External Graphic Cards For Mac
- External Graphic Cards For Macbook Pro
- Egpu Mac
- Best External Graphic Cards For Mac
- External Gpu For Imac
- External Graphics Card For Desktop
I did some upgrades to what many would consider an outdated and least powerful Mac then paired it with the highest performing AMD graphics card that works in macOS. This Mac mini is now running 10.12 Sierra with a pair of SSDs in RAID-0, 8GB of RAM, and an R9 Fury X external GPU. You may have seen disassembled photos of the AKiTiO Node. As the name suggests, an eGPU is a graphics card that gives your Mac a real performance boost, but instead of being inserted into an internal expansion slot inside the Mac itself, the card is installed into an external box – often referred to as an ‘enclosure’ – that sits outside the Mac.
An eGPU can give your Mac additional graphics performance for professional apps, 3D gaming, VR content creation, and more.
- As the name suggests, an eGPU is a graphics card that gives your Mac a real performance boost, but instead of being inserted into an internal expansion slot inside the Mac itself, the card is installed into an external box – often referred to as an ‘enclosure’ – that sits outside the Mac.
- External Graphics Card (eGPU) Buying Guide. Do a hardware research. Yes, not all the graphics cards are created the same. Some might be easy on compatibility, while others would be quite selective. There is need to make sure that you get to pick one that can deliver on performance without much of compatibility issues.
eGPUs are supported by any Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac1 running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later. Learn how to update the software on your Mac.
An eGPU lets you do all this on your Mac:
- Accelerate apps that use Metal, OpenGL, and OpenCL
- Connect additional external monitors and displays
- Use virtual reality headsets plugged into the eGPU
- Charge your MacBook Pro while using the eGPU
- Use an eGPU with your MacBook Pro while its built-in display is closed
- Connect an eGPU while a user is logged in
- Connect more than one eGPU using the multiple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) ports on your Mac2
- Use the menu bar item to safely disconnect the eGPU
- View the activity levels of built-in and external GPUs (Open Activity Monitor, then choose Window > GPU History.)
eGPU support in apps
eGPU support in macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later is designed to accelerate Metal, OpenGL, and OpenCL apps that benefit from a powerful eGPU. Not all apps support eGPU acceleration; check with the app's developer to learn more.3
In general, an eGPU can accelerate performance in these types of apps:
- Pro apps designed to utilize multiple GPUs
- 3D games, when an external monitor is attached directly to the eGPU
- VR apps, when the VR headset is attached directly to the eGPU
- Pro apps and 3D games that accelerate the built-in display of iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro (This capability must be enabled by the app's developer.)
You can configure applications to use an eGPU with one of the following methods.
Use the Prefer External GPU option
Starting with macOS Mojave 10.14, you can turn on Prefer External GPU in a specific app's Get Info panel in the Finder. This option lets the eGPU accelerate apps on any display connected to the Mac—including displays built in to iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro:
- Quit the app if it's open.
- Select the app in the Finder. Most apps are in your Applications folder. If you open the app from an alias or launcher, Control-click the app's icon and choose Show Original from the pop-up menu. Then select the original app.
- Press Command-I to show the app's info window.
- Select the checkbox next to Prefer External GPU.
- Open the app to use it with the eGPU.
You won't see this option if an eGPU isn't connected, if your Mac isn't running macOS Mojave, or if the app self-manages its GPU selection. Some apps directly choose which graphics processors are used and will ignore the Prefer External GPU checkbox.
Set an external eGPU-connected display as the primary display
If you have an external display connected to your eGPU, you can choose it as the primary display for all apps. Since apps default to the GPU associated with the primary display, this option works with a variety of apps:
- Quit any open apps that you want the eGPU to accelerate on the primary display.
- Choose Apple () menu > System Preferences. Select Displays, then select the Arrangement tab.
- Drag the white menu bar to the box that represents the display that's attached to the eGPU.
- Open the apps that you want to use with the eGPU.
If you disconnect the eGPU, your Mac defaults back to the internal graphics processors that drives the built-in display. When the eGPU is re-attached, it automatically sets the external display as the primary display.
