives, students, etc.
so funny that some of us use computers for work and other stuff for 95% of the time, but still want gaming capabilities for the rest of 5%. And no, Apple Arcade, and a handful of mac app store games, is not an option. I want ALL options available for when I want to game. Surprise, surprise, gamers still use their machines for a ton of other stuff as well.
I'm assuming that Apple believes that a subscription to Apple Arcade is all that people will require.
I don’t really understand the logic. The Mac Mini is a very capable alternative to the iMac if you don’t need (or want) the aio form factor. Now they’ve seemingly hamstrung it; and for what purpose? I was seriously planning to move to a Mac Mini for my first Apple computer. Now that I can’t have more than 16Gb RAM, no Windows platform, and no egpu, I think I’ll just stick with a Windows desktop to handle my photo and video needs. Disappointing.
I’m well aware of that and you have completely missed my point. It’s called marketing: educate yourself.
I’m guessing it’s to do with costs of adding controllers that don’t fit the target market. I suspect the higher-end line-up will have support for TB4.