Anyone using an EGPU with MBP ?

Combat squirrel · 21 Apr 2019 at 16:40

As title, is anyone using an EGPU with their MBP 2016/2017 ? When its attached to external monitors does it feel more snappy ? - my 2016 MBP does pretty well on its built in display, but attached to 2 external 4k monitors it does begin to slow abit - I'm wondering if wacking an e-gpu in the line will make it more snappy / responsive ? - does the mac desktop draw direct off the GPU ?

Mainly lightroom and finalcut use - if I got one id prob get a vega 56.

Combat squirrel · 21 Apr 2019 at 17:46

Mason- said:
@MacRS4

Fairly sure macrs4 used one, be nice to get his input.

I'm also interested to know. Do you have to use the Blackmagic ones off of the Apple Store, or can you use any enclosure with AMD GPUs? I assume nVidia ones don't work.

Yeah any of the apple cert ones work, nearly all available from main computer places will work but yes it does need to be an AMD GPU upto a max of a vega 64, 7 won't work yet.

Id get it if it speeds up my desktop etc, and just makes the system a lot more snappy, also I hope final cut benefits from it, lightroom etc, of course I know games will, but I have only played games 3-4 times in a year so, not a priority.

Combat squirrel · 23 Apr 2019 at 13:18

@MacRS4 could you a general desktop/LR/Final Cut video with EGPU ? There is a lot of videos with gaming benchmarks but I'm more interested in actual day to day use & feel - for example if I plugged in my MBP to a EGPU and sent the signal back to the laptop screen - I know it would be slower than a one way link - but would the laptop perform loads better in LR/FC? - I'd imagine it would absolutely destroy the internal gfx ? Does it 'feel' faster?

Combat squirrel · 23 Apr 2019 at 14:11

MacRS4 said:
Sorry completely missed this. I did a video around this here, and there's also the general Mac Mini performance here. It is a hell of a lot better with the eGPU in for everything, it just feels better. Made using FCPX usable for 4k footage for example, whereas without it's quite clunky.

To be fair though, that may be because I do most of my video editing on an iMac Pro.

That's interesting thanks - I also use FCP for video so that's a nice boost - how does other general mac desktop stuff feel? - for example if I have 2 external 4k's running off my MBP - it defo begins to feel sluggish and slows down - does the EGPU affect this ? Will it become snappy again? (If I ran the monitors direct off the graphics card of course) - More interested in general use 'feel' than one specific program - however if you could test Lightroom with an EGPU I'd appreciate that, hope that's ok, but it seems your the only guy on the forum with a EGPU/mac! lol

Combat squirrel · 23 Apr 2019 at 15:24

MacRS4 said:
Ah unfortunately the eGPU has gone off to the person it was actually meant for - that's why I was a bit confused as to why it turned up at my house!

I can ask though.

Awesome thanks

Combat squirrel · 23 Apr 2019 at 16:34

EyeDot said:
Just bought an eGPU Pro, will let you know how i get on, arrives tomorrow.

Fantastic thank you. I am very interested in 'general responsiveness' LR & Final Cut Pro.

Hopefully apple will work more on EGPU in future OS updates pushing more to the GPU across general programs

Just for the tech nerds, the reason I'm looking is - (read if you like silly projects)

I'm slowly transitioning my office from a home office to a campervan based on the road thing - with my macbook pro 2016 (I'll get a 2019/2020 version when they come out), just so I can see more of the world and still work & enjoy the freedom - my plan is (hopefully you nerds will love this), a small-ish hard case with carry handle containing the following:

E-GPU (if its worth it)
2TB SSD
8TB (maybe 2) General data drive
2x8TB backup drives

In the case will be all the plugs, hubs etc to end up with 2 thunderbolt cables coming out the case (one GPU one hard drives), and a mains plug. I have tons of spare power in my vans electrical system to power all this as well - also its not like the GPU would work full tilt all the time - I'll also have a quiet 120mm fan drilled into the case and holes for airflow.

So that's really - on the road in my van I have a 'suit case' containing all that - ill simply plug into my van & into the MBP when needs be.........or just use the laptop for lighter work when needs be (I'm a photo/video guy), and also have tons of hard drive space to put stuff on the go..........when I'm home I'll just dump it on to my home server as a further backup.

But doing all this means my MBP will become my main machine - hence the GPU thinking.........

Combat squirrel · 23 Apr 2019 at 19:15

EyeDot said:
I sold my iMac Pro 18c a few months back so I'll be using just my 2018 MBP TB, and driving the new CRG9 49" Monitor, hence getting the GPU

Awesome, needed to be more on the road?

Combat squirrel · 25 Apr 2019 at 17:59

EyeDot said:
I sold my iMac Pro 18c a few months back so I'll be using just my 2018 MBP TB, and driving the new CRG9 49" Monitor, hence getting the GPU

Any news on your egpu delivery?

Combat squirrel · 25 Apr 2019 at 19:38

EyeDot said:
It arrived, but not had a play with it yet, its still in the box.
TBH until the CRG9 arrives I doubt I'll take it out.

Shouldn't be long now.

