Is it possible to buy a MacBook Air 2018 and daisy chain the 2018 Mac Mini (in the future) so that the MacBook Air processing power and GPU can get a speed boost from with the 2018 Mac Mini. I would be doing video editing mostly at 1080p at 60fps, and sometimes 4k at 30fps, Along with other things. Is this possible to do?
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Possible to daisy chain the 2018 MacBook Air with the 2018 Mac Mini?
- Thread starter OlegOlesyaKotovRozovsky
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I suppose you're responding to the "render farm" photo in the Mac Mini blurb.
All this is is using Thunderbolt 3 to create a very fast network connection between Mac computers.
Specific apps can make use of this very fast network (or even a regular Ethernet network.)
If you have specific apps that supports this, it can take advantage of it. If not, no.
There is no magic built into the OS that makes creates some "super computer". It's just an app farming out some of the work to one or more additional computers.
A TB3 network allows data to be transferred between the computers faster. The same capability is available without the TB3 network, just slower data transfer. And has absolutely nothing to do with either the OS or the hardware.
Nor is this limited to Macs.
It all depends on the app. For example, some Adobe products support this:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effec..._still_image_sequence_with_multiple_computers
Depending on the product, this can become EXPENSIVE due to licensing costs!
All this is is using Thunderbolt 3 to create a very fast network connection between Mac computers.
Specific apps can make use of this very fast network (or even a regular Ethernet network.)
If you have specific apps that supports this, it can take advantage of it. If not, no.
There is no magic built into the OS that makes creates some "super computer". It's just an app farming out some of the work to one or more additional computers.
A TB3 network allows data to be transferred between the computers faster. The same capability is available without the TB3 network, just slower data transfer. And has absolutely nothing to do with either the OS or the hardware.
Nor is this limited to Macs.
It all depends on the app. For example, some Adobe products support this:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effec..._still_image_sequence_with_multiple_computers
Depending on the product, this can become EXPENSIVE due to licensing costs!
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I haven't seen the ad, but it may be a Compressor render queue. This is very specific to a single app: Compressor - and transcoding. General application hardware acceleration? Nope. Not on Mac OSX. But some specific capabilities on specific apps? Sure.
I should point out that the Mini and the MBA both use an integrated graphics processor - part of the CPU. Not very much acceleration there when compared to what you can do with an eGPU.
But new Macs can work pretty well with FCPX, especially with the workload you've described. Not need for special configs.
I should point out that the Mini and the MBA both use an integrated graphics processor - part of the CPU. Not very much acceleration there when compared to what you can do with an eGPU.
But new Macs can work pretty well with FCPX, especially with the workload you've described. Not need for special configs.
