eGPU with 2013 Mac Pro & Thunderbolt 2

#eGPU #2013MacPro #RX5700XT
Can you use an eGPU with the 2013 Mac Pro (or other Thunderbolt 2 Apple Macs), and is it worth it?
In Part 1, I cover the different options, show the setup process using purge-wrangler, and run some benchmarks in Unigine Valley. I compare performance with the MacBook Pro 13" using the same eGPU, and throw in a benchmark from a Windows PC with an identical RX5700XT GPU.
Amazon Links - As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
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Razer Core X Chroma eGPU Enclosure: amzn.to/311C98w
Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro+: amzn.to/33heyU4
Apple Thunderbolt Adapter: amzn.to/3fhwxft
Thunderbolt 2 Cable: amzn.to/2Pewx5v

[@letshaveago]

This is one of those videos that when you get to the end you think "was that really almost 30 minutes it felt like 5?!" Very interesting content.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you!

[@mayam2556]

Thank you so SO much for a clear and detailed explanation. I’ve been through so many articles that made no sense to me until I found your channel. I really want to play Divinity 2 with my MacBook Pro 2013 Retina, but I was confused about anything related to eGPUs that I’d given up. It all gets a bit confusing as I am not too tech savvy when it comes to this, but your explanation has made me understand a bit more in terms of options that I have. Appreciate your breakdown and content! Hello from NY 🌞

[@ConstantGeekery]

I’m glad it’s been useful to you. Hello back atcha from Devon, UK 😊

[@bobfromsoireegames4309]

I'm a proud owner of a Mantiz Venus eGPU enclosure myself. Works beautifully for older Mac Minis. Beats the hell out of an integrated Intel gpu.

[@learnletsplay7210]

eGPU successful installed on MacOS and WIN10 (Bootcamp) a MCB pro late2013 Radeon Rx 570 Thanks a lot for the brilliant video. Greetings from Germany

[@millionmilerclub]

Thank you so much for taking the time of doing this video, I may be giving up on buying it as I need more speed on rendering of FCPX.

[@tgustafson85]

I am really enjoying these videos. I just purchased a 3.5 ghz Mac Pro this week, and these vids are so useful to me!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Glad you like them! Enjoy the new beast!

[@JoeVazquezProductorMusical]

Hi Buddy Just finally arrived my blackmagic egpu and I did the purge-wrangler, works perfectly and now I can edit with music videos in 4k with better quality view in FCPX with no lag and indeed my LG Monitor look more amazing than before. I want to say thank you for your tutorial. Cheers 🥂 and have a great weekend 👍👍👍

[@ConstantGeekery]

I’m pleased to hear that. 😊

[@EElgar1857]

I'm very late to your channel, but you did a superb job explaining this! I've finally got my 6,1 running Monterey, and I'm not sure an eGPU would "play nice" with that OS, but I'll stay tuned! Thank you so much for this super-clear explanation. 😁

[@macgamer1973]

It work with my setup until brought a Apple Thunderbolt display

[@hanspetterwiken4379]

Thanks! I just sold my 2017 iMac in anticipation for whatever is coming next from Apple. I still have my Razer Core X with a Radeon Pro w7100, which I now use on my old 2012 iMac with the purge-wrangler script (thank you for that tip!). I run the OS over a 1TB SSD in thunderbolt case and the 2012 is actually working quite decently in many respects!

[@moetarded7757]

I just got it to work. It sat on my desk like paper weight and I thought it was working. 2009 Mac pro Titan Ridge. Great video.

[@b2bhk112]

Thank you for making this marvellous video! I have a 2011 mac mini & Razer Core X with RX580, and it works after following your video using official adapter and tb2 cable 👍🏼👍🏼

[@justinmanny86]

Have you run into any issues since you got the eGPU running on a thunder bolt2? I’m about to pull the trigger and get a razor x but my Mac Pro 2013 only has thunderbolt 2 ports

[@MarbelleMedia]

What an excellent question many of us wondered the same thing! thank you SO much for doing this video. Be blessed in all you put your hand to.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you - pleased it was useful.

[@gottliebdee263]

I bought one of these a few years back. So glad I took advantage of the return window. It's only real plus point for me was how quiet it was. Be selling my Razer soon.

[@stephenbutler3105]

Great Video. That was a burning question for me... Thanks.

[@brucewayne3782]

This is what i call a Great tutorial. I’ve learned a lot of useful informations. Congratulations and greetings from Canada 🇨🇦

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks - glad you enjoyed it 😊

[@WarriorsPhoto]

I enjoyed seeing your findings so far. I do hope that you'll give us some more results down the road. This is exciting stuff.

[@rubenlopez5306]

Congratulations, the information is very, very interesting, your Chanel Is the best!!! Saludos desde Quito Ecuador

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank. you 😊

[@rafaysiuk2589]

Incredible dose of information. Like and subscribe immediately! As I do have MacBook Pro and find it not acceptable in premiere pro. e-gpu looks like quite a good solution, albeit expensive one for what you get. Thanks so much for the Mac Pro deep dive.

[@ConstantGeekery]

From what I've heard, Premiere Pro doesn't work that well with eGPU, so be sure to check the forums before you dive in! Thanks for watching and the sub - much appreciated.

[@prowowfanaticwow9322]

Thanks a lot for this video . It really is very helpful for me ( MacBook Pro Late 2014 , ThunderBolt 2).

