eGPU succes

[jclmavg]

I got my Asus ROG XG Station 2 today. Plugged in the NVIDIA Titan X Pascal. Under Windows it almost is like plug and play, works beautifully. Then I connected it to my Mac. This took a bit more time, with one problem which is probably particular to this specific enclosure. In the end I got it working it and it works fine now.

Unengine Valley Benchmark gives me 71,8 fps on Ultra (2560x1440). Resolve recognizes the card with no problem and seems to work just fine.

I only have D300 cards in the Mac Pro, so this is quite an improvement.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

I got my Asus ROG XG Station 2 today. Plugged in the NVIDIA Titan X Pascal. Under Windows it almost is like plug and play, works beautifully. Then I connected it to my Mac. This took a bit more time, with one problem which is probably particular to this specific enclosure. In the end I got it working it and it works fine now.

Unengine Valley Benchmark gives me 71,8 fps on Ultra (2560x1440). Resolve recognizes the card with no problem and seems to work just fine.

I only have D300 cards in the Mac Pro, so this is quite an improvement.

Very encouraging. Looking to do the same thing but with a 1070. Wonder if it will run WoW at 4k... did you follow the guides at egpu.io?

 

[jclmavg]

Very encouraging. Looking to do the same thing but with a 1070. Wonder if it will run WoW at 4k... did you follow the guides at egpu.io?

Yeah, those guides will get you on your way. The only real problem I can think of is that these TB3 enclosures cannot be updated using the Apple TB2 <-> TB3 adapter. You'd need (someone with) a PC and USB-C to get that done.

 

[Yahooligan]

Awesome!

I was thinking I'd get the modular MP when it comes out, but seeing that eGPUs over TB2 using enclosures like yours and the AKiTiO Node work very well I'm thinking I'll just go that route since I'm happy with everything else. Much cheaper, too. I can get the 1080Ti and AKiTiO for basically $1000 and I just upgraded my display so I now have normal display inputs.

 

[rondocap]

Any idea if this will work with oculus rift in windows?

 

[jclmavg]

I just bought a 1080 Ti and plugged the Asus expansion into my HP Z840 workstation, which already has 2x Titan X. This also works just fine using TB2 and the Apple TB2 <-> TB3 adapter. Now 10.000+ cuda cores at my disposal.

 

[Prince134]

I just bought a 1080 Ti and plugged the Asus expansion into my HP Z840 workstation, which already has 2x Titan X. This also works just fine using TB2 and the Apple TB2 <-> TB3 adapter. Now 10.000+ cuda cores at my disposal.

Do you have Octane benchmark scene ms/sec and the Luxmark 3.1 score for your 2 + 1 eGPU set up? Just for a comparison to my 3 GPU internal set up.

 

[jclmavg]

Do you have Octane benchmark scene ms/sec and the Luxmark 3.1 score for your 2 + 1 eGPU set up? Just for a comparison to my 3 GPU internal set up.

Luxmark gives me 63350. Luxball scene.

 

[Prince134]

Luxmark gives me 63350. Luxball scene.

That's already close to my internal 3 GPU at 64499. Can you also run the Octane bench mark scene with the object rendering with ms/sec? I guess should be very close to 90-95ms/sec.

 

[jclmavg]

That's already close to my internal 3 GPU at 64499. Can you also run the Octane bench mark scene with the object rendering with ms/sec? I guess should be very close to 90-95ms/sec.

Will look at the octane bench tomorrow.

 

[jclmavg]

That's already close to my internal 3 GPU at 64499. Can you also run the Octane bench mark scene with the object rendering with ms/sec? I guess should be very close to 90-95ms/sec.

Here you go. Noticed I had downloaded octane bench before.

 

[Prince134]

Oh, Mine is not this one, a demo suite from this page's link down the bottom. One of these for benchmark.

https://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/demo/

 

[jclmavg]

Oh, Mine is not this one, a demo suite from this page's link down the bottom. One of these for benchmark.

https://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/demo/

Running the octane render demo and picking a test scene like spaceships, I get around 102 Ms/sec rendering. The benchmark Trench gives me around 97 Ms/s. So your estimate is pretty close.

 

[Prince134]

Thanks for the sharing. It's amazingly fast in rendering with over 10,000 CUDA cores. We have two cards exactly the same: one Titan x Pascal, one 1080 Ti, but mine third card is Titan X Maxwell. Your Octane benchmark could reach 100ms/sec. I don't know if eGPU make deviation every time you test it, but they are in ball park.

 

[Yahooligan]

Well, I pulled the trigger and ordered the AKiTiO Node along with an EVGA GTX 1080Ti SC2. No reason to wait for the mMP 7,1 that may or may not have what I want. I recently upgraded to a 3440x1440 display and the D700 is having issues driving it smoothly in the couple of games that I play, plus I'd like to do VR eventually. So, the GPU will get used whether it's connected to my nMP or if I build a Hackintosh.

Everything should arrive in a week.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

^^ same here. Just placed order for an Akitio. Not sure if I'll pull the 1070 from what's currently a VR playbox, or snag a new card...

What games are you playing? Current only occasional World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, and Elite: Dangerous.

