MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Core X Chroma eGPU Enclosure From Razer

[fairuz]

You technically can run a GeForce/Quadro card with a Mac, but its just not officially supported. NVIDIA offers the drivers on their website.

Sadly, it's not great. There's the OS compatibility issue someone described above, but also, both Apple's and Nvidia's drivers are very glitchy. I've tried 650Ti, 660, and 1060 on my Mac Pro. Sure they're faster than the original cards but way slower than they should be and prone to crashes, screen artifacts, etc. Though they work fine in Windows under Boot Camp.

There's also technically CUDA support, but it's limited and painful. I've tried setting up both TensorFlow and PyTorch in macOS, went pretty deep in and gave up.

 

[alien3dx]

Yeah feels great knowing I’ve been loyal to this forum for almost a decade and never been eligible. It’s a global forum

Yup. At least lesser grammar nazi and totally helpfull to gain answer. I DO wish price is global.

 

[LeighAnneNTN]

Wonder how this would work with my mid 2012 MacBook Pro. What dongle would I need?

Hey! You & I are in the same boat! Lol! But how many PC owners can say that about their laptops? Especially if they are running Adobe CS & other huge programs? None! God bless Steve Jobs!
Maybe if I win, I can talk the hubs into letting me upgrade to a newer Mac!

 

[thornslack]

Me waaannntttttt!

 

[iLilana]

I hear you. My Mac Pro is getting long in the tooth, but still does very well. Winning this enclosure might prompt me to find a good used MacBook Pro and use this to setup a nice docked home desk for it as a replacement.

Cannot afford new Mac Pro!

maybe there should be another price point product from apple called the Macintosh. Not the iMac or the Mac Pro or Mac mini. The Macintosh. A tower similar to the Mac Pro but about 4K cheaper. A bare bones with a reasonable motherboard and socketed intel or AMD CPU. T2 chip optional. Even make the tower optional. Or make the current Mac mini an inch or 2 taller with proper cooling and same price point, socket the chip and make a proper cheaper 500-900 dollar Mac mini with an arm chip.

 

[Pakaku]

Why? I don't understand the need for an Ethernet port on these? The computer that this is connected to has an Ethernet port. Honest question.

In my case it would mean being able to have one computer (a laptop), and use it for general purposes anywhere around the house while still having internet over Wi-Fi. But when it comes to sitting down and playing big games, I could use the Razer as a hub that contains the graphics card, acts as a place to keep my keyboard, mouse, and monitor plugged in, as well as acting as an Ethernet dongle for the laptop. That's sort of the idea behind Thunderbolt itself, too, being able to funnel everything through just one cable, and when you're done you can just unplug it all at once.

 

[shinkansenwarrior]

Macrumors should have offices in all major cities around the world to offer equal opportunity to all MR members....drooling for this lovely piece of hardware. Please start in Tokyo. Many thanks. Hehe.

 

[sidewinder3000]

Am I understanding this right? They seem to be asking for access to my Twitter account, including the ability to post? Way too invasive.

 

[TVreporter]

Great prize - tosses my name into the vast ocean of entries!

Serious question: Are the winners posted anywhere? Legally aren’t you supposed to publicly announce a winner?

 

[EdT]

Since NVIDIA is a reason some people have mentioned as being why they are interested and since neither Apple nor NVIDEA have Apple drivers for any NVIDIA graphics cards shouldn’t that be mentioned? And if there is a way to somehow use and get the speed advantages of NVIDEA why isn’t there references to how you can do that?

 

[ronntaylor]

Serious question: Are the winners posted anywhere? Legally aren’t you supposed to publicly announce a winner?

I think that's why they call it a "giveaway" as their isn't a contest involved. In many countries there would be mandatory listing of winners and maintaining the lists for a specified period of time. Too many headaches and requirements to track. Thus, US and Canada (excluding Quebec due to language requirements) only.

 

[widEyed]

Would it ever be possible to plug an eGPU into an iMac and drive the internal display from the eGPU? I know the display plugs into the eGPU graphics card thunderbolt/display port/HDMI, but don't iMacs also have a mode where the display can be driven from an external source… which probably renders the internals dead for the duration. I'm assuming its not possible today, but what kind of macOS hack would be required for this?

People say the display is one of the most compelling parts of the iMac/iMac Pro offerings, but the closed nature of the iMac and lack of options for GPUs is a bit of a turn off. An eGPU that could drive the internal display (and another) would be a good expansion option for iMacs, both in terms of screen renders/gaming but also for apps that can throw heavy lifting onto the GPU via one of the now many frameworks (OpenCL/CUDA/Metal/etc).

 

[Plutonius]

Macrumors should have offices in all major cities around the world to offer equal opportunity to all MR members....drooling for this lovely piece of hardware. Please start in Tokyo. Many thanks. Hehe.

The contest is fun but I would recommend just purchasing the eGPU enclosure if people really want it.

With the number of people entering each contest, it's doubtful of ever winning anything .

 

[widEyed]

Why? I don't understand the need for an Ethernet port on these? The computer that this is connected to has an Ethernet port. Honest question.

most Macs have shipped without ethernet ports for several years now.

 

[laptech]

Looking at the terms and conditions, if the winner resides in Canada, why do they have to answer a time limited mathematical skill testing question to then be classed as the winner but any winner that resides in the USA does not?

 

[Plutonius]

Looking at the terms and conditions, if the winner resides in Canada, why do they have to answer a time limited mathematical skill testing question to then be classed as the winner but any winner that resides in the USA does not?

It might be the way that MacRumors gets around the rules covering a contest in Canada.

or

It might be that MacRumors has little faith in US math skills .

 

[ronntaylor]

It might be the way that MacRumors gets around the rules covering a contest in Canada.

or

It might be that MacRumors has little faith in US math skills .

It's the former: Canadian law. One of the least stupid. Other countries have hoops galore and make it not worth having giveaways.

 

[Phogro]

Throwing my hat in the ring for this one. High quality giveaway this week @MacRumors!

 

[maflynn]

Now here's a giveaway that I can get behind

 

[thornslack]

Macrumors employees are eligible for their give aways?

No wonder no one ever wins

 

[thornslack]

Shucks