[@ConstantGeekery]

Glad it was useful - thanks for watching 👍🏻

[@philippbuschmann4125]

What an insightful video. I was evaluating this kind of setup and you answered so many of my questions.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Glad it was useful 👍🏻

[@MichaelSidneyTimpson]

A couple questions I'd like you to demonstrate: 1) What would have these benchmarks been if you ran them using the internal GPU in the Mac Pro? 2) Why can't the Mac Pro use both internal GPUs (and is there any applications that can)? 3) What is the benchmark using the integrated GPU in the MacBook Pro? 4) AND ESPECIALLY, What is the benchmark using the MacBook Pro with eGPU using the built-in monitor (instead of external monitor--no one ever shows this, but for portability, and cost, this is important--please compare using built-in monitor with and without eGPU as well)? Also, can you show all the benchmarks next to each other (with the ones you also just did in this video) on the screen?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I’m planning a brief follow up with some more benchmarks, so stay tuned for that as it will answer these points - the focus of this particular video was more about setting up eGPU on older Thunderbolt 2 machines, and the performance difference to TB3. I have answered question 2 in other videos, but I can explain briefly here: whilst the two cards in the 2013 Mac Pro are connected with CrossFireX, the driver implementation in macOS requires apps to be developed to specifically make use of the compute card. Final Cut Pro X is one app that will use both cards (and the paid version of Davinci Resolve is multi-GPU aware), but there aren’t that many. The lack of app support for the dual graphics setup is one of the reasons the 2013 Mac Pro wasn’t popular - the majority of the time, the system runs on the display GPU whilst the compute GPU sits idle.

[@rolandgerard6064]

thoroughly done, as usual... thanks. Very interesting.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Glad you enjoyed it 😊

[@bharatpdas]

Nice to see your experience getting the mac pro 2013 running with egpu. I have recently gotten mine upgraded to 10 core and using the blackmagic egpu pro. I had some instability initially, and found that it was because you needed to leave SIP permanently disabled with the egpu connected. With that resolved, now working quite well. Look forward to your next videos!

[@barrycraig]

Yes, this was my experience as well.

[@bharatpdas]

The other odd discovery I had was that the egpu worked in 2 out of 3 thunderbolt buses, but not the third. I have it connected to the bottom left port (which, along with the bottom right port, is bus 0, shared with the HDMI). This made it stable. My other thunderbolt accessories work in all ports.

[@cartoonasaurus]

@@bharatpdas Fascinating. Did you try it after rebooting to make sure?

[@bharatpdas]

@@cartoonasaurus I did, because the system was in a no chime restart loop for a while until I switched the port, and I was able to replicate the loop by switching it back. Connecting the egpu to the top two ports on the right (bus 2) caused the issue. Not sure if this was unique to me. I have an HDD array connected in bus 1.

[@ConstantGeekery]

I read about the ports on the egpu.io forum, so I am using the bottom left port. I will do more testing for the next episode. It's useful to know that we all have the same issues.

[@marcstayman1910]

I was inspired by this video to get an eGPU. The main reason was to use my Mac Pro 6,1 with a 5120x1440 monitor. I was not able to get the Mac Pro to drive the monitor at full resolution so I figured the eGPU would help. I was interested in the Blackmagic eGPU because its made for a Mac and is supposed to be very quiet which is important to me. I know it can't be updated but I am not a gamer so I don't mind. Anyway, I rented one first to be sure it works and it does. I did do a few things differently that I wanted to point out. As far as cabling goes, I have a TB2 cable from the Mac Pro to an Apple TB2 to TB3 converter connected to the eGPU. Then I used an HDMI cable from the eGPU to the monitor directly and have no monitor cable going from the Mac Pro to the monitor at all. Not only does this work but the configuration survives reboots. I do not have to switch cables or do anything else. I did have to buy a copy of SwitchRezX to get the resolutions I needed by the way.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks Marc - I’ve done a similar thing with cabling and mine also will boot up without issue now. In fact, I seem to have less issues in Catalina with the eGPU used solely, than when I use the internal cards. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@goobfilmcast4239]

Obviuosly, he learned a lot of his "patience" from his Dad, the Classical Guitar Builder

[@barrycraig]

Just a couple of thoughts, firstly I'm using a Razer Core X and trashcan also and I had the same problem with inconsistent startups when leaving the egpu plugged in. egpu.io found out that on the trashcan port 5 (bottom left) is the most reliable for egpu. Since moving it there I haven't had any problems with startup or shutdown. Secondly, if the thunderbolt 2 bandwidth is already the limiting factor are you not exacerbating this problem by asking this already saturated cable to carry USB data as well? Might be interesting to see a benchmark with no usb devices plugged in?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I will have a play with the ports. I have a feeling it is plugged into the bottom left at the moment. I connect my DAS via the USB for convenience - it means I can easily back up from my Mac Pro or my MBP. I only use the disks for backing up, so they weren't doing anything during the benchmark. You do raise a valid point though. If you were trying to access USB ports on eGPU whilst doing heavy graphics work, it would impact the performance.

[@WWPTV]

11:33 So even the Black Magic eGPU, you still have to do the PurgeWrangler?

[@ConstantGeekery]

Yes, you do, although purge-wrangler has now been replaced by Kryptonite which doesn’t require you to disable SIP. Apple does not officially support eGPU on any Mac that doesn’t have Thunderbolt 3.

[@Technocrat.]

This is a great video. It solves Trash Can video card upgrades, albeit, little slower. You can use two Thunderbolt 2 cables to egpu. To double bandwidth.

[@matt2m]

Veature_iTech really?? May have to snag one

[@ConstantGeekery]

I don't think this is possible. First you'd need some sort of two TB2 into one TB3 adapter, as every eGPU I've seen only has one TB3 connection (the BM eGPUs have two ports, but one is an output). Second, how do you link the two TB2 connections on the Mac Pro? You'd need some sort of driver to connect the two Thunderbolt / PCIe channels together. I haven't been able to find any information about either of these things. @Veature_iTech do you have a source for this, or were you just speculating?

