MBP EGPU via Thunder 2

[Jared10509]

So I recently made the decision to get an external gpu. 

 

Setup is as follows,

 

MBP late 2015 (i7 2.2GHZ, 16GB DDR3 1600MHZ, 256GB SSD, Intels terrible integrated graphics.)

Akitio Node thunderbolt 3 EGPU enclosure

AMD RX Vega 64 Gigabyte 

Thunder bolt 2 to 3 adapter.

 

So on High Sierra 10.13.6 Apple decided that they were not going to support the use of EGPU on devices with thunderbolt 1 & 2, I assume this was due to the lack of bandwidth making it nearly impossible to see a reasonable internal display improvement, however regardless of which version of thunderbolt you have you would only expect a 20% bottle neck when using an external display. 

 

So I went ahead and disabled the internal system integrity protection, then after ran the PurgeWrangler 4.1.2 script.

 

And just like that it was working as if my 2015 MBP had thunderbolt 3 ports. 

 

On the other hand there we're still many issues, I got about a 9 fps score on openGL using Cinebench R15, I mean a Vega 64 at 9 fps.... something seemed off. 

 

After some research I found out that mirroring the displays is a big no no, after fixing this I saw about 40 fps in Cinebench R15 (OpenGL).

 

More research later and turns out using clam shell mode will bring my openGL fps score up to 80fps. 

 

Still seams very low for me, so I decided why the hell not try out my old RX480 in the system, so I run Cinebench R15 (OpenGL) and get a score of 80fps... ummm what??? 

 

How is the Vega64 and RX480 getting the same results??? 

 

Could someone please assist? 

 

Also on a side note, the Vega does not fit nor does the Akitio node have enough power, rather buy a different enclosure for this setup (It was the only enclosure available in South Africa at a reasonable price so I figured I would buy it with the intention of putting a 600W Atx power supply and making the case a little bigger. 

 

Also the Vega gets extremely hot, I mean I can cook an egg on the thing before the fans even decide to turn on? Any idea as how to control the fans in OSX would be appreciated. 

 

 

[NelizMastr]

The Cinebench OpenGL test is not representative of graphics performance. Run a real graphics benchmark instead, like Unigine Heaven / Valley.

 

As far as the temps are concerned, the fan stays off until about 50-60c typically. That's normal behavior. Fan control for external cards in OS X is a no go afaik.

[Jared10509]

1 hour ago, NelizMastr said:

The Cinebench OpenGL test is not representative of graphics performance. Run a real graphics benchmark instead, like Unigine Heaven / Valley.

 

As far as the temps are concerned, the fan stays off until about 50-60c typically. That's normal behavior. Fan control for external cards in OS X is a no go afaik.

Same sort of story when using Unigine Heave similar fps all round.

[NelizMastr]

5 minutes ago, Jared10509 said:

Same sort of story when using Unigine Heave similar fps all round.

Then it's either simply an interface bottleneck or a CPU bottleneck. I'd just keep the 480 in that case.

[Jared10509]

Ive seen someone with the exact same setup as mine with the Vega 64 and he had it running near perfect (Minus the 20% drop you get when using an egpu over thunderbolt)