About macOS GPU drivers
Mac hardware and GPU software drivers have always been deeply integrated into the system. This design fuels the visually rich and graphical macOS experience as well as many deeper platform compute and graphics features. These include accelerating the user interface, providing support for advanced display features, rendering 3D graphics for pro software and games, processing photos and videos, driving powerful GPU compute features, and accelerating machine learning tasks. This deep integration also enables optimal battery life while providing for greater system performance and stability.
Apple develops, integrates, and supports macOS GPU drivers to ensure there are consistent GPU capabilities across all Mac products, including rich APIs like Metal, Core Animation, Core Image, and Core ML. In order to deliver the best possible customer experience, GPU drivers need to be engineered, integrated, tested, and delivered with each version of macOS. Aftermarket GPU drivers delivered by third parties are not compatible with macOS.
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The GPU drivers delivered with macOS are also designed to enable a high quality, high performance experience when using an eGPU, as described in the list of recommended eGPU chassis and graphics card configurations below. Because of this deep system integration, only graphics cards that use the same GPU architecture as those built into Mac products are supported in macOS.
Supported eGPU configurations
It's important to use an eGPU with a recommended graphics card and Thunderbolt 3 chassis. If you use an eGPU to also charge your MacBook Pro, the eGPU's chassis needs to provide enough power to run the graphics card and charge the computer. Check with the manufacturer of the chassis to find out if it provides enough power for your MacBook Pro.
Recommended graphics cards, along with chassis that can power them sufficiently, are listed below.
Thunderbolt 3 all-in-one eGPU products
These products contain a powerful built-in GPU and supply sufficient power to charge your MacBook Pro.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 all-in-one eGPUs:
External Graphic Cards For Macbook Pro
- Blackmagic eGPU and Blackmagic eGPU Pro4
- Gigabyte RX 580 Gaming Box4
- Sonnet Radeon RX 570 eGFX Breakaway Puck
- Sonnet Radeon RX 560 eGFX Breakaway Puck5
AMD Radeon RX 470, RX 480, RX 570, RX 580, and Radeon Pro WX 7100
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Polaris architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Pulse series and the AMD WX series.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- OWC Mercury Helios FX4
- PowerColor Devil Box
- Sapphire Gear Box
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 350W
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 550W4
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
- PowerColor Game Station4
- HP Omen4
- Akitio Node6
AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Vega 56 architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Vega 56.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- OWC Mercury Helios FX4
- PowerColor Devil Box
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 550W4
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
- PowerColor Game Station4
AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, Vega Frontier Edition Air, and Radeon Pro WX 9100
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Vega 64 architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Vega 64, AMD Frontier Edition air-cooled, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
AMD Radeon RX 5700, 5700 XT, and 5700 XT 50th Anniversary
If you've installed macOS Catalina 10.15.1 or later, you can use these graphics cards that are based on the AMD Navi RDNA architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the AMD Radeon RX 5700, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
- Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 650W4
- Razer Core X4
Learn more
- To ensure the best eGPU performance, use the Thunderbolt 3 cable that came with your eGPU or an Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) cable. Also make sure that the cable is connected directly to a Thunderbolt 3 port on your Mac, not daisy-chained through another Thunderbolt device or hub.
- If you have questions about Thunderbolt 3 chassis or graphics cards, or about third-party app support and compatibility, contact the hardware or software provider.
- Software developers can learn more about programming their apps to take advantage of macOS eGPU support.
1. If you have a Mac mini (2018) with FileVault turned on, make sure to connect your primary display directly to Mac mini during startup. After you log in and see the macOS Desktop, you can unplug the display from Mac mini and connect it to your eGPU.
2. If you're using a 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2016 or 2017, always plug eGPUs and other high-performance devices into the left-hand ports for maximum data throughput.
3. macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later don't support eGPUs in Windows using Boot Camp or when your Mac is in macOS Recovery or installing system updates.
4. These chassis provide at least 85 watts of charging power, making them ideal for use with 15-inch MacBook Pro models.
5. Playback of HDCP-protected content from iTunes and some streaming services is not supported on displays attached to Radeon 560-based eGPUs. You can play this content on the built-in display on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and iMac.