[@jansirkia3809]

Thank you for sharing this helpful info.

[@petefairburn5334]

A really thorough video, thanks. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the benefits of using a eGPU with a MBP16 or top end iMac, as I currently edit on these using FCPX and am always look for a performance boost. Looking forward to your next video on this subject.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Perhaps we should do a comparison video. I expect it wouldn’t make much real-world difference in FCPX on either of those machines, though the RX5700XT is considerably more powerful than the discrete GPUs.

[@domshov]

Great stuff as usual David, thank you. I have a Blackmagic eGPU 580 driving a 4k screen for a 16"Macbook Pro. I recently tested a Razer Core with a 5700, the biggest difference was simply fan noise. The Blackmagic is virtually inaudible, I love that the MBPro doesn't have to work its internal GPU and so stays silent under load too. I'm an audio producer so this is important to me.

[@ConstantGeekery]

That’s a useful insight Dominic, thank you. Yes, the Razer Core X is not silent. Not massively loud either, but enough to require noise reduction on recordings. Not ideal.

[@filipvavra6177]

do you think Blackmagic would work via Apple TB2 / 3 adapter?

[@mooneevalleyrepaircafe]

@@filipvavra6177 Yes it will (with the right software hacks)

[@recombatant]

Hi! Thanks for this video. I followed your plan and it worked just right. Very nice!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Glad it helped!

[@chfheung3698]

Excellent video with lots of details in it

[@WWPTV]

16:45 I found this interesting. Why would you not want your displays to be on the weaker internal GPUs and have the eGPU do all the labor intensive stuff like encoding understanding it goes over TB2 and comes back to its final storage location?

[@ConstantGeekery]

If you run the app on a display connected to the eGPU, then the eGPU will be used by the app. If you run on the internal GPU, that’s the one that will be preferred. The performance hit you take over TB2 will vary depending on what you’re doing. Games get most of the GPU performance because it’s one-way traffic. Background encoding and rendering will take a much bigger hit if you are sending data both ways. You have to play around a bit to find what works for your workflow.

[@MacSociety]

As you may remember (probably not but I mentioned it before), my Nuclear Reactor (I prefer to call it that versus trash can mac) started to fail me after 2 years of buying it from eBay seller. Was purchased when the prices were still high, 3 to 4 years ago for $3K, the 12 core model with 2TB drive and 64GB memory. Video would cut out after a few minutes running. Ran a program that looks at the Mac and appears a kernel panic and is traced back to video card so guessing my D700 failed me. I may try your new video of cleaning and new thermal paste the GPU and CPU to see if that help but in the meantime, with prices so low, I may buy a 6 or 8 core for $300 range here in USA even though my iPad Air 5 blows it away in rendering videos via Lumafusion. Takes Mac Pro 15 minutes and iPad mere couple minutes. haha. But, I still like the idea of Mac Pro 2013 so may buy my wife one to replace a 2014 Mac Mini and then try to repair mine. Then may explore eGPU on mine. haha. Can't seem to shake wanting mine back. Sits in other room sad to not be used but it failed so what can I say. Maybe new thermal paste can help it from kernel panics and is a heat thing unless the video cards are actually dead or bad? They do run for a little bit until you try to do something more video related.

[@JoeyVictorVideos]

I think it’s beautiful that you live with your family.

[@ConstantGeekery]

It is nice 😊

[@richardbarnes1837]

Super interesting as always!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@MacSociety]

Great video as normal. I love the looks of the Black Magic eGPUs even if they are not upgradeable. I wonder if the $699 or $1199 models, both discontinued now, are better than the stock D700 in my Mac Pro 2013? Maybe in a few years prices will be cheaper used and I could add one then, if they would help me at all not sure. But guessing they are newer cards so maybe?

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks TJ. I think it will depend a lot on what you’re doing. The D700s working together in Final Cut would probably be better than the 580, and that’s before you consider the amount of performance lost through the limitations of Thunderbolt 2. The Vega 56 may give a benefit, but whether it’s worth the cost is another question. It would improve performance in apps that are not optimised for dual GPU. On another note, I’ve been enjoying your ZX Next content - looking forward to more!

[@lucabartolucci919]

Very interesting and detailed video. Max Tech channel discovered that egpu run better if more that one video port is in use. Take.a look at the video maybe is usefull.

[@ConstantGeekery]

👍

[@ClassicalTechnology]

I connnected a 5700xt to a 2013 Mac Pro, it worked sometimes, but in FCPX it would make my whole system unstable - and get some lock ups. Any idea if that's how it is, or any possible work arounds? I was able to export a prores video, but then the 2nd try with a different format, it would lock up.

[@chadwickwatkins6272]

Thanks for the insight!

[@52goldtop]

Thank you for this, and I hope your dad is still kicking butt making some sweet guitars. Glad you guys scored on the house, sounds like a perfect deal. Really appreciate the video and the insights here, thank you again and much respect.

[@lemonke3774]

Bro, there’s something about your voice that’s so addicting to listen to. I could have sworn this video was 10 minutes.

[@ConstantGeekery]

😁

[@lemonke3774]

@@ConstantGeekery Hey, there! I have a question and figured you were the best person to ask. What purpose do the USB ports on the enclosure serve? Thanks in advance!

[@ben_silver]

A really great video. Appreciated.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊

[@christianrey5312]

I wish you a happy and long life. 30 minutes well spent.

[@adekoyote]

This is an amazing video.

[@jonathanhowells4923]

Brilliant info - thanks so much

[@ConstantGeekery]

Glad it was helpful!

