External GPU (eGPU) Resources

[FilmIndustryGuy]

I just installed windows on my iMac, finally got the time to do it.

I don't need an eGPU to do anything like play games or drive a display. I just need them for compute. I read on the eGPU forums a while back that eGPU doesn't work in bootcamp.

But since I don't need them to do anything but compute, is there any chance I can get them working in bootcamp?

I will test this on Friday when I get the 5700. will put it in a Sonnet and use with the mini. im only interested in apple video software renders. I did install a new game in bootcamp to test the igpu in the mini and I was getting 1 frame every 5 sec. not that I care about improving this but interested to test how the sonnet and 5700 adjust this when 4k monitor and egpu are separately plugged into the mini. Its actually hard to find people who use the ultra fine monitor, egpu with mini in a FCPX setup. I spent hours reading forums and its all video game talk. Apple website stated that for games you should plug the monitor into the egpu but doesn't state this about when using video software. Its a limbo for me since I really like the ULTRAFINE monitors that only support TB3 and I don't play games. Whats up with none of the video cards having TB3?

 

[frou]

Whats up with none of the video cards having TB3?

TB monitors aren't really a thing outside of the Apple world. And inside the Apple world they want you to buy those heavily marked up Blackmagic eGPUs

 

[FilmIndustryGuy]

so I go the Sonnet 550 and a XFX RX 5700 today. I installed it and can see Mac showing the little square in tool bar so 5700 is detected. My fans aren't spinning but card fins are warm. I see that I can PREFER EXTERNAL GPU on apps like Quicktime but not on Compressor or FCPX since its not showing as available in the info. Its not even there. Whats wrong with my setup? Monitor and egpu are commenced to Mac mini since I use the LG Ultrafine 4k 21.5 monitor and that's USB-C only. I tried windows bootcamp and with egpu connected on startup the monitor goes blank and I hear driver sounds from windows. I tried installing the drivers off the website bit got some error during installation so quit it for now. Even when I play QuickTime in MAC I see that its using integrated igpu and no activity in 5700. 5700 isn't showing up as gpu when I open ABOUT but I do see it on the list in SYSTEM REPORT. any advice? I have newest OS Catalina non beta 10.15.1

 

[deconstruct60]

TB monitors aren't really a thing outside of the Apple world.

"outside of the Apple world" is pragmatically closer to 'outside of the Intel based > $1K laptop" world. At this point TBv3 is relatively highly prevalent on mid-high range laptops with Intel foundation. AMD is still dragging their feet on this but also are still also more so aimed at sub $1K price points too.

At this point, there are far more individual products outside the Apple space that can work with most TBv3 monitor than inside. ( The Ultrafine are a bit a quirky outside of Mac space but there are more than those out there at this point. )

Narrowed down to looking at monitors only from a desktop only perspective, then yes that is still an Apple thing. (at least for next couple of years).

And inside the Apple world they want you to buy those heavily marked up Blackmagic eGPUs

The LG Ultrafine and Blackmagic eGPU match up well in being products that Apple is highly intrested in but didn't want to do internally ( for whatever reasons ). The Ultrafines are "one and only one input" monitors they way Apple likes 'monitors' to be ( really docking station monitors ). The Blacmagic eGPU is similar in that because it is embedded GPU, Apple worked with them on the newest versions of being able to pump the GPU output 'Downstream" from the unit. Hence, those two are coordinated with each other a bit indirectly (through Apple).
[automerge]1575674569[/automerge]

.... Its actually hard to find people who use the ultra fine monitor, egpu with mini in a FCPX setup. I spent hours reading forums and its all video game talk. Apple website stated that for games you should plug the monitor into the egpu but doesn't state this about when using video software. Its a limbo for me since I really like the ULTRAFINE monitors that only support TB3 and I don't play games. Whats up with none of the video cards having TB3?

For gaming software there is an extremely high presumption that it is the output video from the software that is the primary interest. So connecting to the external GPU puts the shortest path between the video output stream and the monitor looking at.

Often for video software a eGPU might be added to provide an supplemental purely computational resource. You are adding compute power as opposed to viewing display power. There hooking the display to eGPU may or may not make much of a difference. ( depends upon how much of the compute results have to be sent back on the Thunderbolt link and how congested that is.). There really isn't a "one size fits almost everybody' recommendation to make there.

If the eGPU is primarily running most or all of the windows of your video software program then you probably do want the monitor hooked directly ( or downstream in the Ultrafine case) to the eGPU. That falls back into the high video data stream output context that the game software falls into.