6. If you use Akitio Node with a Mac notebook, you might need to connect your Mac to its power adapter to ensure proper charging.
With the upcoming release of High Sierra 10.13 Apple has taken a turn for the better by including a number of improvements to the graphical side of macOS. At WWDC they announced an update to macOS called Metal 2. Metal 2 is basically an improvement to the existing Metal the underlying graphical structure that all that Metal, OpenCL, and OpenGL apps use to work.
Metal 2 in High Sierra
With Metal 2 will come 10 times higher draw calls and a faster frame rate debugger. These improvements mean Mac applications like Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Suit as well as your favorite games that take advantage of Metal’s API will be able to perform faster with it’s optimization. In addition to the speed improvements Metal 2 will come with official support for native AMD drivers, external GPU’s and VR Dev software, which will further improve things on the performance side.
Supported Graphics Cards
Apple is continuing the AMD as their choice for their GPU’s. They placed placing a Radeon Pro 570/580 and RX Vega in the iMac lineup and will be supporting AMD desktop graphic cards as part of their external GPU enclosure. Now current and future AMD graphic cards will work on macOS that’s for sure, however when it comes to Nvidia offerings with their GTX series cards that’s still a hazy unknown. It took Nvidia 8 whole months after Sierra’s release to bring support for their Pascal graphic cards released an entire year before support came for pascal cards like the GTX 1070 and 1080.
Egpu Mac
Mac eGPU Enclosures
With official support for external graphic cards by Apple, many improvements will be available to the developers of these enclosures with Metal’s API. A number of bugs that currently exist with third party eGPU solutions will go away.
The eGPU enclosures will work with existing and future AMD graphic cards you can actually get one right now with a RX 580 for $599, which is a really good price considering you get a a graphics card, a eGPU enclosure and a USB hub. The external graphics enclosure offered by Apple is currently available for those participating in their Paid Developer Program. Existing Nvidia graphic card should also work in High Sierra as long as Nvidia releases Web Drivers for High Sierra, something that’s no gauranteed given their previous track record of delaying support for Sierra 10.12.
These graphics card will run over Thunderbolt 3. which will be slower than the native a PCI-e slot performance on a desktop. Thunderbolt 3 will be the only bottleneck and downside to an eGPU setup and you can expect a 15% to 30% performance drop driving a graphics card through a thunderbolt 3 cable compared to a PCI-e slot.
However, these eGPU enclosures will still be a great solution for those stuck with an unupgradable computer they purchased from Apple who still want to recieve speed improvements without having to shell out thousands more for an entire new system. They can simply upgrade the graphics card while reusing the eGPU enclosure and iMac or MacBook. The graphic chip is primary where the speed improvements come from since processor improvements from Intel have been negligible the past couple years. You can see that can seen when comparing the 2017 Mac’s to the 2016 with the tiny speed difference between the 2016’s Skylake and the 2017 Kabylake CPU.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality software and games will begin coming with the release of macOS High Sierra. That’s actually already happening with some developers. Valve, the company behind the Steam gaming platform, have announced that they are working on SteamVR for macOS that will be available for High Sierra. More developers are likely to join in with time as Apple is keen to push VR to macOS by offering an external GPU kit to their developers for such a competitive price at $599.
Best External Graphic Cards For Mac
Gaming on a Mac
With Apple no longer having their backs turned against the graphical side of computers by finally caving towards those who want more than just a expensive showpiece of hardware, you can expect a big boost in gaming performance when combining High Sierra’s performance improvements with an AMD Radeon graphics card as AMD cards will have an overall better performance compared to Nvidia GTX cards because most Mac apps/games use OpenCL. AMD is good at OpenCL and Nvidia isn’t. Nvidia is much more suited that take advantage of CUDA something you’ll see much less of on macOS compared to windows.
External Gpu For Imac
Since the Apple PC lineup will be using better graphic chips along with the expandable capabilities brought by about Metal 2 with it’s eGPU and VR support, you can expect it to draw more developers who may reconsider porting over their games to macOS and developing new ones if High Sierra is a huge success.