10 series Nvidia eGPU

[CameoCream]

Hi.

 

I'm new here, so excuse me if the topic is in the wrong section. Have been watching the LTTs videos for a good few months now.

 

For work related reasons I have a 2016 Macbook Pro, and I am a film editor, so basically I needed a mobile suite to work in, and it made sense to stay with Apple to not change the workflow, so none of that Apple hate nonsense.

 

To start things off, I'm interested to see if there are any eGPU gurus here? I have been floating on the idea of an external GPU for my Macbook since I bought it, as a way to increase workflow when I am at my usual workstation. I have done my research around it, and seen that indeed they are compatible with some minor hacking, and the acceleration in Adobe products is there.

 

However, I had heard time and time again, that none of the 10 series cards work on Mac, and I want to use the best available card for my machine. I was a little disappointed, but all the egpu videos I can find on the eGPU for Mac are prior the new year, and I saw nvidia have released new drivers here. (Yes I realize I could hack these to work in Windows, but I'd like to maintain my workflow if possible!)

http://www.nvidia.ca/object/macosx-cuda-8.0.63-driver.html

And upon inspection on the Wiki page, I saw the Pascal line of cards listed under the supported GPU section

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA

 

I am probably wrong, but would this mean that support for Pascal cards is available on Mac currently? Or am I reading this wrong.

 

Thanks in advance!

[TheRandomness]

-Thread moved to Graphics Cards. 

[Droidbot]

Pascal is strange on OSX, go for Polaris RX 480 or older Titan X Maxwell cards. 

 

I have no experience with TB2/3, go visit egpu.io for some extra help on it.

[CameoCream]

5 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

Pascal is strange on OSX, go for Polaris RX 480 or older Titan X Maxwell cards. 

 

I have no experience with TB2/3, go visit egpu.io for some extra help on it.

Pascal cards do work though? I've heard they simply do not work on OSX.

[Nicnac]

Rx 480 seems to be the best option from what I have seen.

[Nicnac]

Just now, CameoCream said:

Pascal cards do work though? I've heard they simply do not work on OSX.

I believe only Polaris cards work natively

[mikat]

Rule of thumb for hardware support on mac: If it or something with the same architecture hasn't been used by apple in an official product, it's probably not going to work very well or require a ton of screwing around to make it work.

 

TL;DR: I wouldn't buy a pascal card to use as an eGPU for a mac.

[CameoCream]

So these new web drivers are just updates for the old ones? No new support for Pascal cards?

[Droidbot]

1 minute ago, Nicnac said:

I believe only Polaris cards work natively

Through a driver hack, yes. 

 

2 minutes ago, CameoCream said:

Pascal cards do work though? I've heard they simply do not work on OSX.

I've heard they don't.