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Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

blackmagicdesign.com

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Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#221

Post by haldean »

kayoone wrote: post #184
mikeyouse wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, I just did that this week. I have a late 2011 MBP and I noticed it was dragging a bit so I upgraded it from 8gb ram to 16gb and bought a 500gb SSD to replace the factory HDD. The next day I decided I wanted more space for my pictures so I bought the little enclosure and swapped out my CDROM and just reused the factory 1TB HDD. Like $220 later and it feels like a brand new machine.

you were using a 7 year old Laptop with a HDD in 2018 ? Some people don't seem to have any hardware requirements at all.. While i could tolerate a CPU from 2011, using it without an SSD feels so slow today, it's barely usable tbh. I switched to SSDs in 2009 in all my machines and never looked back, despite the price at the time.

Not everyone can afford a new MacBook when their old one works fine, no matter how much HN shames them for it.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#222

Post by overcast »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #195
overcast wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just some silly underspeced nonsense then. I have a PC environment of 5000, and it's definitely in the single digits. PC's are speced appropriately prior to purchase, with a lifetime of 5 years. Sure occasionally users will request, and IT will approve an upgrade based on individual demands. But who the hell has time to upgrade 90% of the machines, after you've already spent the time migrating / deploying them…

> I have a PC environment of 5000, and it's definitely in the single digits. PC's are speced appropriately prior to purchase, with a lifetime of 5 years You get easily get more than 5yr at less cost if you spec for upgrade ability up front (good CPU + motherboard specs) and then do a mid lifecycle ram, storage, etc upgrade. Rolling upgrades can save even more money if done properly because the hardware coming out of…

Of course you can, but that's not how depreciated assets work in the corporate world. Especially when warranty/support ends after 5 years with companies like Dell.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#223

Post by jason_slack »

I just ordered a eGFX Breakaway Box 550 Bundle (with Radeon RX Vega 56 Card) for $819.

https://www.sonnetstore.com/collections/egpu-expansion-syste...

How does the Radeon Pro 580 compare to the Vega 56?

Edit: I just ordered a OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock and it looks like this eGPU has all the ports I need on the back. The dock was like $300 alone.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#224

Post by mikhailt »

fcarraldo wrote: post #212
saagarjha wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works without an external display as well.

This is false. You can hack support for internal display acceleration, but it requires using a "Phantom" display dongle adapter and results in significantly worse performance because of the limited bandwidth available.

This is false as well.

The problem is, games and apps have to opt-in for eGPU support. That's been clear since the original eGPU support in macOS 10.13.4.

There is no universal eGPU support in macOS, it doesn't start acceleration on its own.

I believe Tomb Raider is one of the first games that support eGPU: https://www.tombraiderchronicles.com/headlines4083.html

DaVinci Resolve support it as well as mentioned in this video: https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-d...

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#225

Post by rbanffy »

octorian wrote: post #207
rbanffy wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The option is to buy it fully specced. A new 6-core i9 with 32 gigs of DDR4 amd 4TB of flash storage will probably keep you happy for the next 5 years. That means your budget is slightly above US$ 1200/year of happy computing with a Mac. If you don't need macOS or an ultra-elegant thin computer with an incredible screen, you'll probably be happier with a PC from Dell or Lenovo with similar specs and an updated machin…

> The option is to buy it fully specced. A new 6-core i9 with 32 gigs of DDR4 amd 4TB of flash storage will probably keep you happy for the next 5 years. That means your budget is slightly above US$ 1200/year of happy computing with a Mac. The problem is that not everyone has the budget to buy a fully-speced machine at the time of initial purchase. Also, many laptop vendors charge a significant premium to buy such co…

> The problem is that not everyone has the budget to buy a fully-speced machine at the time of initial purchase

Yes. In some markets Apple offers financing options right on their website. In case of businesses, they can deal directly with their banks.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#226

Post by mikhailt »

rvanmil wrote: post #93

Pardon my ignorance, but do I need an external monitor to use this, or can I just plug this into my MacBook Pro and have improved graphics performance on the built-in display?

eGPU support is opt-in on macOS. Games and apps must enable support for eGPU to use it, regardless of external or internal display.

Here's a video of it in action with one of the first software that supports eGPU acceleration, DaVinci Resolve: https://9to5mac.com/2018/04/19/macos-egpu-performance-test-d...

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#227

Post by jason_slack »

Keyframe wrote: post #190

Beware of anything from that company. Their hardware build quality is notoriously shit. So much so that we've blacklisted their stuff from production, and I know we aren't the only ones.

Can you back these claims up at all? Without some claims why should people believe your words at face value?

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#228

Post by Keyframe »

jason_slack wrote: post #227
Keyframe wrote: post #190

Beware of anything from that company. Their hardware build quality is notoriously shit. So much so that we've blacklisted their stuff from production, and I know we aren't the only ones.

Can you back these claims up at all? Without some claims why should people believe your words at face value?

Because I say so - it is anecdotal, of course! Take it what you want from it. Over the years, almost every product they've made and that got into my hands (not by choice) broke in one way or the other or was unusable in production over any longer period of time due to build quality, qc issues or abysmal software. It's why they can get lower price than their competition (Aja or BlueFish for example) which don't suffer from same issues. It's a 'known' issue with them around the TV and Film industry, hence why no one serious is using their stuff, unless they are on a strict budgetary diet. Quality is extremely random and support is next to non-existent apart from what they give you in form of Q&A and software downloads on their site. It's so bad that even their higher-priced hardware gets you almost none support. It's a crap company that is interested in volume.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#229

Post by Teknoman117 »

dmix wrote: post #27
cosmojg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $699 and no ability to upgrade Sounds like a perfect fit for the Apple ecosystem.

I'd bet 99.9% of people buying PC Laptops never upgrade a single chip... Apple's non-pro lines are likely not much different. Apple largely sacrificed that ability (in a few product lines) in favour of creating some of the thinnest laptops available. I don't remember them ever doing that before Macbook Air, for now reason. That said, in this case, I don't see what is being gained by not making the GPU swappable or at…

Even with the chunky laptops, I only ever really upgraded the wifi card, ram, and storage...
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