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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

#271

Post by phonebucket »

ratsimihah wrote: post #188
phonebucket wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would definitely have been nice. But if you're thinking about scientific programming, it's not so much effort to use AWS GPUs. I do that, and don't think I would buy an eGPU even if it was CUDA capable.

Isn't AWS expensive in the long term? I want to have a 1080 Ti but I don't even have a desktop to begin with.

AWS is expensive if you are an extremely heavy user.

Checking out whether the pricing works for you is an easy exercise. A p3 instance costs $3.06 per hour at the time of writing. It runs an Nvidia V100, which costs around $10k. So you've got yourself around 3000 hours of use before it makes sense to buy your own.

If you want something cheaper, you can go with the p2 instances at $0.90 an hour. These cost around $2k, so you're looking at around 2200 hours of use before it might become economical to buy your own.

I don't want to sound like an AWS fanboy, but I do believe it's a good democratising catalyst for deep learning and scientific computing.

EDIT: p2 instances run on K80 GPUs, which I neglected to mention above.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#272

Post by arendtio »

puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #70
arendtio wrote: post #44

Acoustic Performance: ~18dB I did expect a fanless design by Apple :-/

Fanless dissipation of 150W TDP? Good luck.

Well, my off-the-shelf RX460 has just half the power but has no problems with it's fanless cooler while being stuck in the same case as my Core i7 (which runs with a fanless cooler too).

So I don't think it is madness to expect a new product to be a bit better than what you could buy everywhere else since nearly two years.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#273

Post by arendtio »

megy wrote: post #52
arendtio wrote: post #44

Acoustic Performance: ~18dB I did expect a fanless design by Apple :-/

It is not by Apple.

Thanks for the hint, marketing got me :-/

I saw all the nice Apple products and didn't notice that the eGPU is from a completely different company.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#274

Post by 1_player »

nfriedly wrote: post #155
1_player wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Akitio Node + Apple TB2->3 dongle + GTX 1080 + external LG 4K monitor on a rMBP 15" 2015, used only w/ Bootcamp. Works pretty well, and my latest addition is a DisplayPort switch to use the iGPU directly with the monitor (when I'm in macOS) or the external GPU (when I'm in Bootcamp). Performance is great, around ~95% of desktop GPU I'd say. The only issue is that it needs a particular boot sequence to enable it, when…

What DisplayPort switch are you using?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ZK2S71W/ref=od_aui_de...

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#275

Post by 1_player »

pensatoio wrote: post #211
1_player wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Akitio Node + Apple TB2->3 dongle + GTX 1080 + external LG 4K monitor on a rMBP 15" 2015, used only w/ Bootcamp. Works pretty well, and my latest addition is a DisplayPort switch to use the iGPU directly with the monitor (when I'm in macOS) or the external GPU (when I'm in Bootcamp). Performance is great, around ~95% of desktop GPU I'd say. The only issue is that it needs a particular boot sequence to enable it, when…

Great info, thank you! Glad to see there's a sub for this too. I'm about to try the same setup. If it performs well enough, I might just do away with owning a gaming desktop entirely. Have you tried GSync with your setup?

My monitor only supports FreeSync, so I only have enabled Fast Sync in the NVIDIA control panel, which is monitor-independent.

Re: Blackmagic eGPU – Thunderbolt 3 external graphics processor

#276

Post by anentropic »

everyone wrote: post #219
anentropic wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the design has been optimized for quiet operation" this is important to me, glad to hear it!

I dont get really this.. I have a stock air-cooled asus GTX 970, and for almost all use cases on my PC it is completely silent. The fans only turn on when the card temp goes over a certain value. The only thing that causes this is a modern taxing AAA type game (eg. The witcher 3). And when I'm playing a game like that Ive got my headphones on. I can be running Unity, visual studio, adobe premier, illustrator, photosh…

You say you don't get it, but then you boast how your gear is basically silent. Great, that's what I want too!

But I'm not talking about your custom-built gaming PC, we're talking about an eGPU case for a Macbook.

My experience with these type of peripherals (eg external hard drives) is they often say they have a 'quiet fan' but it's not really quiet. And I think it's something I read about being a problem with other eGPU cases.

I have this stuff in my living room. The Macbook is basically silent. I don't want a bunch of noisy fans to come on (they all add up...) every time I dock the laptop and try to do some work.

I won't be gaming. I might have headphones on to do some video editing, if my partner is trying to do her own work in the same room. But I don't want to be obliged to wear them just because of noisy hardware.

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