Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

theitsage

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 28, 2005
795
862
Due to the shorter board, the RX 480 without its reference cooler fits inside the AKiTiO like a glove. I'm currently hooking it up to a lowly 11" MBA lol. The Luxmark score is slightly higher than inside my Mac Pro thanks to the additional help of Intel HD 6000. :D

Updated: 9/21/16 blog post with complete RX 470/RX 480 eGPU build and benchmarks.

Screen Shot 2016-08-17 at 9.36.53 PM.png

Screen Shot 2016-08-17 at 9.41.32 PM.png


Screen Shot 2016-08-17 at 9.46.57 PM.png


IMG_1709.JPG


IMG_9268.JPG


IMG_0801.JPG


IMG_4023.JPG
 
Last edited:

VillasManzanill

macrumors regular
Mar 7, 2012
133
18
Do you Know if the Rx 480 works fine with Final Cut Pro x? Thanks! I'm thinking about upgrading my vid card for fcpx

Due to the shorter board, the RX 480 without its reference cooler fits inside the AKiTiO like a glove. I'm currently hooking it up to a lowly 11" MBA lol. The Luxmark score is slightly higher than inside my Mac Pro thanks to the additional help of Intel HD 6000. :D
View attachment 645377
View attachment 645378

View attachment 645380

View attachment 645381

View attachment 645382

View attachment 645383

View attachment 645384
 

lowendlinux

macrumors 603
Sep 24, 2014
5,456
6,776
Germany
Due to the shorter board, the RX 480 without its reference cooler fits inside the AKiTiO like a glove. I'm currently hooking it up to a lowly 11" MBA lol. The Luxmark score is slightly higher than inside my Mac Pro thanks to the additional help of Intel HD 6000. :D

Nice work!
 

BillyBobBongo

macrumors 68030
Jun 21, 2007
2,535
1,139
On The Interweb Thingy!
Due to the shorter board, the RX 480 without its reference cooler fits inside the AKiTiO like a glove. I'm currently hooking it up to a lowly 11" MBA lol. The Luxmark score is slightly higher than inside my Mac Pro thanks to the additional help of Intel HD 6000. :D

You're an absolute legend. Thanks for all that you're doing at the moment with your RX 480's!
 

yurc

macrumors 6502a
Aug 12, 2016
834
1,011
inside your DSDT
Do you have 10 bit monitor/ACD to test 10 bit display capability output connected via RX480 displayport? Just curious.
 

theitsage

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 28, 2005
795
862
You're an absolute legend. Thanks for all that you're doing at the moment with your RX 480's!

My full plan is to stuff the AKiTiO board, RX 480/GTX 980 Ti, and an ATX PSU inside a mini ITX case. While I'm waiting for the case to arrive, I thought why don't I try the RX 480 board by itself inside the AKiTiO enclosure for fun and sure enough it fits. It's obviously not a very good cooling system the way it is. With just the heatsink, it reminds me of the GT7300 cards that came in 1,1 Mac Pro.

The mini ITX case has room for a slot optical drive which sparked an idea that I could build a base-station kinda dock for a Thunderbolt equipped Mac laptop. I can plug a single cable into the Thunderbolt port and instantly have access to a powerful GPU, optical drive, external hard drive, and ethernet connection. Also on its way is a Thunderbolt 2 dock with USB3, eSATA, Ethernet, and audio I/O ports. If all goes according to plan, I will have a working box by the end of the weekend.

Cougar QBX KAZE mini ITX Case
HighPoint RocketStor 6351A Thunderbolt 2 Dock

product-section-02.png
 

enc0re

macrumors 6502
Jun 7, 2010
394
632
So what all did you have to do for the Mac to play with an eGPU?

1. Flash the RX480?
2. MacOS Sierra?
3. Special drivers?

This would have real potential for building a decent machine around a future Mac Mini.
 

theitsage

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 28, 2005
795
862
So what all did you have to do for the Mac to play with an eGPU?

1. Flash the RX480?
2. MacOS Sierra?
3. Special drivers?

This would have real potential for building a decent machine around a future Mac Mini.

1. No flashing at all. RX 480 is stock as can be.
2. MacOS Sierra.
3. No special drivers. Disable SIP then ran Goalque's script to automate eGPU.

The challenge is feeding the GPU with enough power.
[doublepost=1471530895][/doublepost]
I want an affordable enclosure that does now require a PSU hack.

What are your thoughts on how we can build an affordable eGPU without PSU mods?
 

