eGPU.io

They're targeting DaVinci Resolve users. It's not a great deal for gamers and related nerds but there are lots of Apple-compatible enclosures out now. https://egpu.io/ is a good resource.

There's an amazing website and community if you are interested in external GPUs at https://egpu.io/ . Both for Mac and PC you will find guides, explanations etc. There's also an eGPU subreddit and I wrote a sticky on U series chips, PCIe lanes and Thunderbolt 3 https://www.reddit.com/r/eGPU/comments/7vb0gg/u_series_chips_pcie_lane… which is more interesting for PCs than Mac.

based on your card, it should be using a decent bit of the 600w or so passed through the new 16-pin connector. goes without saying, a proper PSU (doesn't have to be ATX, but at least 750W to be on the safer side) is a must. for thunderbolt enclosures, consider going through the list - https://egpu.io/best-egpu-buyers-guide/#tb3-enclosures zero idea about mac support so YMMV.

Framework Laptop 16 already supports desktop GPUs through its USB 4.0 ports. Tests in the wild have shown that the best performance can be gained in combination with the currently wildly popular enclosures with the ASM2464PD chip from ASMedia due to its really great compatibility with AMD chipsets. This chip has been integrated in the AG02 enclosure from Aoostar (which supports USB4, but also supports Oculink) and the UT3G/UT4G enclosures from ADT-Link (which only support USB4): https://egpu.io/best-egpu-buyers-guide/ You also need a really fast videocard with > 40 Gbps throughput to make Oculink worthwhile, as even a AMD Radeon 9070XT performs nearly the same (and pretty great!) on USB4 as Oculink, through the Aoostar dock, on the Framework 16.

I game on a framework laptop with an eGPU. I have a Razor Core Chroma with a Radeon 2060. There’s plenty of guides out there to get it up and running [^1]. I did try to get it working under Linux but wayland support for Nvidia is still a mess. For now, I’ve been dual-booting Windows to play my games on. It works really well. 1. https://egpu.io/best-external-graphics-card-builds/

Just to mention it: There exist M.2 to PCI-Express adapters, and also Thunderbolt to PCIe (and Thunderbolt to M.2 to PCIe.) Some examples here: https://egpu.io/best-egpu-buyers-guide/ (M.2-to-PCIe are under “M.2/NGFF” in the table I think.)

Try Thunderbolt 3 eGPU enclosure with AMD card inside. There is much info on https://egpu.io

On a Mac the other way to sort this is with an egpu. I have a 13” 2017 MBP & use a Razor Core X Chroma with an AMD Vega 64. It makes an awesome 1 cable docking station - I have mouse, keyboard & external disks plugged into it, as well as the monitors and a Behringer external sound card (for midi and studio speakers). Just 1 Thunderbolt cable into the MBP, which also provides power to it. Makes for a nice tidy desk too! https://egpu.io has all the info you’d ever need on such setups (no affiliation BTW).

In that sense, it is not a very good version of the future. https://egpu.io is a good resource to get started on this. The 4-lane (sometimes only 2-lane) configuration of Thunderbolt 3 controllers, the overhead of the protocol and Intel’s insistence to reserve DisplayPort and USB bandwidth has made TB3 slower — 22Gbps maximum in a 32Gbps port hosting graphic cards that are usually electrically connected at 128Gbps (PCIe 3.0 x16). I am going back the other way now, after having used an external enclosure for years.

The best resource for DIY projects in this space seems to be egpu.io. I found their guide kind of helpful: https://egpu.io/build-guides/

Here is an overview I think is helpful [1]. The sonnet eGPU-case looks like its the best value for the price. And the gigabyte box on #1 maybe if you like to buy the GPU with the box. [1] https://egpu.io/external-gpu-buyers-guide-2018/

Apple disabled eGPU support for Thunderbolt 1 and 2 with macOS 10.13.4 [0]. Of course someone wrote a nifty script to unblock it and enable support for Nvidia GPU's while at it [1], but it's too bad a great upgrade path from slightly older MBP's (up to 2015) is not officially supported. [0]: https://egpu.io/external-gpu-macos-10-13-4-update/ [1]: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/script-enable-egpu-on-tb1-2-macs-on-m…

You will need to buy a TB3 eGPU enclosure. These range anywhere from $200 to $500 and typically come without a GPU. There are some more expensive options (like the Aorus Gaming Box with a GTX 1070/1080 or RX 580) that already come with a GPU installed. Here is a nice comparison of the eGPU enclosures available today: https://egpu.io/external-gpu-buyers-guide-2018/ My personal recommendations are the Akitio Node Standard/Pro or Sonnet Breakaway Box 350/550/650. These companies are reputable companies in the Thunderbolt hardware realm. Note that I am not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned above.

You'd have to buy an eGPU case, along with a GPU. Apple recommends Sonnet case with AMD GPUs [0]. However, as seen here [1], people have managed to use other GPU cases, with NVidia cards. 0: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544 1: https://egpu.io/build-guides/

External thunderbolt GPUs are already supported (with a little bit of hacking). Check out https://egpu.io

I am fully on this thunderbolt 3 GPU bandwagon as well. I pre-ordered an Akitio node, and I'm quite bummed out that it hasn't been delivered yet. I'm very much looking forward to playing some games on my MacBook Pro with it! Though if the Mantiz Venus starts arriving before my order is shipped, I may need to switch. Ps: If anyone else is interested in doing an e-GPU with their mac, https://egpu.io/setup-guide-external-graphics-card-mac/ is a great place to start.