[@williameverets2736]

Thank You for Great INFO, but for me way above my pay grade.

[@AshLOVEsTECH]

Since you made this video, did the Mac OS updates or the dummy hdmi hack improve performance for you with the 5700 XT ??

[@ConstantGeekery]

Dummy display adapter definitely increases performance for compute tasks (there’s a video on my channel about that), though it doesn’t make any difference to gaming. Obviously a very specific driver bug. I haven’t tested 10.15.7 yet, but the bug is still present in 10.15.6.

[@musicmixingguru]

just got the 5700xt funny thing is.. after effects uses the egpu in my case when i put it on my laptop display.. when i put the window on my direct connect to my egpu it uses less processing.. i will show you in a post shit is weird..

[@denisleborgne621]

Great video ! Have you tested VideoProc ? When connected to the eGPU, do you get full GPU acceleration with H264 and HEVC codecs ? Did you test softwares like Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve and see how the eGPU behaves compared to the D300's ?

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊 I haven’t used VideoProc before. I have access to Premiere Pro, but I’ve never really used it in anger, so I don’t feel qualified to test with it. I have the full version of DaVinci Resolve, and I’m currently learning colour grading and getting more familiar with that, but again, I’m not ready to do testing with it. From other videos I’ve seen, Final Cut Pro X out-performs both those apps in many cases. DaVinci will probably benefit from eGPU, but you need the full version to get multi-GPU support (I believe). The eGPU is working on some of the H.264 on the Mac Pro - I think that can be seen in the video, but if the machine has a T2 chip, it will use that primarily for H.264 and HEVC.

[@VicenteSchmitt]

Great walkthrough! Have you tried thunderbolt 1 devices? I have a 2012 device that would greatly benefit from some extra graphic performance

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊 I don’t have any Macs with Thunderbolt 1, so I can’t test it, but I believe It is possible. I’m guessing you will see less than half the available performance of the GPU though.

[@graphicsbyteUSA]

This is a very interesting setup. Have you tried this method with other professional software? I am curious on how well adobe illustrator or photoshop would preform.

[@ConstantGeekery]

I haven’t tested with Adobe - I don’t use their software any more because I loathe the subscription model - but I do use Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and On1 Photo Raw. All of those perform well with and without the eGPU.

[@iphonepunker]

This is something to thing about for my Macbook Pro 2015, but I am currently running Mac Pro 5,1 2010 and this uses a PCIe 2.0 which stands at speeds of 16Gbps, thunderbolt 2 max throughput of 20 Gbps which should mean that using the Razor Core should be slightly faster over thunderbolt vs the Mac Pro's PCIe 2.0. I am a die hard Mac Pro 5,1 fan and I still use my 2010 Mac pro today and still using it daily and I have recently installed 5700XT which was as easy as install Catalina and plug in the card, a little OpenCore foolery for GPU acceleration on some applications but that was it. I did the same Valley Bench on my Mac Pro 5,1 and the Specs are: Dual Intel Xeon X5680 12 core 24 threads 3.33Ghz 40GB DDR3 1333Mhz XFX AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 8GB references cooler PCIe NVME 500GB WD Mac OS Catalina Valley Bench: Score 2366, Average 59.4FPS, highest score 84.1 FPS, Lowest 23.4FPS.

[@amdintelxsniperx]

also the more devices plugged into the egpu will drop it as well because they share bandwith

[@ssdwired3163]

NIce, I like this guy.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thanks 😊

[@DeviatingVapors]

you mentioned a couple times having USB drives attached. and I shuddered. many years ago I finally had some coin for a few minor upgrades to my 4c 3.7 (doubled the ram from 16 to 32GB and a TB2 dock). both were very responsive upgrades. have not had the cash to try a TB3 dock, or even more RAM .. but those are next on my list. the thruput of data from USB devices plugged into the TB2 dock is very dramatic. I continue to scratch my head as to why Apple never upgraded the 6,1 to TB3. perhaps a very significant reason .. but either way I’ve never heard any talk on it since 2014.

[@ConstantGeekery]

😁 Going to Thunderbolt 3 would have required PCIe 3.0, so a motherboard revision. Would have been possible as the Xeon E5 v2 supports PCIe 3.0, but I guess it wasn’t selling well enough for Apple to consider it. That and they would rather we all remortgaged our homes to buy the new one...

[@DeviatingVapors]

Constant Geekery .. hmmm. yeah. I guess that would definitely do it. when every single aspect of the entire case and build process .. necessitates CUSTOM everything .. these things add up to ‘ we need to start from scratch, and screw a simple spec bump ‘ .. except. well. serious pros would have bought it. I mean .. even upgrading the 3.0 to 3.1 gen 2, would have been enough for me to get a new one. I would have ordered another but I was waiting for them to fix the spacing on the USB 3.0 ports. they are too close together. super lame. many device plugs cannot be used in tandem. a TB2 dock .. solves that. but. how many people bought one. very few. the dock I have has 5 USB 3.0 ports on it. that is barely enough. such a shame. amazingly elegant solution. just having TB3 would have been a game changer for simple I/O. heck TB2 is a game changer for I/O. just transfer a single memory card over the USB 3 vs the TB2 port. your eyes will pop out of your head. orders of magnitude difference. now add that time up over the course of a year .. in production. ah well .. perhaps they will do the smart thing and re-release the 6,1 as a 6,2 .. change the color to medium grey and INCREASE the size of it, even one mm in circumstance. call it the MacPro Mini .. and it would sell a lot better. IMO .. the 6,1 is still a brilliant design, the thermals (or rather how the OS deals with it) is the bottle neck. I run KOS on it (my own simple tweaks to macOS) and for my workflow, it is still a really really great machine. at the moment I just can’t swing getting a 7,1, but as soon as I finish the renos on my studio, I’ll put in an order and start cranking stuff out again. macOS tho .. makes it run too hot. so stupid. such an easy fix. they need to call me. LOL. thx very much for the reply to this.

