Hey all. I already posted this to Reddit and got a lot of traction there, so I figured I would post it here as well.
I noticed a lot of interest in this recently and I figured instead of a few occasional threads that get posted and generally ignored by most and missed by myself, I would post this instead and answer any questions directly that anyone has about the logistics, price, capabilities, experiences, etc.
For the record, I'm running an early 2015 13 inch retina MacBook Pro at 3,1gHz i7, 16GB of RAM and 512GB hard drive which has 140GB partitioned for Windows and runs Grand Theft Auto 5 and Far Cry 4 off the SSD. The card I am using is an EVGA GTX 960 which is the preferred brand of card because of the internal power management it has, which lends it to working better (or at all, which some brands don't) with eGPU setups. All of this is being piped in through an Akitio Thunder2 Box which I have removed from the metal enclosure (the graphics card is just the slightest bit too big) and have running bare right now.
Ask anything you want to know! About my own experiences, getting your own setup, whatever.
For the sake of clarity, here is my setup (With links) as detailed in a post below:
• 400+ Watt Power Supply by a good company like EVGA, or Cooler Master - the cooler master being the one I got.
• Some sort of Thunderbolt 2 enclosure. Sonnet Echo works, but is outdated and *very* expensive. The seemingly agreed upon go-to solution right now is the Akitio Thunder2 - can be purchased for $200 as far as I know, however any Thunderbolt 2 enclosure should work. Read the reviews and make sure they aren't Thunderbolt 1 masquerading as Thunderbolt 2, though.
Amazon Link for $229
BH Photo & Video Link for $219
• Any high quality graphics card. I really don't have a full list of certificated working cards, so if you want to play it safe go for the following:
NVIDIA card
EVGA brand
960, 970, or 980
Apparently 1070 and 1080's do work as well, but I haven't tried them myself.
My recommended 960 link
My recommended 970 link
My recommended 980 link
In all likelihood, the majority of cards will work with this setup. But I'm just speaking from personal experience of what I know works - eGPU is kinda weirdly precarious so straying from the path is a Certified Brave® choice.
EVGA brands use different power management systems which lend them to work much better with eGPU setups than most other cards - if I recall correctly MSI brand cards are entirely incompatible with these setups.
So yeah! Ask me anything you want to know!
I noticed a lot of interest in this recently and I figured instead of a few occasional threads that get posted and generally ignored by most and missed by myself, I would post this instead and answer any questions directly that anyone has about the logistics, price, capabilities, experiences, etc.
For the record, I'm running an early 2015 13 inch retina MacBook Pro at 3,1gHz i7, 16GB of RAM and 512GB hard drive which has 140GB partitioned for Windows and runs Grand Theft Auto 5 and Far Cry 4 off the SSD. The card I am using is an EVGA GTX 960 which is the preferred brand of card because of the internal power management it has, which lends it to working better (or at all, which some brands don't) with eGPU setups. All of this is being piped in through an Akitio Thunder2 Box which I have removed from the metal enclosure (the graphics card is just the slightest bit too big) and have running bare right now.
Ask anything you want to know! About my own experiences, getting your own setup, whatever.
For the sake of clarity, here is my setup (With links) as detailed in a post below:
• 400+ Watt Power Supply by a good company like EVGA, or Cooler Master - the cooler master being the one I got.
• Some sort of Thunderbolt 2 enclosure. Sonnet Echo works, but is outdated and *very* expensive. The seemingly agreed upon go-to solution right now is the Akitio Thunder2 - can be purchased for $200 as far as I know, however any Thunderbolt 2 enclosure should work. Read the reviews and make sure they aren't Thunderbolt 1 masquerading as Thunderbolt 2, though.
Amazon Link for $229
BH Photo & Video Link for $219
• Any high quality graphics card. I really don't have a full list of certificated working cards, so if you want to play it safe go for the following:
NVIDIA card
EVGA brand
960, 970, or 980
Apparently 1070 and 1080's do work as well, but I haven't tried them myself.
My recommended 960 link
My recommended 970 link
My recommended 980 link
In all likelihood, the majority of cards will work with this setup. But I'm just speaking from personal experience of what I know works - eGPU is kinda weirdly precarious so straying from the path is a Certified Brave® choice.
EVGA brands use different power management systems which lend them to work much better with eGPU setups than most other cards - if I recall correctly MSI brand cards are entirely incompatible with these setups.
So yeah! Ask me anything you want to know!
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