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[AudioManagerArran]

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[RadiatingLight]

That's a bit of a tough situation...

a real external GPU requires thunderbolt, which isn't supported on almost any AMD platforms

What case would you use for your PC? Maybe you could buy a half-height ultra-cheap card like the GT710 and try to squeeze it in there?

You could also wait for 4000 series APUs, which will have an integrated Vega GPU and likely 8 cores, but that's a while down the road and will cost a few hundred dollars.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, AudioManagerArran said:

  As the AMD 3600 doesn’t have a built-in GPU, would a  USB graphics card function?  I’m not planning on using this for gaming, I just need the most basic VGA or HDMI 1024 res output. Would you have any recommendations or suggestions on how to make this work? 

USB graphics are "software" graphics, so it's very bad as only-GPU option. Many USB-C docks are "DisplayLink" which are also software. So using some software trickery, you can use the hardware GPU to output to a software "GPU" to get an extra monitor, but if the device does not have a GPU to begin with, will operate exactly like "standard VGA" mode (eg safe mode)

 

The other problem is that USB "monitors" also don't work at boot, since they're initialized by the BIOS. So if you're going to do something like this, you actually need an iGPU so it doesn't suck to use, by which then you wouldn't be considering a USB device to begin with.

 

Now. There is also the eGPU option, which requires Thunderbolt. NOT USB. They may be connected by USB-C but without TB, it doesn't work at all. It's also more expensive than the computer.

 

My suggestion, is to use a NUC or a MacMini if you need a device with an Intel iGPU, but these options are worse than the MacBook itself. If you're desperate to use the AMD CPU, you're going to have to have a GPU in it, even to use a USB-connected monitor, as even headless servers typically have a dedicated GPU on the motherboard that is part of the IPMI out-of-band management.