I have a PC wiht a RTX 3080 GPU. currently use the 16 inch MBP but know will switch to M1. Does it make sense to get an eGPU enclosure to render and FX in FCP with the 3080? Am I going to get way better performance?
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M1 with eGPU for FCP?
- Thread starter FilmIndustryGuy
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Due to patents owned by NVIDIA, which Apple got around thanks to help from Intel. New Apple made M1 chips dont enjoy those same patent work arounds. Hence M1 Chips made by Apple cant get around eGPU patents NVIDIA holds.
Works arounds are in the works but not yet ready so don’t hold your breath. Or that they will be as good when released.
Works arounds are in the works but not yet ready so don’t hold your breath. Or that they will be as good when released.
You're saying M1 Macs don't support eGPUs because of patents? Where did you get this info?
What is an eGPU patent? A GPU is just a PCIe card. You connect it, add some drivers, and you're done. M1 Macs have the drivers but they weren't recompiled for ARM.
I don't know if Apple will ever enable eGPU for Apple Silicon. Third parties can't make graphics drivers for Macs.
At least the new models should support more displays.
M1 does not support eGPUs and my bet is that it never will. It does not make any once for Apple to support eGPUs on Apple Silicon as they are not compatible with their programming model.
OP:
If you need an eGPU, better use an Intel-based Mac.
As leman predicts, probably not going to see any support for eGPU's on m-series Macs any time soon.
If you need an eGPU, better use an Intel-based Mac.
As leman predicts, probably not going to see any support for eGPU's on m-series Macs any time soon.
As I said before, eGPUs are fundamentally incompatible with Apple Silicon programming model as they break important assumptions guaranteed by Apple architecture. It won’t be any different for M2 or whatever revision.
I've used an eGPU in my daily setup for 4+ years now (a Radeon RX580 8GB with my 2016 nTB MBP). It's worked very well for my needs and has been really good especially this past year with the whole work from home thing. While I'm a little disappointed that eGPU support will probably not support Apple Silicon, I'm completely fine ditching my eGPU in the future if the graphics performance in Apple Silicon is close to being as good as an internal dGPU.
I think if the next higher end chips have a GPU that is the same or a bit better than the 5600m in my 16" then it should be great.
For my use, this GPU works well, and I don't want too much more in a laptop - just less heat and peace, and I will leave the heavy lifting to my desktops.
EGPU's are fantastic to convert a laptop into a desktop, if you are a heavy gpu user like I am, but overall a desktop solution still smashes that set up [no latency, faster CPU etc].
You wanna provide some examples here? Because it frankly sounds like you're blowing smoke.
There's nothing particularly special about an eGPU, it's a discrete GPU that happens to be connected on PCIe lanes that are externalized via Thunderbolt. Apple Silicon still uses PCIe. The only REAL issue here is drivers. If Apple is supporting discrete GPUs in later Apple Silicon Macs (and this is a pretty good bet), the only thing preventing eGPU support at that point is laziness or attempts at control.
Examples:
- Apple GPUs have unified memory, eGPUs by definition do not
- Apple GPUs are TBDR devices, third party GPUs are not
- Apple GPUs offer certain performance guarantees, third party GPUs are not
- Metal is designed for Apple GPUs and full range of Metal features is only available on Apple GPUs, third party GPUs only support a subset of those features
Right now, Apple Silicon offers a unique benefit for GPU developers: a streamlined development environment with a powerful API and unified hardware capabilities. Third party GPUs and eGPUs in particular are not compatible with this environment, ergo, I don't see Apple sabotaging their platform by offering that feature.
Does this unified memory mean Apple GPUs will likely always be part of the SoC? Even the eventual AS Mac Pro?
I had a high-end eGPU setup with my previous i7 mini. It worked well, but definitely revved up pretty loudly when I worked on 3D modeling or Final Cut projects. My M1 mini is much faster than my previous setup and has been more than capable with whatever I've thrown at it (and has been completely silent). So I don't see any need for an eGPU. And it's only going to get better with future iterations. So if you have an Intel mini, you definitely need an eGPU. But it's not needed with the M1.
To answer the OP’s question, I don’t think Nvidia 3080s were ever supported in Mac OS. Apple and Nvidia have a pretty nasty relationship, and there haven’t been any drivers for modern Nvidia cards for Macs. So, no, connecting your 3080 in an Egpu probably won’t work, and FCP wouldn’t recognize it anyway, intel or M1.
Seeing how much emphasis Apple put on advertising UMA on Apple Silicon I just don’t see them not having it on the Mac Pro as well. Whether it will be one large SoC or multiple chips interconnected by a shared cache/memory die (like AMD does) is a technical question.
P.S. to be 100% clear, this is just my opinion. I might very well be wrong.
I have very shallow depth of technical knowledge, but what I do understand is fascinating. So curious to see how Apple will handle their high end machines and their pro customer base.
I don't think there is any other interpretation to what we are seeing. Macs have become as closed hardware-wise as iPhones. Any kind of third-party extensibility is going to be external only. I wonder what it means for the Mc Pro though...
Once we see more Macs coming out, we can guesstimate better where Apple is going but I agree with everyone else. I doubt there will be eGPUs in the AS line. It defeats the whole unified memory concept of the AS SOC. They may integrate AMD video into the SOC but we can only guess for now.
As an example of current M1 benchmarks:
In Octane Render
An M1 takes 101 seconds
A 5700XT 21 seconds
So Apple really need to up the GPU specs for macproAS.
That’s always been the goal since the start of Apple hasnt it? Fully integrated hardware and software.
I think it is great for most users and totally support it. However probably not so great for some of my professional work but thats fine, windows does a great job there. Right tool right job.