Take it out eyedot, have a playyy, like Xmas morning here

I don't suppose u could plug her in and have a general mess on ur laptop? I'll mostly be using mine with the built in screen so I'm interested to see if it's any different in ur opinion

Combat squirrel · 26 Apr 2019 at 16:33

EyeDot said:
Ok in london for a friends Stag, but give me some relative comparisons (benchmarks or whatever) and I'll do them when back, bearing in mind I dont have anything remotely photoshoppy installed, but happy to download some benchmarking software if it helps you.

Thanks dude, basically I've seen all the benchmarks but im more curious how it 'feels' on the desktop, I guess if you could just see how it runs ? you have anything you do graphics intensive? i guess even a game would be a good bench, in terms of feel n snappyness, what GPU you getting ?

Not sure if you ever used it much but you could try the free install of lightroom on a trial to see how it runs ? Where do you live roughly if you dont me asking ? lol

Combat squirrel · 30 Apr 2019 at 10:58

Hi @EyeDot did you manage to get your EGPU setup?

Thanks

Combat squirrel · 30 Apr 2019 at 15:05

EyeDot said:
Still in its box.. and still no monitor as the CRG9 isn't out yet.. so I can benchmark on the inbuilt screen, but thats about it, no "snappy testing" until the monitor arrives.

Yeah that would be ace - im equally interested about the inbuilt screen as well - as it's one of my use cases for my MBP

Combat squirrel · 30 Apr 2019 at 21:06

EyeDot said:
Where are you based region wise?

North Wales, u ?

Combat squirrel · 1 May 2019 at 11:19

EyeDot said:
Cheshire, near Crewe.

I saw because if you're local, you're welcome to pop over and try it out if it helps!

What a ledge, I'm from Staffordshire origionally and pop back to see the parents when I can - may I bare it in mind to pop round at a suitable for you time at some point ? be a month or so I'd imagine.

Combat squirrel · 4 Jun 2019 at 14:03

I ended up getting an EGPU now, very much nippier in final cut which is ace ! Great for games as well, so strange playing games on a mac with decent frame rates lol

Combat squirrel · 4 Jun 2019 at 15:06

Raymond Lin said:
Which one did you go for?

I am thinking of retiring my 2012 iMac soon and use my 13" MBP solely with external monitor and eGPU.

Razer X as it was the cheapest one - Vega 56 GPU

It's good for on the road, but my 15" MBP 2016 is still enormously sluggish compared to my windows Ryzen 1700x system for photo editing.

But I am on the road a lot now (I take the EGPU with me in my camper, solar panels power everything easily) - so its perfectly sufficiant using the MBP screen - also EGPU makes 1 external 4k monitor nice enough - again though my Ryzen system slaughters it for speed in photo editing with LR.

I'll be getting the 2020 MBP redesign for sure, that will then be my only machine.

But, conversily, my MBP with EGPU slaughters my ryzen PC for 4k video editing so.............its very bizarre!

Ryzen windows = home photo editing
MBP + EGPU = on the road photo editing
MBP + EGPU = All video editing (final cut)

I would be dubious to use a 13" MBP for any sort of heavy work tbh.

Combat squirrel · 4 Jun 2019 at 15:37

Raymond Lin said:
Well, I am thinking 2018 i7 6 cores with 16G of ram with eGPU would be suffice for LR.

I don't think it would - mines i7, sure its a quad, but the single thread speeds are about the same as the 2018 (within 5%), due to throttling galore on everything - don't get me wrong im an apple user for all my devices, currently going to attempt a thunderbolt 3 NVME drive to see if that helps (helped abit trying to edit off the internal drive) - but its just not fast enough, if a 1st gen Ryzen pc its absolutely hammering it.

I believe your a professional photographer like me - id highly recommend just getting the 16" rumored MBP - with apples WWDC 2019 bringing pros back into focus, I would guess the new MBP will be fixed and run faster than my ryzen.

Combat squirrel · 4 Jun 2019 at 16:30

Raymond Lin said:
In that case I might as well go down the new Ryzen route then with like 12 cores for $500.

I would if your a home office - or the new mac pro / imac pro is a good choice if your someone who edits from home all the time if you wish to stay in apples eco system.

2020 MBP for me - as long as it equals the speed of the ryzen 8 core im using i'll be happy with that - but to do that, they will absolutely have to fix the thermals causing it to clock down.

But also, given my current MBP completely destroys my Ryzen in video editing goes to show how important optimisation is and good programming - something of which adobe has never been great at - I wish apple would create a new pro photo editing suite, final cut pro is ace.

Combat squirrel · 4 Jun 2019 at 22:06

Raymond Lin said:
I think before putting out like £3k for a new iMac, an eGPU and monitor might be the way to go to see how well that works.

With your 13" MBP ? I already can tell you - to save the hassle - ****

Combat squirrel · 4 Jun 2019 at 23:11

Raymond Lin said:
I don’t do final cut, I’m not sure why it won’t cut it when my 2012 iMac could currently?

Performance perception is reletive I Suppose.....but if my 2016 15" mbp is sluggish to me I don't see how a duel core 13" will be of benefit, unless you don't mind how long it takes......like even culling images feels frustratingly slow, there's loading between each image even with smart previews on - sure abit faster with egpu.....but it's honestly not that much sadly. The ryzen pc skips through images instantly. Near no perceptible loading takes place.

I have no choice being on the road with my mbp but dang it needs to be faster.