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obiit

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 26, 2019
25
14
Just thought i would post my short journey with a Macbook Air 2018 that morphed into an unexpected surprise.

I purchased a Macbook Air 2018 as my first personal laptop purchase after 30 years dabbling with IT. I wanted something light (I kept dropping an old borrowed one as arthritus stole my grip strength) and Apple as i work all day with Windows...... So i bought an 8gb ram 250gb storage version and it did exactly what i wanted it to do (browse, connect to work if needed and be portable).

Then they announced that Catalina wouldn't support my borrowed Mac Pro 5,1 that had erm got repurposed with an RX580 and used exclusively for World of Warcraft (instead of learning MacOS!). Working on the fact that it couldn't keep up with the new OS i thought i would have to go back to Windows for Warcraft.

I then came across eGPU's. Fantastic idea but with an Air for Warcraft - yeah right! Browsing this site and picking up some very usefull information i ran Geekbench on the machines. Following the results and Warcraft's afinity for single cores i thought hmm......

So i took the plunge and bought a Razor Core X, transfered the RX580 to it and loaded up Warcraft. I then sat back and waited for the toast from the Air and something to fail. I was very pleasantly shocked when the only toast i had was from driving the RX580 too hard with running Warcraft at 1440p on max settings! The Air worked just fine at 4000rpm fan and 75 degrees warm.

So i now have one device (and a very large box under my desk!) that does all my computer needs and it really wasn't what i expected :cool:
 
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Just thought i would post my short journey with a Macbook Air 2018 that morphed into an unexpected surprise.

I purchased a Macbook Air 2018 as my first personal laptop purchase after 30 years dabbling with IT. I wanted something light (I kept dropping an old borrowed one as arthritus stole my grip strength) and Apple as i work all day with Windows...... So i bought an 8gb ram 250gb storage version and it did exactly what i wanted it to do (browse, connect to work if needed and be portable).

Then they announced that Catalina wouldn't support my borrowed Mac Pro 5,1 that had erm got repurposed with an RX580 and used exclusively for World of Warcraft (instead of learning MacOS!). Working on the fact that it couldn't keep up with the new OS i thought i would have to go back to Windows for Warcraft.

I then came across eGPU's. Fantastic idea but with an Air for Warcraft - yeah right! Browsing this site and picking up some very usefull information i ran Geekbench on the machines. Following the results and Warcraft's afinity for single cores i thought hmm......

So i took the plunge and bought a Razor Core X, transfered the RX580 to it and loaded up Warcraft. I then sat back and waited for the toast from the Air and something to fail. I was very pleasantly shocked when the only toast i had was from driving the RX580 too hard with running Warcraft at 1440p on max settings! The Air worked just fine at 4000rpm fan and 75 degrees warm.

So i now have one device (and a very large box under my desk!) that does all my computer needs and it really wasn't what i expected :cool:
So, are you saying that MBA + eGPU is a waste of money? because I was thinking to purchase an eGPU too.
Thanks
 
No not at all, I wasn't expecting it to behave as well as it did! The cpu by all accounts shouldn't have had the grunt to play Warcraft at the maximum settings (with the game being so cpu bound). The fact that it did and the RX580 was the item stuggling was the shock!

As to how the combination behaves with mainstream applications or other games is another matter (which i will probably be testing if i can obtain something suitable) but yes for me and what i use the equipment for this is a very good combination.
 
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No not at all, I wasn't expecting it to behave as well as it did! The cpu by all accounts shouldn't have had the grunt to play Warcraft at the maximum settings (with the game being so cpu bound). The fact that it did and the RX580 was the item stuggling was the shock!

As to how the combination behaves with mainstream applications or other games is another matter (which i will probably be testing if i can obtain something suitable) but yes for me and what i use the equipment for this is a very good combination.
Thanks for the feedback, I wonder whether perfomance will be better on Catalina...
 
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