egpu Retrofitting Older Macs

[wheresmwaldo]

Hello People,

 

I've been restoring some older Macs to usable condition. HDD -> SSD swaps, Cleaning and Thermal tune-up, Battery replacements, RAM upgrades. The restoration checklist really. I have a MacMini that I'd like to have a basic video and audio editing machine. I could likely push another 2-3 years out of these machines while running Mojave 10.14 MacOS. I could throw on older software and whatnot. But the peripherals could use work. I'm looking for an external GPU housing, because looking at the internal graphics - we're not making any serious strides. 

 

Something Mac Capable, It doesn't need to work with the new Nvidia 3080. - No closer to a 970. Enough to process video from my DSLR, my mixer for my keyboard and guitars, whatever. 

So with these older Macs, I'm looking at the connection types: Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2. As I doubting USB 3.0 is going to be the way to go. Thunderbolt 3 eGPU, converting to the older connector might work. 

 

Looking to convert this MacMini into my music studio machine. And this could be a platform for other eGPUs for older Macs.

 

-

wheresmwaldo
 

[zeusthemoose]

Because your mac does not have a thunderbolt 3 port, it does not natively support egpus. It is possible though. You will need an amd graphics card in a egpu box. Ideally one that has been confirmed to work by Apple. You will also need a thunderbolt 3 to thunderbolt 2 adapter, you can go 3rd party but one from Apple is recommended. There is a process you need to go through to make it work, but it doesn’t not seem too complicated or risky and should work.