 

[Squuiid]

I also gave my eGPU enclosure (Sonnet) the Noctua Fan + Corsair 0rpm PSU treatment to get acceptable idle acoustics.

I'm about to do the same. Can I ask which Noctua you bought for the Sonnet eGFX? I have the base 350W model and am looking at getting a Corsair SF750 with 0dB mode and need the case fan to be silent also.
Thanks.

 

[frou]

I'm about to do the same. Can I ask which Noctua you bought for the Sonnet eGFX? I have the base 350W model and am looking at getting a Corsair SF750 with 0dB mode and need the case fan to be silent also.
Thanks.

"NF-A12x25 ULN" and I also fitted the adapter that comes with it so that it runs at a fixed ~900rpm. For PSU I use the Corsair SF450 Platinum which works well. This is with a Vega64.

 

[Squuiid]

"NF-A12x25 ULN" and I also fitted the adapter that comes with it so that it runs at a fixed ~900rpm. For PSU I use the Corsair SF450 Platinum which works well. This is with a Vega64.

Thanks! So it doesn't need PWM 4-pin? Weird, I thought the fan that Sonnet recommend on their site was a PWM model.
Oh, are you just ignoring that and setting it to run at 900rpm constantly, irrespective of load?
http://www.akasa.com.tw/search.php?seed=AK-FN059
http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=524&expand=_a2_b915&action=b907#b907

 

[frou]

Thanks! So it doesn't need PWM 4-pin? Weird, I thought the fan that Sonnet recommend on their site was a PWM model.
Oh, are you just ignoring that and setting it to run at 900rpm constantly, irrespective of load?

That's right. When the GPU is working hard, it is drawing air into the enclosure using its own 2 or 3 fans. That means there is positive air pressure inside the enclosure, so there does not need to be that much coaxing for the air to be pushed out the other side.

FWIW I unclipped and removed the grille from the enclosure's exhaust side, just to give the Noctua the most favourable conditions.

 

[Schroinx]

Does a eGPU work with windows10 on the mini? I was wondering if adding a eGPU would allow it to play 4k video. I have late 2014 i5.
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-i5-2.6-late-2014-specs.html

 

[jayducharme]

I posted this in the "new mac mini" thread, but figured it should go here too:

I finally got my Razer Core X and Radeon 5700 RX hooked up to my 2018 i7 Mac Mini. The results so far are underwhelming. There are two games where I see a very modest increase in frame rate. Steam games, as I feared, are barely playable at full resolution since they would have to be designed specifically to take advantage of Metal. But working with Final Cut Pro, Motion and Logic definitely benefit. I'm really impressed with how quiet the Core X is even under moderate load.

Interestingly, if I check off the "prefer eGPU" option on any app, the app takes a big graphics hit and barely functions. It seems best to just let the OS decide what to do.

 

[Krevnik]

Does a eGPU work with windows10 on the mini? I was wondering if adding a eGPU would allow it to play 4k video. I have late 2014 i5.
https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_mini/specs/mac-mini-core-i5-2.6-late-2014-specs.html

I'm not even sure an extra GPU would help you at all for 4K video at all. I'm not aware of any decoders that would even be able to leverage the GPU at all for this.

We'd need to know exactly what you intend to use for playback to even have an idea if this will do anything more than suck money out of your wallet for no benefit.

I finally got my Razer Core X and Radeon 5700 RX hooked up to my 2018 i7 Mac Mini. The results so far are underwhelming. There are two games where I see a very modest increase in frame rate. Steam games, as I feared, are barely playable at full resolution since they would have to be designed specifically to take advantage of Metal. But working with Final Cut Pro, Motion and Logic definitely benefit. I'm really impressed with how quiet the Core X is even under moderate load.

Interestingly, if I check off the "prefer eGPU" option on any app, the app takes a big graphics hit and barely functions. It seems best to just let the OS decide what to do.

How do you have your display connected, and what display is it? It sounds a lot like you have the display hooked up directly to the Mini, which adds overhead for anything "live" (gaming and previews in FCP for example). That or you might be driving a 5K display? EDIT: I hope it's not a bug with the Navi drivers.

This is generally the opposite that I've seen with my Vega 56. The Vega 56 hooked up directly to a 27" 4K display absolutely stomps all over the built-in display for Affinity Photo and games.

 

[jayducharme]

How do you have your display connected, and what display is it? It sounds a lot like you have the display hooked up directly to the Mini, which adds overhead for anything "live" (gaming and previews in FCP for example).

