External GPU w/ 2019 16" Intel MBP

[Mity]

How many displays can an Intel MBP support with an eGPU? Could I get away with 4 4-K displays? Are there any problems, including overheating TB busses? If anyone has done this with their Intel Mac, I'm curious to know of your experience.

I tried to find some info here but it doesn't state how many displays I can run.

Use an external graphics processor with your Mac - Apple Support

Learn how to access additional graphics performance by connecting to an external graphics processor.

support.apple.com

 

[Richy85]

The MBP 16” already suport 4 4k external monitor

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

support.apple.com

 

[Mity]

The MBP 16” already suport 4 4k external monitor

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) - Technical Specifications - Apple Support

support.apple.com

I want the heat to be generated outside the laptop.

 

[AlienSexGod]

I want the heat to be generated outside the laptop.

if you have 2 cards in your eGPU box it should be 4 displayed attached to that.

 

[Mity]

if you have 2 cards in your eGPU box it should be 4 displayed attached to that.

Wait, you need 2 cards to get 4 4K monitor support? What if I use this one 6700XT, wouldn't I be able to support 4 4K displays?

When you do this, does the TB port on the laptop heat up quite a bit?

The reason why I ask is that I was using a USB-C hub to connect lots of peripherals and I noticed that the TB port would heat up. I switch to a CalDigit TS4 and the heat went away. My guess is that since the TS4 gets it's own power for the peripherals, the TB port on the laptop is only used for data transfer.

So, I'm wondering if the same thing happens with an eGPU, meaning does the laptop run a lot cooler as the power and computing is done outside.

I love your username.

 

[jimmyjimbo]

as long as your GFX card is strong enough (and have enough ports for 4 monitors), it should run 4x 4k no problem. I used to own an intel 16" MBP with a razer CoreX eGPU with Radeon Vega64 in it. Ran 4x 4k plus 1x 2k monitor without much problem.

yes it certainly helps with the graphics workload as it can speed up the system overall. However I believe because I've been using this setup for quite sometime I suspect there the load imbalance caused the thunderbolt controller to fail and my logic board died with it.

I swapped to an m2 max 16" MBP, used a caldigit TS4 and 4x 4k monitors now. Performance is significantly better than the past setup.

 

[Mity]

yes it certainly helps with the graphics workload as it can speed up the system overall. However I believe because I've been using this setup for quite sometime I suspect there the load imbalance caused the thunderbolt controller to fail and my logic board died with it.

This is why I asked this question because I wonder if the bandwidth is enough for the eGPU and other peripherals. IIRC there is only 1 TB controller on each side instead of dedicated controllers for each TB port on the new AS Macs.

 

[jimmyjimbo]

for what its worth I've used it for 3 years before it started to act weird and died on me. To help with the bandwidth load I think you can connect the thunderbolt hub to the ports on the other side.