(Solved) Anyone used external GPU with Macbook?

bitinn

It seems to me the main bottleneck with Macbook Pro's Intel Iris GPU isn't on the 3d modelling side, but on the procedural texturing side (Substance etc.).

I am considering buying an external GPU case now that Nvidia released a macOS driver, and wonder if anyone have good experience using them with a Macbook for 3d modelling/texturing? I am on a 2015 Macbook Pro 13'', with Intel Iris of course.

(While I own a PC, I do most of my programming and UI design on macOS, so I would like to use Macbook for my 3D modelling as well.)

(Some reference link in case anyone is interested: [1] [2])

thomasp

you should probably head over to a specialized forum such as www.macrumors.com to ask that question.

but i think your links already answer the question? stability would be my main concern with any of this and at a glance it appears you'd have to run windows to have a good experience. nothing worse for work than something that regularly keeps crashing.

but yeah, as someone who plans to pick up a new MBP this year and has a spare GTX 1070 i'd certainly love to see such a solution work well under OSX.

bitinn

thomasp said:

you should probably head over to a specialized forum such as www.macrumors.com to ask that question.

but i think your links already answer the question? stability would be my main concern with any of this and at a glance it appears you'd have to run windows to have a good experience. nothing worse for work than something that regularly keeps crashing.

but yeah, as someone who plans to pick up a new MBP this year and has a spare GTX 1070 i'd certainly love to see such a solution work well under OSX.

People/Articles suggest eGPU now works, but of course people mostly test them with games, not 3d software, that's kinda why I ask this question here.

thomasp

this kind of setup is most likely far too much an edge case scenario to really get a response here. you'll bump into more users of video editing and 3d apps over at mac forums, desperate to make their machine competitive in the GPU department. it will be stuff like cinema 4D but still as good an indication of what to expect.

i'm guessing that if you consider how picky some 3d apps can be and how specific their issues with certain cards/driver combinations are that there's a really slim chance that at this point this setup can work particularlywell - with a bunch of beta drivers.

as for running it off a laptop i'd also look at how much extra processing it all adds to the machine. maybe gamers don't give a shit but try working on a macbook with fans running at full tilt all the time. if yours only has the intel iGPU you probably have heard nothing yet.

EarthQuake

This sounds cool! Try it and let us know if it works. Worst case, you return the enclosure and GPU if it sucks.

rube

I haven't tried it. If you do happen to give it a go be sure to fill us in. I've been thinking about it since getting a 4k monitor, definitely puts a strain on my macbook.

bitinn

And THEN Apple came out with the iMac Pro.

Swordslayer

Relevant: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/native-egpu-support-for-macos-high-sierra/

battlecow

I wouldn't buy an external gpu, even with thunderbolt the bandwith is really shit, wasted money imo.

thomasp

bitinn said:

And THEN Apple came out with the iMac Pro.

you can probably buy a whole stack of external GPU's and cases for the price of one, too.

bitinn

thomasp said:

bitinn said:

And THEN Apple came out with the iMac Pro.

you can probably buy a whole stack of external GPU's and cases for the price of one, too.

They also did come out with an official eGPU, RX 580  and priced at 599. But require thunderbolt 3 port so I can't use them with 2015 MBP...

bitinn

While it might seem like more trouble than it's worthed, people are reporting the new High Sierra is working well with existing third party eGPU, which is great news. 

https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/apple-metal-2-external-graphics-development-kit/

thomasp

that's certainly good news that they follow up on eGPU. consider me interested as soon as hotplugging the unit does not force a log out as stated in that article. that stuff needs to be seamless and transparent to the user.

bitinn

thomasp said:

that's certainly good news that they follow up on eGPU. consider me interested as soon as hotplugging the unit does not force a log out as stated in that article. that stuff needs to be seamless and transparent to the user.

It doesn't force a logout but does require a manual logout/login to activate. I am just happy there is a possibility of doing so without hacking macOS internal or causing kernel panic.