So there I didn't really follow any blog post or anything, there's a lot of gists about setting it up but they become relatively out of date fairly quickly and are usually specific to their setup. I would checkout: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/wip-nvidia-egpu-support-for-high-sier… A lot of people have put in a lot of work to make it as easy as possible to setup. I would just make sure you setup things one at a time and don't immediately jump to trying to get TF or pytorch to work after installing the drivers/ following any sort of guide. Verify your Cuda installation first by building the sample programs and running them. (see http://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-installation-guide-mac-os-x/index.htm… Other than that maybe checkout: https://gist.github.com/jganzabal/8e59e3b0f59642dd0b5f2e4de03c7687 https://gist.github.com/smitshilu/53cf9ff0fd6cdb64cca69a7e2827ed0f The main thing is just getting the GPU drivers setup, after that installing tensorflow requires some modifications to the source (relatively trivial find and replace), and I don't think you have to do anything special for the latest version of pytorch. Other tips: 1. Make sure you're using a thunderbolt 3 cable with whatever egpu you have, other cables will not work even if they're usb c. (USB 3.1 != Thunderbolt 3 != USB C) Read about the differences. 2. I would recommend the AKITO Node enclosure as it seems like most people use it and the community is really small already so if you aren't it might be…

Great comment[0] by nando4 yesterday summarizes the issue nicely: I entirely understand your discontent. The XPS 13/15 was aimed as a Macbook killer. Indeed 2015 Macbooks ran 16Gbps-TB2 whereas these XPS systems outwardly surpassed them as 32Gbs-TB3. Unbeknown by their owners, until TB3 PCIe peripherals were released, they actually ran 16Gbps-TB3 via a neutered x2 3.0 link from the TB controller to the root bridge. Yes, Dell did cheap out, using 2014 DSL5110 controllers rather than the newer DSL6xxx ones. There would have been a tiny increase in TDP running 4 lanes rather than 2, however, it shows a bias towards DP rather than PCIe traffic down the 40Gbps TB3 channel. I wish it wasn't so. Finding an argument against Dell in that mix will be difficult. Intel are more at fault outwardly advertising TB3 as 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0, then in the details saying it can be between 2-4 lanes of PCIe 3.0. Good luck if pursuing Intel. [0] https://egpu.io/forums/pc-setup/xps-15-9550-not-able-to-reach-40gbps-o…

++ on the 1 liter pc: https://www.servethehome.com/perfect-project-tinyminimicro-pushing-a-1… The good part is that you can upgrade ram/storage/interfaces. The bad part (as far as a tidy integrated package) is that they have external PSUs. I have a trouble-free HP G series but it isn't clear to me what would differentiate it from the equivalent Lenovo or Dell. The next interesting task is to add an external GPU [0] to make it a modular computer similar to the Snow White concept [1]. 0. https://egpu.io/exp-gdc-th3p4g2-thunderbolt-gpu-dock-review/ 1. https://www.designboom.com/technology/hartmut-esslingers-early-apple-c…

With macOS? Mac Pro I don't know, but its actually the Intel Macs which eGPU which are supported (with older macOS versions) and not Apple Silicon Macs [1] [1] https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/definitive-macos-thunderbolt-egfx-com…

They often just don't justify the cost. The enclosures themselves are expensive, and there's a really rough performance hit, less than half the framerate of the same card connected via PCIe in some cases[0]. A decent gaming laptop probably costs about the same while having better performance[1]. They're not particularly portable either, so you'd be better off getting the gaming laptop, or building a desktop with a cheaper GPU for roughly the same price. The size/power delivery of the enclosure can be a limiting factor as well, new GPUs have tended to be bigger and more power hungry, resulting in many enclosures just not being compatible with newer cards. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlYHPj-0DTE [1] https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/pcie-slot-dgpu-vs-thunderbolt-3-egpu-…

The egpu forums might be a good resource: https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-linux-setup/ubuntu-19-04-easy-to-us…

CL!ng may be what you're looking for [1]. The app is available in the App Store, but I have not tested it. [1]: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/monitoring-thunderbolt-bandwidth/#pos…

You might find this useful - https://egpu.io/forums/gpu-monitor-peripherals/pcie-ethernet-in-thunde…

Correct, Big Sur broke DisplayPort above a certain bandwidth, but only on Intel Macs as I understand it. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252174979?page=1 https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/4k144hz-no-longer-available-after-upg… I have to use SwitchResX to define a custom resolution (95Hz), otherwise my gaming monitor won't go above a sad 60Hz. Meanwhile, Linux runs perfectly on the same setup all the way up to 160Hz. Yet another place where Linux has fundamentally better hardware support than Mac.

I'm sure that eGPU enclosure manufacturers will eventually produce models fully compatible with GeForce RTX 30 series. In the meantime, FYI there are some relevant discussions regarding potential compatibility (with pin adapters) of some eGPU enclosures currently available on the market, e.g.: https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/razer-core-x-chroma-rtx-…

It should. You'll need to run a script such as this: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/script-enable-egpu-on-tb1-2-macs-on-m…

Author here. Unfortunately, according to numerous accounts[1], the TB3 to TB2 adapter does not work when you're trying to use an Nvidia eGPU with a Macbook that has an Nvidia dGPU. (Mine has the 750M.) Additionally, the gaming box uses a custom card (so less resale value) and seems to have limited support for other GPUs (thus reducing its use as a general-purpose case). But yes, for most people, it's almost certainly the better buy. (Though it's still not officially supported, apparently.) [1]: https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/problem-setting-up-aorus-gtx1070-gami…

My understanding is that since High Sierra, Mac OS supports eGPUs natively, but only with AMD GPUs and only using thunderbolt 3: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT208544 There are some hacks to get other configurations working: https://egpu.io/external-gpu-macos-10-13-4-update/