Could Apple make an M1 type external dGPU in an Apple TV-sized box? Just plug it in to USB-C on M1 device and plug into monitor, and bingo! How cool would that be?!
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M1 dGPU
- Thread starter Psychicbob
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Not very cool, as it would negate most of the Apple Silicon's unique advantages. At this rate, better to abandon the unified hardware approach completely and use use AMD GPUs.
It wouldn’t have unified memory access if it was over standard PCIE/Thunderbolt. SGI had UMA in their workstations 20 years ago and if you added a PCI graphics card it could only use its own dedicated VRAM. The SGI graphics chip would be disabled.
It should be possible to use the compute cores of a discreet or external GPU for rendering tasks though.
If Apple introduces a dGPU on M series systems it would need a new type of PCIE slot that interfaces directly with UMA, kind of like AGP but with a lot more bandwidth.
It should be possible to use the compute cores of a discreet or external GPU for rendering tasks though.
If Apple introduces a dGPU on M series systems it would need a new type of PCIE slot that interfaces directly with UMA, kind of like AGP but with a lot more bandwidth.
All above points agreed. I guess I was getting excited about having a micro, low power eGPU box instead of the big, noisy options we have currently. Assuming the current M1 lack of support for an eGPU is fixed.