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Plug-n-play eGPU for 2014 13" macbook pro - feasible?

0920872

0920872

Cancelled
Original poster
Nov 3, 2018
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Do eGPUs work plug-n-play for TB2 MacBooks under Mojave?

My mid-2014 MacBook Pro was an emergency purchase 4+ years ago after my previous MBP died a slow agonizing accidental death. I decided to wait a few more years until they fix the design issues with the new line (though I'm increasingly skeptical about that ever happening..).

I'm trying to explore whether I could get away with an eGPU and a battery replacement. The goal is to drive my 4K screen, and do some machine learning stuff with my GTX 1070 which is lying around unused.

Thoughts?
 
My understanding is that Mojave does not support eGPU on anything but Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs. Thunderbolt 2 on your 2014 machine is not supported. Additionally, Nvidia GPU’s are not supported by Apple. AMD and Thunderbolt 3 are your only choice for official Apple support.

There may be unofficial workarounds for this, but I’m not sure it will be “plug-and-play” per say.
 
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Patcell said:
My understanding is that Mojave does not support eGPU on anything but Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs. Thunderbolt 2 on your 2014 machine is not supported. Additionally, Nvidia GPU’s are not supported by Apple. AMD and Thunderbolt 3 are your only choice for official Apple support.

There may be unofficial workarounds for this, but I’m not sure it will be “plug-and-play” per say.
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Thanks Patcell. I'm going to rephrase it. I'm willing to mess around with kexts as long as it's going to be hot pluggable. I walk around with my computer at home. It would be very inconvenient to reboot each time I'm switching from eGPU or integrated graphics.
 
PearsonX said:
Thanks Patcell. I'm going to rephrase it. I'm willing to mess around with kexts as long as it's going to be hot pluggable. I walk around with my computer at home. It would be very inconvenient to reboot each time I'm switching from eGPU or integrated graphics.
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Okay, in that case, I am not well-versed in the work-arounds. I'm not sure hot-swappable is possible, but it may be. The best resource for eGPU stuff is eGPU.io forum.
 
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eGPU.io seems great. Kinda confirmed my fears: though you can get it all to work, it is not hot-pluggable. This seems like a great option for a Mac Mini though.
 
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