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,973
If you don't want to mod, your only choice is basically an expensive Sonnet right now. I like Sonnet, but I think the price of this item is excessive.
 

enc0re

macrumors 6502
Jun 7, 2010
394
632
Razer Core and its coming competitors will be logical solution, once we have a Mac Mini (or whatever) with TB3. I for one am very interested in perhaps building a 'semi-Hackintosh' of such a configuration.
 

William_si

macrumors regular
Apr 4, 2016
188
55
Croatia
That is not a solution. USB-C does not work for older Macs.

It could - There is nothing stopping TB3 on PCIe 2.0 or in an original Mac Pro - Yes, the speed is a limitation but that's about it. TB2 can be adapted to TB3 and vice versa by similar loss.
 

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,973
It could - There is nothing stopping TB3 on PCIe 2.0 or in an original Mac Pro - Yes, the speed is a limitation but that's about it. TB2 can be adapted to TB3 and vice versa by similar loss.
There's a USB-C to TB2 adapter, but not the reverse.
 

Draeconis

macrumors 6502a
May 6, 2008
987
281
It could - There is nothing stopping TB3 on PCIe 2.0 or in an original Mac Pro

Yes there is, the X58 chipset doesn't support it.

Ironically the original machine that demoed Thunderbolt (then called LightPeak) which was a joint venture between Apple and Intel was on a prototype Mac Pro board. But no classic Mac Pro ever arrived with this feature, presumably because Apple wanted TB to channel video as well, and the classic style form factor wouldn't allow that.
[doublepost=1471542034][/doublepost]
There's a USB-C to TB2 adapter, but not the reverse.

Think you have that the wrong way round.
 

William_si

macrumors regular
Apr 4, 2016
188
55
Croatia

Yea... it does. It's just the Intel controller that needs to play nicely (which it would) and the licensing (which does not). Ultimately TB ends up on 4 PCIe lanes - often even from the chipset and not the CPU - and a DP signal (which is standard wise optional).


Type C USB with TB3 is an alternate mode so not originally supported (afaik), the implementation has a standard though (obviously).
 

theitsage

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 28, 2005
795
862
This is coming together better than I anticipated. I soldered 2 molex connectors to barrel plugs to power both the AKiTiO Thunder2 and HighPoint RocketStor Thunderbolt dock. All components are getting power from the ATX PSU now.

The HighPoint RocketStor Thunderbolt dock gets daisy-chained into AKiTiO Thunder2. I also plugged a laptop hard drive and optical drive from a salvage MBP using SATA and slimline SATA to USB adapters.

Next step is mounting everything inside the mini ITX case.

Screen Shot 2016-08-18 at 9.03.56 PM.png


IMG_1850.JPG


IMG_9100.JPG
 

Synchro3

macrumors 68000
Jan 12, 2014
1,987
850
Due to the shorter board, the RX 480 without its reference cooler fits inside the AKiTiO like a glove. I'm currently hooking it up to a lowly 11" MBA lol. The Luxmark score is slightly higher than inside my Mac Pro thanks to the additional help of Intel HD 6000. :D
View attachment 645384

How do you power the RX 480 card? Afaik the Akitio provides only 25 Watt on the PCI-E-Slot. And as far as I can see you are using the original Akitio PSU.
 

killawat

macrumors 68000
Sep 11, 2014
1,961
3,609
How do you power the RX 480 card? Afaik the Akitio provides only 25 Watt on the PCI-E-Slot. And as far as I can see you are using the original Akitio PSU.

In the last image in the OP you can see the original Akitio PSU and the separate PSU plugged into the GPU directly, but later he post imgs of the barrel mod so he now powers everything included the Akitio over ATX PSU.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Synchro3

theitsage

Suspended
Original poster
Aug 28, 2005
795
862
The AKiTiO comes with a 60W power supply which reserves 30W for the Thunderbolt board and the rest for the PCIe slot. I read on Techinferno forum that as long as you can supply the DC plug with more juice, the PCIe slot will be able to pull in more power (not more than 120W total). As of right now, the RX 480 gets probably 45W from the slot and the rest from a dual molex to 6-pin connector.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Synchro3

VillasManzanill

macrumors regular
Mar 7, 2012
133
18
does the rx 480 works with final cut pro x as of right now with the latest beta build?
thanks!

The AKiTiO comes with a 60W power supply which reserves 30W for the Thunderbolt board and the rest for the PCIe slot. I read on Techinferno forum that as long as you can supply the DC plug with more juice, the PCIe slot will be able to pull in more power (not more than 120W total). As of right now, the RX 480 gets probably 45W from the slot and the rest from a dual molex to 6-pin connector.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.