You're correct: I have my Mac mini connected directly to my 28" LG 4k monitor via HDMI. I read where Apple cautioned against connecting directly to an eGPU and suggested unplugging from the Mini after boot-up and then connecting to the eGPU, which given my setup would be a pain. I'll give it a shot, though. Thanks.

EDIT: I just tried it. No difference in gameplay. The frame rate is still low. I did notice that the Core X comes with two sets of two cables: a six pin and a two pin. The Radeon has an eight pin port and a six pin port. There were no instructions that I could find that said which cable went where. It leaves two pins just hanging there. Everything else seems to work normally except for frame rate on games.

 

[iAssimilated]

My mini is connected to my eGPU and my eGPU is connected to my monitor 100% of the time.

I have only connected my monitor to my mini if I was troubleshooting something (ie when upgrading from the 580 to Vega 56 in my eGPU and it wasn't working).

 

[Krevnik]

You're correct: I have my Mac mini connected directly to my 28" LG 4k monitor via HDMI. I read where Apple cautioned against connecting directly to an eGPU and suggested unplugging from the Mini after boot-up and then connecting to the eGPU, which given my setup would be a pain. I'll give it a shot, though. Thanks.

If you are running that display at "like 2560x1440", that's going to explain both your games performance and the sort of "live update" performance in FCP and the like. Internally, everything's running at 5K, which is hard on games period, but then you're also bringing that buffer across Thunderbolt back to the Mini.

What I don't know is if macOS does the smart thing and downscale the screen on the eGPU first, or if it does the dumb thing and copy the whole 5K frame back, and then downscale it on the iGPU, which would be a nightmare.

With Catalina, eGPU support on the 2018 has gotten better in that you do mostly get the bootscreen on eGPUs now (there's some glitchiness to it still, but it seems to work for the most part). You didn't before, hence Apple's recommendation. Which is a pain, I agree.

 

[Schroinx]

I'm not even sure an extra GPU would help you at all for 4K video at all. I'm not aware of any decoders that would even be able to leverage the GPU at all for this.

We'd need to know exactly what you intend to use for playback to even have an idea if this will do anything more than suck money out of your wallet for no benefit.

Thats what I am trying to figure out, cause then there would be no need to try it out if its a waste of money.

I am running win10+bootcamp on the mini and am using the MPC-BE as video player.

I can see several has had success using a egpu with a TB2->TB3 cable as the one provided by Apple. The nvidia cards from 1050 and 1660 all support hardware decoding of 4k streams, and I am sure there are radeon cards that do that as well. I am not looking for playing games just playing 4k video.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

 

[jayducharme]

What I don't know is if macOS does the smart thing and downscale the screen on the eGPU first, or if it does the dumb thing and copy the whole 5K frame back, and then downscale it on the iGPU, which would be a nightmare.

It seems to be the latter, but only when I run Steam. That immediately kicks into the highest resolution possible. Interestingly, it wasn't a problem on my 2013 Mac Pro. That machine would get really hot and the fan would ramp up, but everything ran smoothly with a slower processor and half the GPU RAM of my current Radeon. During normal operation, the output seems to be a downscaled resolution. Everything's sharp, but just larger than when running in 4k or 5k.

Update: I just tried running Trainz: A New Era, which is really graphics-intensive and usually choked my old Mac Pro. It runs smooth as butter with the Core X (and with the "prefer eGPU" option off). So the card seems to be doing its job. Something else must be going on. I'll keep investigating.

 

[Krevnik]

Thats what I am trying to figure out, cause then there would be no need to try it out if its a waste of money.

I am running win10+bootcamp on the mini and am using the MPC-BE as video player.

I can see several has had success using a egpu with a TB2->TB3 cable as the one provided by Apple. The nvidia cards from 1050 and 1660 all support hardware decoding of 4k streams, and I am sure there are radeon cards that do that as well. I am not looking for playing games just playing 4k video.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/

Not familiar with that, project, TBH. I notice it uses libavcodec/libavformat (via 'ffmpeg'), so any hardware support will come out of libavcodec's support for it. Assuming it's using a recent enough version of the libraries, anyways. That's something I don't even know.

Generally, it's never really felt safe to rely on GPU decode, and yeah, the Intel chips in the 2014 don't have the beef to do hardware decode of HEVC, sadly. But starting in 2016 or so, Intel has chips that do. So the 2018 i3 Mini would be able to do hardware decode of HEVC.

