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If your Mac has Thunderbolt, it will most likely work. Here's an example of a quad-core 2012 Mac mini running 10.13 with an RX 480 + AKiTiO Thunder2 eGPU.

What about pre-Polaris AMD and Nvidia Kepler GPUs that have drivers in OS? Would be interesting to see if there is a little bump for them because they are still mostly better than the mobile chips and very cheap.
 
I don't understand why there has to be an eGPU box for a user of a 5,1 Mac Pro to not be able to slap in something in internally that Apple has OS drivers for.

There may be the case that it would "work", but without boot screens I suppose, but I was hoping that you'd get boot screens.
 
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Unsupported is not the same as Not Supported. Unsupported means it may work. Not Supported means it does not work.

Apple's release note is not entirely accurate. It states the Sonnet Breakaway Box in this kit has a 350W power supply. I'm using this very same enclosure and can tell you its power delivery is only 15W; not 60W PD as the Apple document shows. Unless Sonnet has a newer Thunderbolt firmware, Sonnet Breakaway Box 550 version is the one provides higher PD.
 
Man this came at just the wrong time. Have you guys seen the prices that cryptominers have pushed RX 580s up to on eBay? :eek:

Good thing you have to have an Apple developer license to buy the eGPU kit or the miners might be buying those out too.
 
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Unsupported is not the same as Not Supported. Unsupported means it may work. Not Supported means it does not work.

The previous poster asked if TB2 computers would be supported. In this case, "unsupported" vs "not supported" doesn't matter. Apple doesn't/won't support that configuration, so it's unsupported. If they are preventing it from working or know that it doesn't work then they would say not supported, but we're splitting hairs here. The answer is no, there is no support for TB2 Macs with this eGPU. That doesn't mean it won't work.

Apple's release note is not entirely accurate. It states the Sonnet Breakaway Box in this kit has a 350W power supply. I'm using this very same enclosure and can tell you its power delivery is only 15W; not 60W PD as the Apple document shows. Unless Sonnet has a newer Thunderbolt firmware, Sonnet Breakaway Box 550 version is the one provides higher PD.

So there's no chance that Apple has had Sonnet build them a Breakaway Box with different specs? ;) That's a pretty big mistake to make and they will quickly be called out if they screwed up that big. I'm leaning towards these being boxes custom built for Apple. We shall see!
 
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It's a possibility through firmware revision they can squeeze 60W PD out of the 350W PSU. I hope your guess is right because that would make a very nice box. The Thunderbolt firmware version on my Sonnet box is 25.2, just in case people who get these dev kits want to compare notes.

sonnet-breakaway-egpu-enclosure-firmware.png

sonnet-breakaway-box-egpu-enclosure-15w-pd.png
 
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Unsupported is not the same as Not Supported. Unsupported means it may work. Not Supported means it does not work.
Where's this definition posted?

I'd say that "not supported" and "unsupported" are synonyms - and "does not work" is its own category.

"Supported" means that "it should work, and if it doesn't we'll try to make it work".
 
Where's this definition posted?

I'd say that "not supported" and "unsupported" are synonyms - and "does not work" is its own category.

"Supported" means that "it should work, and if it doesn't we'll try to make it work".

No where. It's from my trial and error with different eGPU setups.
 
350W PSU? Vega Dual GPU will have dual 8 pin connectors, and around 300W TDP. It may actually be possible to put it in the Enclosure...
 
I'd say that "not supported" and "unsupported" are synonyms - and "does not work" is its own category.

"Supported" means that "it should work, and if it doesn't we'll try to make it work".

Exactly. That's the way we do it. "Unsupported" means you're on your own. At best we'll watch with interest and maybe offer encouragement. Or not. "Does not work" means does not work. If something is unsupported and we know it doesn't work, we may say so, or we may not, because -- it's unsupported! (In real life we try to be specific when practical but it's not always practical.) Supported means exactly what AidenShaw has said.
 
macOS froze during boot. System fans ran full speed then locked up. Apple really wants us to stop using this Mac Pro tower. I'm doing some kext editing and we'll see.



All Macs with Thunderbolt ports should be able to use eGPU.

Any luck for the RX580 run natively in cMP 5.1 with High Sierra?
 
Any luck for the RX580 run natively in cMP 5.1 with High Sierra?
Good question. Given these eGPU boxes come with the RX580 and are only usable in High Sierra, one would hope so!
Can anyone comment on this?
 
The Sonnet Breakaway Box is lightest and smallest. The 350 version comes with a 350W PSU vs. 400W in the AKiTiO Node and 550W in the Mantiz Venus. For a full list of Thunderbolt 3 enclosures, detailed specs, and reviews check eGPU.io buyers' guide.

The Sonnet Breakaway Box 350 only provides 15W of power delivery btw. The 550 version is the one that can charge MacBook Pro. It has 60W PD, good enough for 13" MBP, slow for 15" MBP. Currently, the Mantiz Venus is the only eGPU enclosure with 87W PD. If you want to build your own Metal 2 external graphics development kit, take a look here.



No boot screen. Off-the-shelf RX 470/480/570/580 should work in 10.13 via a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure (w/ TI83 controller). For those with older Thunderbolt-equipped Macs, Thunderbolt 2 enclosure such as the AKiTiO Thunder2 has been confirmed to work in 10.13.



Even though there's new drivers for more AMD cards, Apple made changes in 10.13 so that the same kext edits for Fiji and Polaris 10 GPUs don't work anymore. When the new iMacs with RX 580 get into people's hands, we may have new development for Polaris 10 GPUs in the Mac Pro tower.

Hi. Thank you for taking the time and explain me, the current situation. I managed somehow to get it working, on Sierra (sip disabled) off corse. High Sierra; let's wait and see...

Thank's again and regards,
Xanix
 
Any luck for the RX580 run natively in cMP 5.1 with High Sierra?

This is next on my list. 10.13 has proper drivers for Polaris 10 GPUs. However, Apple threw a wrench in there for us Mac Pro tower users. When I booted with the RX 580, the progress bar would get to half way (seen through GT 120) and system fans ran full speed and eventually hung.

It's much better with eGPU enclosure though. Recovery mode actually works through the RX 580 eGPU. Here's a user with an older TB2 13" MBP using an AKiTiO Node + RX 480 + Dell 4K monitor.

rjX9Vh0.jpg


I also tried 4x enclosures on the late 2016 15" MBP. The Thunderbolt tree showed all four connected. However due to the laptop having only two Thunderbolt buses, it could use at most two eGPUs at once.
late-2016-15-in-macbook-pro-3-egpu-luxmark.png
 
However, Apple threw a wrench in there for us Mac Pro tower users. When I booted with the RX 580, the progress bar would get to half way (seen through GT 120) and system fans ran full speed and eventually hung.
Now that is disappointing!
 
Weird ... I didn't have any problems with my RX 480 cMP 4.1->5.1
 
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