[@matthewturner8615]

Loving this as always! Two questions: You say that which ever display the program you are using is on, it will use that graphics card that is connected to that display to accelerate it. This made me think, can you use two egpu's? Second question, with the bandwidth of thunderbolt 2 in mind, is there a point where it is not worth getting a more powerful GPU because the bandwidth just can't make use of it?

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you. Yes, you can use multiple eGPUs, but unless you have them already, I don’t think the performance benefit would be worth the cost. The answer to your second question is also yes, but I don’t know where you would draw that line, and it would be different depending on the workload.

[@matthewturner8615]

@@ConstantGeekery That's great, thank you! Unfortunately I'm not in a position to do any of these, but doesn't stop me thinking about the cool ways you could use them and where to draw the line!😁 Look forward to the next video

[@TheBlackFoxMaster]

Жаль, что нельзя, как в ноуте - использовать встройку для рабочего стола и простых программ.

[@ArchaeologyStudent]

Interesting. Using Kryptonite instead of text wrangler (as that has been retired), I can not benchmark with Unigine Heaven or Valley. What happens is a black benchmark window where I can hear the audio, but can not run the benchmark. Using a 6,1 with Monterey 12.6.3 with

[@ottobunny-ctf]

I wonder if it would work better in the new MacOS ventura, or the one coming up in WWDC this June. That would be interesting to see.

[@NullStaticVoid]

Food for thought. I'm trying to wring every last morsel of use out of my trash can Mac Pro before I jump to an iMac or new Cheese Grater. eGpu has been loitering on the periphery of my attention. I've already done the upgrade to 12 core. Which in hindsight, I wish that I'd read up on. Apparently it is a better idea to get the 8 or 10 core CPU . The 12 core give you great multithreaded processing, but you lose a lot in single threaded. I was counting on bigger cache to make up the diff, it doesn't. Likewise, getting the fastest NVMe SSD only goes so far on PCIe 2.0 X4. A newer Mac with PCIe 3 would have twice the potential throughput. Did I miss it or was there a comparison of the D700 or D300 benchmarks?

[@drjbone]

Thanks mate - really appreciate, and enjoyed the video. Quick question: if you go with the BlackMagic eGPU and a 2013 Mac Pro, will it support a Pro Display XDR? I’m in a pickle, and need a way to get the two to work together. Thank you very much!

[@ConstantGeekery]

Not sure. Blackmagic released a firmware update for the eGPU (version 1.2 30 Dec 2019) which adds support for the Pro XDR display. Whether that works over Thunderbolt 2 is another question. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Sorry I can’t give a more definitive answer.

[@mickystarts3303]

HI. The eGpu card now works great on my 2013 Mac Pro with Monterey. The problem now is with Windows 10 not recognizing the eGpu card. Could you tell me the procedure to use that allows you to make the eGpu card work also in a Windows environment on a Mac Pro 2013? Thank you

[@TheMezaFamily]

What eGPU/AMD Graphics card will work with my 2016 15 inch MacBook Pro? processor: 2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 Memory: 16GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Graphics: Radeon Pro 460 4GB Intel HD Graphics 530 1536MB Is not for gaming it’s to edit 1080p and maybe some 4k videos on FCPX. Do I need an external monitor with the eGPU? Which you recommend with my specs?

[@ConstantGeekery]

My standard recommendation for an eGPU enclosure is the Razer Core X (or Core X Chroma). The lowest card I’d suggest is the RX580, but if you can, go for a 5700XT or Vega 64. Failing that, the RX5600. I’ve put links in the description. For optimum performance, you will want to connect an external monitor and run FCPX on that external display. You could use your TV if you don’t want to go to the expense of buying a monitor. Remember, you need to be running Catalina for any of the 5000 series cards, like the 5700XT... and there is a bug in the driver that limits performance with eGPU unless you plug in a second external display. You can use a cheap headless display to get around this (see: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJavp4GbaLh-hNE).

[@Graphics_PAD]

When ever I have wanted to game on a Mac I have streamed it from my gaming PC using the feature on Steam. I once tried playing a game remotely, leaving my PC on and trying to stream at another location... it worked but wasn’t great. Be interesting to see what it’s like now with fibre broadband 🤔

[@ConstantGeekery]

I have games on a Mac and it was fine. True, you get better performance for the same hardware running Windows, but as long as the frame rate is high, does it matter? Have you tried Google Stadia yet? I’d be interested to see how that performs.

[@Graphics_PAD]

No I haven’t tried Google Stadia. From what I’ve heard it’s not good.

[@Climberfx]

Would love to know the loss in performance compared to t2 t3 and my machine that is an iMac 2011 with thunderbolt 1 using this ogpu and graphics card. Even if it is 60% would be faster than the actual 6970m i have.

[@jennifermedia6288]

Why did you go with this not a vega 64? Did it work ok with high Sierra? Or Mohave? I don’t want to go to Catalina yet due to running apps I I need.

[@ConstantGeekery]

I couldn’t find a reasonably priced Vega64 at the time. I didn’t do my research properly either as I didn’t realise you need Catalina for the 5000 series cards - there are no drivers in prior versions.

[@hornetj3777]

I want to buy a used Razer Core X eGPU to connect via Apple thunderbolt adapter & cable to a Mac Pro late 2013 to use with Bootcamp (Windows 10). Does windows natively support this setup and do I need to install any software mods / hacks like you did installing purge wrangler on macOS?