At the cost of an eGPU at US prices: TB3-to-TB2 adapter, Sonnet 550W Case, GTX 1060 you are looking at close to 500$ US for the possibility of GPU decode at new prices. Just for 4K decode, that seems like a terrible waste, even at used prices, IMO. It's a lot of money for a single feature, TBH.

If this is something like a HTPC or similar where Windows is important, I'd say you're better off buying or building a mini-PC that can do the hardware decode. It's possible that a good NUC might fit the bill here?

 

[jayducharme]

My LG 4k monitor can accept either HDMI or DisplayPort. Do you think one has advantages over the other? I'm currently using HDMI. My Radeon 5700 has both ports. Would I see much improvement with DisplayPort?

 

[frou]

My LG 4k monitor can accept either HDMI or DisplayPort. Do you think one has advantages over the other? I'm currently using HDMI. My Radeon 5700 has both ports. Would I see much improvement with DisplayPort?

In most cases, probably no difference. Personally I always use DisplayPort when it's an option because it's a computer standard, whereas HDMI has one foot in the home entertainment world.

 

[jayducharme]

In most cases, probably no difference. Personally I always use DisplayPort when it's an option because it's a computer standard, whereas HDMI has one foot in the home entertainment world.

Thanks. The only difference I can tell from the research I’ve done is that DP will output to the monitor at 60 hz, whereas HDMI defaults to 30 hz (and that’s how it’s showing up on my Mac). That might make a difference for games. DP cables are cheap enough, I’ll try both and see if there’s a difference.

 

[Krevnik]

Thanks. The only difference I can tell from the research I’ve done is that DP will output to the monitor at 60 hz, whereas HDMI defaults to 30 hz (and that’s how it’s showing up on my Mac). That might make a difference for games. DP cables are cheap enough, I’ll try both and see if there’s a difference.

Your monitor should have come with a DisplayPort cable in the box.

And the 5700 should benefit from running at 60Hz. I’ve gamed in Windows on this Vega 56 as an eGPU and was pushing 120fps at 1080p on a TV, or 75-90fps at 1440p. 4K/5K will be painful, but it should be able to do better than 30fps.

 

[Schroinx]

If this is something like a HTPC or similar where Windows is important, I'd say you're better off buying or building a mini-PC that can do the hardware decode. It's possible that a good NUC might fit the bill here?

I do use the mini as htpc because it is small & silent and has been fine running 1080. Now I am looking to upgrade some or all the components including the tv to 4k 4:4:4. Sadly while the mini 2018 may be able to play 4k material, it does not support eARC over HDMI. Still early days.

 

[Krevnik]

I do use the mini as htpc because it is small & silent and has been fine running 1080. Now I am looking to upgrade some or all the components including the tv to 4k 4:4:4. Sadly while the mini 2018 may be able to play 4k material, it does not support eARC over HDMI. Still early days.

Yeah, I've honestly given up on the Mini as an HTPC. But since you are using it as an HTPC and want to upgrade for 4K, I wonder if an Apple TV 4K + Infuse might not be a good choice here? Put the Mac mini somewhere as a file server, and let Infuse stream your library over SMB or Plex from the Mac (assuming you have media you store locally on the Mini).

It's cheaper than an eGPU, and has worked out fine for me. I've been sitting on an old 2012 Mac mini hosting my media library with zero issues, despite feeding 70Mbps 4K HDR rips over to the TV. I've got the 32GB model, and honestly couldn't be happier with the thing after 2 years of ownership.

 

[Squuiid]

"NF-A12x25 ULN" and I also fitted the adapter that comes with it so that it runs at a fixed ~900rpm.

Thank you again. I went ahead with this and it is literally the perfect fan. My $199 Sonnet eGFX 350W runs a PowerColor Red Dragon RX 5700 XT and it is absolutely silent with this Noctua mod. The Akasa PSU it comes with is totally silent too which is great and the GPU has a 0dB mode. Could not be happier.

Oh, and I have stress tested the hell out of this thing. When the GPU has the VBIOS switch set to 'Silent mode' rather than 'OC mode' the 350W PSU handles it without a problem (as predicted by itsage over at egpu.io). I had an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1080 FE previously and the 5700 XT actually destroys it.
Have not tried 'OC mode' and probably won't bother.

 

[frou]

Thank you again. I went ahead with this and it is literally the perfect fan. My $199 Sonnet eGFX 350W runs a PowerColor Red Dragon RX 5700 XT and it is absolutely silent with this Noctua mod. The Akasa PSU it comes with is totally silent too which is great and the GPU has a 0dB mode. Could not be happier.

Glad to hear. Quiet is always good, and genuinely inaudible is an absolute joy.