I am probably going down this path and will let people know how it turns out (currently thinking of RX 480 + a similar enclosure to the Apple External DevKit).

thomasp

having to log out and back in to make use of the eGPU does count as forced in my book. i'm one of these annoying people who never quit their session, who's uptime command regularly outputs a three digit number of days and who always have numerous apps spread out over a bunch of virtual desktops.
logging in and out for hardware to register to me is a windows-95-style offence.



aaaaanyway. watching this space! somebody needs to make a purchase. urgently!

bitinn

People of Polycount:

I have gone through the dark tunnel of eGPU and I have seen the light!

First, screenshots for proof.







Second, my exactly step of setup! You can find more survivors and guides on that site.

Third, your turn to try.

( cc @EarthQuake @rube @thomasp )

thomasp

glad to hear this is working out. so it appears you have this running even on a machine with thunderbolt 1? what's that like?

it might be interesting to me (provided that log in/out procedure to switch GPU's is no longer required) since i decided to stick with my 2011 series MBP due to lack of interesting new MBP configurations.

bitinn

thomasp said:

glad to hear this is working out. so it appears you have this running even on a machine with thunderbolt 1? what's that like?

it might be interesting to me (provided that log in/out procedure to switch GPU's is no longer required) since i decided to stick with my 2011 series MBP due to lack of interesting new MBP configurations.

Performance is not your problem, using 1060/1070 you usually get 80~90% of actual performance, even with TB1/2. 1080 might lose up to 40%.

The problem is compatibility:

- IF you use Nvidia, you have to reboot

- IF you use AMD, you have to log out (even with latest release)

- IF you use Substance Painter: they say Nvidia drivers are not supported Mac, only the Apple drivers are (but they don't support Pascal cards). I run into an issue with baking, they are still investigating.

- The only officially supported AMD cards atm is the one in Apple External Graphics Development Kit (RX 580), but that requires TB3. I have seen people run into various issue with it.

- IF you are not using that, then you likely need to hack the mac kernels. Pretty much automated nowadays, but still not plug-and-play.

Anything else you can find at egpu.io

thomasp

thanks for the info!

i have a 1070 which is not quite ready for the spare part bin but would be a candidate to be repurposed for the mac when that's the case. i'm guessing this is still early days anyway, software-wise. i will definitely keep an eye on this.

thomasp

In light of recent updates on the eGPU front from Apple and me being on the verge of retiring my GTX1070 from active duty in the PC I think it's time for a thread-necro!

@bitinn I'm curious to hear if you are still using this setup of yours and if you have run into any issues with it in the last year and a bit? Can you switch the videocards on the fly these days and what OS revision are you running?

bitinn

thomasp said:

In light of recent updates on the eGPU front from Apple and me being on the verge of retiring my GTX1070 from active duty in the PC I think it's time for a thread-necro!

@bitinn I'm curious to hear if you are still using this setup of yours and if you have run into any issues with it in the last year and a bit? Can you switch the videocards on the fly these days and what OS revision are you running?

Last time I checked, if you own a supported MacBook and AMD card, it should be able to hot plug on TB3 without third-party software.

For other models and cards, check this table for details.

Nvidia card will be a bit of a pain using macOS as it requires reboot (no hot plug), this drawback is most noticeable when eGPU inevitably lose connection once in a while, which could result in system reboot.

thomasp

bitinn said:

this drawback is most noticeable when eGPU inevitably lose connection once in a while, which could result in system reboot.

That sounds omnious - loss of connection is inevitable in your experience? Are you still using such a setup?

bitinn

thomasp said:

bitinn said:

this drawback is most noticeable when eGPU inevitably lose connection once in a while, which could result in system reboot.

That sounds omnious - loss of connection is inevitable in your experience? Are you still using such a setup?

Not recently, YMMV really, I was using it with a TB2 port, it seems to happen during high workload but I have no solid proof.