[@christopherramirez6086]

Windows and Mac OS also makes the difference ! I had my MacBook Pro 2012 tried playing Fortnite in it on Mac is and it wouldn’t go past 20fps. I went in max and got a steady 30

[@dunecase4575]

I have followed this guide with exactly the same setup minus the OS as I'm using Big Sur, one of the things that wasn't covered in this guide was the ability to boot the machine with eGPU as primary display, as mine fails to do this.

[@ConstantGeekery]

You need to plug the Thunderbolt cable into the bottom left Thunderbolt port on your Mac Pro. I'd boot into macOS without the eGPU connect, then plug it in to that port. Once it's recognised, shut down, remove other display cables, and switch on. That always worked for me.

[@MrBigFUZZYk]

Great Videos!!! I’ve been reading mixed information. Will a late 2013 MacBook Pro running Big Sur handle a egpu? I’ve read multiple articles taking about Big Sur being locked down thus not being able to install that extra file thing via recovery mode. I found a razor core x w/rx580 for 800. I don’t want to drop the cash on something that might not work.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you 😊 I don’t have any specific experience with that hardware combination. eGPU worked for me on Big Sur, but I don’t have this Mac Pro any more. I expect it will work but I would double check the egpu.io web forum before you part with any cash - the users there are very knowledgeable and helpful.

[@gted77]

Hi there, I have a iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015, I bought the Razer Core X and Radeon Pro WX7100. I can see the eGPU in my thunderbolt bus as connected, but no video output. Do I need to do the "Purge Wrangler"? Would you be able to direct me to a solution to make it work or should I just return it? Thanks, it was very instructif.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Apple only officially supports eGPU on Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs. You’ll need to install purge-wrangler - it’s very easy and will work fine with your Mac.

[@neverletthemtameyou]

Is that an early 2013 macbook pro? Mine doesn’t have a thunderbolt 3, it has 2x thunderbolt 2.

[@davidchipps]

WOW! It is my less fortunate twin brother.

[@spectre.x]

Hi! I've got a trashcan with with the two FirePro Radeons D700. I'm considering getting an external gpu for my beloved Mac to upgrade it. Do you think it's a good investment in 2022 getting a egpu case (Razer maybe) and a RX6600/6800?. I'm not sure of the benefits cause of the thunderbolt bottleneck... . Thanks in advance!

[@ConstantGeekery]

It's difficult to recommend this sort of investment in 2022 given the high prices of GPUs, and the price of Apple Silicon alternatives. There are benefits, but you need to have a workflow and setup that will take advantage of them. Whether the benefits are worth the high cost of entry is another question. I have made use of my eGPU setup on a variety of machines (Mac & PC), which makes the cost a bit more bearable.

[@macbuff81]

Any updates when it comes to Big Sur? My setup: 2013 MacPro (upgraded: 64GB of ECC RAM, 6-Core CPU, 512GB 970 Evo Pro HDD) Razer X Chroma Asus AMD RX 5700 XT GPU 49 Ultrawide Samsung Monitor (5210x1440 Resolution capable)

[@ConstantGeekery]

I have installed Big Sur - all went fine for me.

[@mauricioloayza6281]

Hello I would like to ask your advice about getting the best picture on a 4K monitor for my Mac Pro 2013. I am not sure if I should buy a HDMI or a Thunderbolt 2 (if I can find one) or a Thunderbolt 3 capable monitor. I do Blender animations I would like to know witch one is faster in my case HDMI or Thunderbolt 2 (using an adaptor from Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3) if you have names brands that you had tested or have info about this matter it will be greatly appreciated Thanks

[@ConstantGeekery]

I personally prefer Dell UltraSharp monitors. They have DisplayPort input, so you use a Mini DisplayPort -> DisplayPort cable. (Mini DisplayPort has the same connector as Thunderbolt 2, and the Mac Pro supports DisplayPort on any of its Thunderbolt ports). The HDMI port on the Mac Pro is limited to 30Hz at 4K, so I wouldn’t bother with that. The DisplayPort outputs won’t go faster than 60Hz, so a 4K 60Hz monitor with DisplayPort is what you need.

[@DavidJBradshaw]

I’ve had the same stability issues using a BlackMagic eGPU Pro. Also found that the keyboard was unreliable when using the eGPU USB ports. Everything works fine on a MacBook. You have me wondering if I should downgrade the OS. Catalina is not great for stability

[@ConstantGeekery]

I’m considering reverting to Mojave too. Mine has been stable since doing a complete wipe and re-install... until I set up the eGPU... but I’m always wondering if and when it will crash.

[@infoidraw5657]

Great video. Thank you. Question, I am running 4 Apple 27" Thunderbolt monitors on my MacPro 2013. Can you advise how I would make this work while still keeping the 4 monitors all operational?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I’m not sure you could. The Thunderbolt display can only be driven from a Thunderbolt port, and there aren’t any GPUs that will provide that. So, without changing the displays (or adding another non-Thunderbolt display), eGPU won’t really be an option.

[@warathanuts.1005]

What dell monitor do you have? Can you get 4K@60Hz from Mac Pro 2013? What cable are you using?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I think it’s the U3219Q. No problem with 4k60 with the 2013 Mac Pro if you use DisplayPort. The HDMI port on the Mac Pro only supports 30Hz. I just use a standard Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cable.

[@TheRealSlobo]

Really awesome video..I would be so grateful if you do this same for Windows bootcamp...

