eGPU Experience with OSX 10.12 and Thunderbolt 2

    Timo Hoogland
    Jul 10 2019 | 12:21 pm
    Hey all!
    I'm currently looking into eGPU's and was wondering if any of you have some (good/bad) experience using them in combination with Mac and Max8. I'm currently on OSX 10.12.6 (using Macbook 15" retina mid 2015), and I read that the eGPU's are only supported after 10.13.4+. There are some articles on how to get them going with older OSX versions (10.10-10.12), and also in combination with thunderbolt2 (instead of thunderbolt3). But does Max recognize the graphics card when doing so, or should I just upgrade to Mojave to save me a lot of headaches? Also trying to wrap my head around buying a separate enclosure + graphics card, or an all-in-one solution (like the sonnet breakaway or the blackmagic egpu). All suggestions/tips are welcome, thanks in advance!
    I looked around on the forum but couldn't really find anything helpful so far.
    Some articles: https://egpu.io/setup-guide-external-graphics-card-mac/ https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208544
    • Pedro Santos
      Jul 11 2019 | 9:20 am
      There are some eGPU benchmarks here (use command/control + F inside the page to search for "eGPU", it's a long thread...): https://cycling74.com/forums/v2-benchmarking-jitters-cpugpu-performance-on-your-computer-v2
    • Timo Hoogland
      Jul 11 2019 | 10:17 am
      Thanks, that is a nice thread and a good benchmark test!
    • Pedro Santos
      Jul 11 2019 | 11:03 am
      That patch was built by me just as a framework proposal for the community to build several benchmarks focusing on specific things (CPU, GPU geometry, GPU shaders, video playback, physics, render to texture, etc). It is in serious need of an overhaul... but meanwhile it's better than nothing...
    • Timo Hoogland
      Jul 11 2019 | 11:10 am
      Okay, well it is indeed better then nothing and it gives me some more insights in the current performance of my macbook compared to other graphics cards and especially the tested Blackmagic eGPU (which, at the moment, does not really seem worth the money if i compare it with other cards). At least thanks for sharing.
    • balam
      Jul 11 2019 | 11:57 am
      I been using a blackmagic egpu and thunderbolt 3 + Macos Mojave it runs very well, performance with jitter goes beyond what my mac could do before.
    • Timo Hoogland
      Jul 15 2019 | 7:38 pm
      Thanks, that is good to hear. Would you mind running that benchmark from the link above and share your results? It might not be the best test, but for now it is all there is.