Also very much looking forward to Steam's Mac VR beta. Should be opening up any day now.

 

[Yahooligan]

^^ same here. Just placed order for an Akitio. Not sure if I'll pull the 1070 from what's currently a VR playbox, or snag a new card...

What games are you playing? Current only occasional World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, and Elite: Dangerous.

Also very much looking forward to Steam's Mac VR beta. Should be opening up any day now.

I have Elite: Dangerous and after I saw video of it played with a VR headset it kind of ruined normal gameplay for me. haha So I mainly want to go VR for that.

I also play some Elder Scrolls Online, Stellaris, and The Talos Principle. Previously, I used to play a lot of racing simulators as well, just don't have as much time to play as I used to.

 

[mmomega]

I got my Asus ROG XG Station 2 today. Plugged in the NVIDIA Titan X Pascal. Under Windows it almost is like plug and play, works beautifully. Then I connected it to my Mac. This took a bit more time, with one problem which is probably particular to this specific enclosure. In the end I got it working it and it works fine now.

Unengine Valley Benchmark gives me 71,8 fps on Ultra (2560x1440). Resolve recognizes the card with no problem and seems to work just fine.

I only have D300 cards in the Mac Pro, so this is quite an improvement.

I have a very similar Mac Pro at work that I was debating on putting my 1080 Ti so it is nice to see you are essentially doing the same thing I would have.
I also have a built Hackintosh that the 1080 Ti is in at the moment and I decided to run Valley at Ultra 2560x1440 just to somewhat see what kind of difference I could be looking at.
Score of 5109 and 208fps.

I still believe the 1080Ti would add gobs of gpu power to the Mac Pro but after fiddling with eGPU's early last year, I'm not certain I want to go that route again.

Food for thought though.

Have you used the card outside of benches at the moment?
Have you noted any substantial speed improvements?

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

^^ same here. Just placed order for an Akitio. Not sure if I'll pull the 1070 from what's currently a VR playbox, or snag a new card...

What games are you playing? Current only occasional World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, and Elite: Dangerous.

Also very much looking forward to Steam's Mac VR beta. Should be opening up any day now.

Steam VR needs system drivers or Oculus Home running (if using Oculus)

 

[Redneck1089]

I thought there were massive issues getting the nMP working with eGPU under Windows 10. Has this been solved? Is there a guide to follow?

I might actually do this. Wouldn't mind retiring my old cMP if this works well.

 

[lomahs]

nMP 6 core, 32 GB RAM, 480GB Kingston Hyper X Predator with Sintech-Adapter (M2 to "Apple", SSD as fast as described by Kingston), D700, Akitio Node (Apple TB3-TB2-Adapter), Nvidia GTX 980 Ti Hybrid

Software: Cinema 4D and Thea-Renderer
Thea uses CPU and GPU simultaneously. eGPU 2,5-3 times faster than cpu.

Benchmark: Unigene Heaven 2560x1440, ultra settings, eGPU approx. 3-4 times faster than D700

"stability": no problems, 16h continuous rendering "at full speed" of eGPU (and cpu), eGPU temperature approx. 50-55°C, (longer times under full load not tested yet)

BootCamp: not tested, no Windows installation on nMP

 

[Yahooligan]

I thought there were massive issues getting the nMP working with eGPU under Windows 10. Has this been solved? Is there a guide to follow?

I might actually do this. Wouldn't mind retiring my old cMP if this works well.

Why would it be any different than getting an eGPU working on a MBP? eGPU + MBP + Win10 = Plug and play. The trickier part is getting it to work right in macOS but it should be pretty easy with the tools that are now available.

 

[Redneck1089]

Why would it be any different than getting an eGPU working on a MBP? eGPU + MBP + Win10 = Plug and play. The trickier part is getting it to work right in macOS but it should be pretty easy with the tools that are now available.

According to MacVidCards the idea of getting an egpu running on Windows was supposed to be a nightmare and because his feelings were hurt by Goalie taking credit for his work he was only ever going to post benchmarks, but never a how-to to get it running.

So I could literally buy a Node, plug it in, and use it on Windows now?

 

[jclmavg]

Have you used the card outside of benches at the moment?
Have you noted any substantial speed improvements?

I've only used it in pro apps for now, for gaming I go to my PS4 pro. And yes there are substantial speed improvements.

 

[Yahooligan]

According to MacVidCards the idea of getting an egpu running on Windows was supposed to be a nightmare and because his feelings were hurt by Goalie taking credit for his work he was only ever going to post benchmarks, but never a how-to to get it running.

So I could literally buy a Node, plug it in, and use it on Windows now?

That's the idea, and like I said I've seen it done with MBPs that have TB2 so I don't know why it would be any different with the nMP. Everyone that's done it has said it was harder to get it set up in macOS than with Windows in Bootcamp where Windows automatically detected the hardware and prompted to install drivers for the GPU.

I should have everything in-hand within a week and will gladly post up my experience with both Sierra and Win 10. I already know that the Node with a GPU will work with an nMP and Sierra, this was documented by BareFeats and my card will primarily be used in Sierra, if it's plug-and-play with Win 10 then that will be a bonus for me but if it doesn't then it's not a deal-breaker.