[@ConstantGeekery]

I’ve been trying to get it working in Bootcamp, but no luck so far. 😢

[@TheRealSlobo]

@@ConstantGeekeryApparently it is very much possible but the only thing that is not apparently possible is accelerating the Internal monitor of the IMAC5K..I also even found on forums where people even managed to do this but no tutorial yet..:( with external monitor it works easily

[@ConstantGeekery]

Slobodan Dzikoski it is possible for most Macs, but the 2013 Mac Pro is trickier. The Windows DSDT table root bridge definition is confined to a reserved 32bit space. macOS has a 64bit address space. So it requires a DSDT override... which I’ve tried without success. I just need some free time to play, which I’ve not had yet. If it’s possible - I’ll get it working. I don’t like being beaten!! 😁

[@TheRealSlobo]

@@ConstantGeekery Oh you are talking specifically about the Mac Pro..Ok..But do you get to the point where you get Error 12? Or you cant detect the card at all? Cos every single tutorial i watched they use specific version of windows...i think Windows vesrion1903 or something cos past that one apparently you cant do it ..And also the error 12 is not so hard to fix but i guess you need to get there first which means the system need to boot up and recognize it..Apparently the EGPU needs to be turned on once Windows starts loading..

[@ConstantGeekery]

Slobodan Dzikoski I’ve got past that error, and got the eGPU detected, but it seems to conflict with resources being grabbed by one of the internal video cards. I’ll have another go at it when I get chance.

[@maomao931]

Is that possible to connect two Thunderbolt 2 ports to GPU to ensure the same bandwidth as Thunderbolt 3?

[@ConstantGeekery]

Unfortunately not. However, TB2 is not as far behind TB3 performance as you might expect.

[@drzeissler]

that means blackmagic on tb2 mac also requires purge-script?

[@fotograf.paredes]

Hello, great video! How do you think this setup would work with Blender?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I should think so, though I can’t comment on what sort of gains (if any) you’d get with GPU rendering.

[@cristianomammo6114]

Hello I have 2013 Mac Pro trash can 3.7 What would be the top & cpu I can put without stressing the Mac

[@Charlesdavid2009]

cool video. im running os from usb thumb drive on my 2015 imac with failing hard drive. it runs totally fine but ive been thinking about trying to use the TB2 port somehow to get better read/write speed... unfortunatly you crushed that dream... but now im wondering if i could connect my razer core choma and use a pci m.2 card instead of GFX card 🤔

[@ConstantGeekery]

I think that would probably work. The main difference between eGPUs and external PCIe enclosures is just the power supply.

[@imadalhoraibi1859]

Hi I have mac pro 2013 12 core 64ram d500 running mac os Monterey, will the eGPU work with it perfectly ???

[@ConstantGeekery]

I don’t know about “perfectly” but it should work with a supported GPU and the Kryptonite patch (formerly Purge-Wrangler). Use the bottom left Thunderbolt port on the Mac for best results.

[@javierr3515]

Hi. Greetings from Argentina. Thank you for the video. I have a mid 2011 and a mid 2017 base model iMacs. Is it possible to upgrade any of these with egpu??? Thank you.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Technically, it’s possible to do it with the mid-2011, but it’s Thunderbolt 1, so I wouldn’t recommend it. The 2017 model has Thunderbolt 3, so no problems there. However, best results will come from attaching an external monitor to the eGPU and running the apps you want to accelerate on that external display. Accelerating the internal display of the iMac is possible, but you will lose more of the performance of the eGPU that way. If, when you say “base model”, you mean the 21.5” iMac with the HD display and onboard Iris graphics, then I expect you’ll see a decent performance bump whatever you do.

[@javierr3515]

Constant Geekery thank you so much for the answer!!!! Yes I have base models without retina and yes I just want to upgrade a little bit the internal display. Thanks again

[@TheAppleLab]

thanks for the video's you have made about the 6,1 and THIS one in particular. i know, there are too much "trashcan" hater out there :( i own the razer core x and its connected to my 6,1. the gpu i use in the moment is a hd7970, which is recognized as a d700 right after plugin the TB cable. anyway, i got the purge wrangler script already and after i run it, the card dissaper from the graphics section and i just find it under PCIe section. the card is not useable, in any application. because its that old ? specs of the d700 and hd7970 are the same, because it is defently the same gpu...any tip to get it up an running ? btw : just waiting for a vega64 to arrive, but im curious about it anyway. :)

[@ConstantGeekery]

I don't have any specific experience with the HD7970. I have seen the symptoms you describe caused by non-genuine TB2 cables. I'm not sure what the benefit of using such a card in an eGPU is, unless you're just looking to run a lot of displays. It won't provide much of a performance bonus unless you have an app that is multi-GPU aware, because the two D700s in the Mac Pro will run faster without the TB2 bottleneck... and the internal GPUs have 6GB onboard, so whilst it is essentially the same GPU, the additional VRAM will make a difference to performance. Of course, the Vega 64 will be a different story! 😁

[@TheAppleLab]

my 6,1 contains the d300 as well and the hd7970 is the only gpu i have laying arround so far. but i guess its the old tahiti gpu what keeps me away from success. i use an genuine tb2 cable.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Jörg Henninges I misunderstood - sorry. If you have the Vega64 coming, I wouldn’t worry too much about the 7970. I almost bought the Vega64 over the 5700XT, so I’d be interested to know how you get on.

[@TheAppleLab]

Constant Geekery : never mind 🙂 im pretty happy with the vega64 and got a real speedbump. i benched it yesterday in some situations and post the results as soon as i put them together. the install was easy and i even can leave it plugged inside the mac and restart without doing any further step. i concern about bootcamp, because i always got an error 12 before when i use the core x in windows, but im sure to solve that 💪🏻.

