Sharing My Experience with eGPU Solution

[Salah9]

Hi,

I used to read the forum for 2 or 3 years. I never attended to participate in the conversations. However, today I decided to write a post sharing my experience with the eGPU solution.

In the past 2 or 3 months, I checked a couple of articles, posts and Youtube videos that promote the eGPU solution to overcome dGPU bottlenecks in iMacs. So, I bought Sonnet Box 550 and Radeon RX 5700 XT to try the eGPU solution by myself. The result was unexpected!! The performance was lower than the Vega 48.

All in all, here are the results of both GPUs in case if someone else is thinking to spend money on eGPU. Both results for the internal display of the iMac.

Edit: Edit: I did 1 more benchmark by using 2018 MacBook Pro + eGPU + External Monitor. The result is still below expectations.

 

[nihil0]

Both results for the internal display of the iMac.

There lies the problem.

 

[tpivette89]

There lies the problem.

Yep, to get the best results, you must connect a monitor directly to the ports on the GPU.

Also, the 5700 drivers built in to OS X aren't fully optimized yet. Will they work? Yes... but until the option for that card is released for the new Mac Pro, I don't believe the full potential of this card running Catalina will be available.

 

[Salah9]

There lies the problem.

Yep, to get the best results, you must connect a monitor directly to the ports on the GPU.

Also, the 5700 drivers built in to OS X aren't fully optimized yet. Will they work? Yes... but until the option for that card is released for the new Mac Pro, I don't believe the full potential of this card running Catalina will be available.

I have updated the post. I did 1 more benchmark by using 2018 MacBook Pro + eGPU + External Monitor.

 

[nihil0]

I have updated the post. I did 1 more benchmark by using 2018 MacBook Pro + eGPU + External Monitor.

Now you have much weaker CPU + I don't really know whether these kind of benchmarks are to be taken seriously. If you see, it still runs on OpenGL 4.1 which was released in 2010. You should either try some FCPX render/export tests or try to use it under Bootcamp (if it is supporeted). Or maybe some Metal 2 benchmark?

Edit: Also, still TB3 eGPU loses around 10-15% of performance anyway, even if you put it through external display.

 

[maflynn]

I have no idea how mine compares given that I'm using windows, but mine seems decent.

Op, can't you hook up a second monitor to your iMac and disable the imacs? I can do that with my laptop, but I'm not sure if iMacs (or macOS) is different in that regard.

 

[Salah9]

Now you have much weaker CPU + I don't really know whether these kind of benchmarks are to be taken seriously. If you see, it still runs on OpenGL 4.1 which was released in 2010. You should either try some FCPX render/export tests or try to use it under Bootcamp (if it is supporeted). Or maybe some Metal 2 benchmark?

Edit: Also, still TB3 eGPU loses around 10-15% of performance anyway, even if you put it through external display.

Unigine Valley is a well-known GPU benchmark tool. It doesn't stress the CPU.
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I have no idea how mine compares given that I'm using windows, but mine seems decent.
View attachment 888903

Op, can't you hook up a second monitor to your iMac and disable the imacs? I can do that with my laptop, but I'm not sure if iMacs (or macOS) is different in that regard.

I am going to download Windows OS and have a Bootcamp test.

 

[nihil0]

Unigine Valley is a well-known GPU benchmark tool. It doesn't stress the CPU.

Once more - it runs on archaic version of OpenGL and it shouldn't be relevant in current era. You will see that in Bootcamp the results will be higher.

 

[smbu2000]

Well it's not an iMac, but I tested out my base model 2019 15" MBP (6 core i7-9750H/16GB/256GB/555X) connected to my Asus XG Station Pro with Vega 64 card (Powercolor Red Devil) and an external monitor. I got 63.1 FPS and a 2641 Score.

 

[smbu2000]

Well I got my 5700XT (Sapphire Nitro+), so I did the benchmark on it with the same setup on my 2019 15" base model MBP (connected to a monitor) as the Vega64 above. Performance was much higher and the card was much quieter than my Vega64.

 

[Azrael9]

Well I got my 5700XT (Sapphire Nitro+), so I did the benchmark on it with the same setup on my 2019 15" base model MBP (connected to a monitor) as the Vega64 above. Performance was much higher and the card was much quieter than my Vega64.

View attachment 889674

Thanks for sharing. I'd have had the 5700XT as running much cooler. So good to see. The 5700XT is a decent card.

Azrael.