[@TheAppleLab]

here we go again...running into error 12 and solving it by free up some resources, but in the end there was a black screen and nothing anymore. but i was able to bench the card as i mentioned earlier. i confirm that the bandwith is defenetly limited to the tb2 bootleneck, the unigine valley benchmark is almost the same in 1080p low, mid, high and ultra.

[@robertlibbeyrmt]

Thanks for the great videos. I messaged you somewhere else, but can't find it so am messaging you here. I have the 2012 i7 Mac mini 16gig ram, 256 SSD and just attached the Sonnet eGPU with Radeon RX570. I was wanting to use it with FCPX 10.4.8. I've seen that FCP has moved the "prefer eGPU" into the preferences section from the "get info" section in finder. I've discovered that it really only utilized the eGPU if exporting to master file H264. If using any other settings apple device 720 etc. it uses the combined eGPU and iGPU/CPU. I'm interested to know if you or anyone else has found using a lesser version of FCPX utilized the eGPU fully in all other settings other than master file or a work around with 10.4.8?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I’m still doing testing on this, but from what I can see so far, it depends on the codec being used. It seems to me that FCPX will favour the device that is most efficient to handle a codec, regardless of whether that will actually be the quickest. It may be that the iGPU is more efficient on a performance to compute power basis, but that the eGPU would still be faster because it has so much more raw power - that’s my theory anyway. In which case it ought to be an easy fix. There is no doubt that after 10.4.6 eGPU performance is not as good. I’ve not been able to find a definitive answer yet, but I’ll keep testing and post a video with my results when I’m done. Thanks for watching and sharing.

[@aiden1624]

support for windows? i have rog g750jw with thunderbolt 2

[@MrPhilipwitcomb]

Great informative video! I have a late 2015 IMac running Mojave and I’m thinking of doing the same thing to improve SketchUp and VRay rendering. Would this approach improve my setup significantly?

[@ConstantGeekery]

Only if those apps are heavily GPU dependant.

[@michaeltraxler3379]

Hi Constant Geekery, just wanted to know if it was possible to get this configuration to work in Bootcamp off the Pro 6,1 or are only drivers support for USB C to TB2 in OSX? Thanks for this guide as well.

[@ConstantGeekery]

It can be done, but only with some effort. It’s not drivers that are the problem, it’s Windows using a 32-bit PCIe addressing space - it can’t allocate enough resources. There are more details on the egpu.io forums. Some users have got it working by disabling PCI bridges in Device Manager. Others have used DSDT Overrides. It seems neither method is guaranteed to work though.

[@hoha2803]

what if i use windows bootcamp? do i still need the purge?

[@ConstantGeekery]

No, it’s for macOS. It’s not straightforward to get it working in Windows though - assuming you are referring to the 2013 Mac Pro. Check egpu.io for more information.

[@MarcusMonkey]

Could you use the Sapphire NITRO+ Radeon RX 6700 XT 12GB 11306-01-20G in the razor x

[@ConstantGeekery]

If you are on Mac then there are no drivers for 6700 (Navi 22). If you’re on PC, then check the dimensions against the specs on Razer’s website. If it physically fits it should work.

[@MarcusMonkey]

@@ConstantGeekery what about a rx6900 tx?

[@ConstantGeekery]

@@MarcusMonkey there are drivers in Big Sur and Monterey I believe.

[@Cinti86]

Have you tried using eGPU/Purge Wrangler with Big Sur on your Mac Pro?

[@ConstantGeekery]

I haven’t. I’ll wait for Big Sur to be officially released and for the purgewrangler script to be fully updated and tested first.

[@jayaprakash8187]

Hi my friend Your information is very interesting ,I am using 2014 15 inch MacBook pro, I wand to switch to external eGPU ,same what you have, I think hopefully workout well .I will watch all your previous video and even I subscribed your Chanel for more good information. If I had a any issue definitely leave comment inbox ..Thank You ...

[@ConstantGeekery]

Thank you.

[@JoeVazquezProductorMusical]

Hi buddy I need help, after I installed an external ssd transcend jet 835 like external now my macpro 2013 is not booting itself and I have to disconnected the blackmagic egpu from the thunderbolt slot and the computer load very well, after that I have to connect again the egpu in the slot to use it, Before, everything worked fine without having to disconnect anything, what do I have to do to make it work as before? I hope you can bring light about that. Thanks to advance.

[@ConstantGeekery]

Have you got the eGPU plugged into the bottom left Thunderbolt port?

[@JoeVazquezProductorMusical]

@@ConstantGeekery Ouch it’s wasn’t in the bottom was in the second left slot I changed and finally back to the normal. Why is going thru in the left slot bottom?

[@ConstantGeekery]

@@JoeVazquezProductorMusical it’s something to do with the way the Mac Pro allocates resources, but I can’t remember exactly why. Glad it’s sorted 👍🏻

[@JoeVazquezProductorMusical]

@@ConstantGeekery yup I think is very complicated to explain 😂 apple computers are so tricky Thank you so much buddy for your help. Cheers

[@andrewjamesbarton07]

I saw you tutorial on the egpu setup .. I have followed your steps but every time I don''t get the symbol showing the gpu but I do see the item in the system report. could you help

[@ConstantGeekery]

I haven't touched eGPU setups with this Mac Pro for a few years now, so I'm not able to offer much help. purge-wrangler has been superseded by something called Kryptonite (github.com/mayankk2308/kryptonite). You'll need to be using that. I will try to do an updated guide soon. Also, I always found that mine worked reliably if I used the bottom left Thunderbolt port. Also, the forums at egpu.io can be very helpful. I hope you get it sorted. 👍🏻