OS X Should Apple bring back eGPU support?

[groove-agent]

Apple Silicon has brought great advancements with respect to gaming on the Mac, and we're starting to see some good titles coming to the platform. However, will Apple silicon Macs ever compete with higher tier GPUs of NVIDIA? Only time will tell.

If I could look into a crystal ball, I'd be interested to see where Apple Silicon is heading in the near future. In an ideal world, I'd love to ditch my Windows PC and maintain a single computer setup. A part of me misses the eGPUs and dual-booting. I felt that if a Mac user wanted to quickly add some more GPU power to their rig, they could simply buy an eGPU and tack it on the end. Plus, the eGPU could have it's own thermals versus being inside the relatively small chassis of the Mac. Maybe Apple should create their own eGPU using Apple Silicon and therefore have dual GPUs!

Should Apple bring back the eGPU or do you think Apple silicon will progress to the point where it can compete for AAA titles?

 

[kaioshade]

Absolutely. I greatly enjoy my M3 Pro, and for the games I play, it runs them wonderfully on the screen. But I would greatly appreciate the option to connect my machine to an eGPU and get more power for connecting to a 4K display.

 

[maflynn]

My $02 is that the era of a eGPU has come and gone. They're practically extinct at this point and so you have to ask yourself why should Apple embrace a technology that is largely dead?

Secondly, consider the message this sends - Apple continues to hype how great their GPU performance is. If they suddenly offer eGPU support that will send a message that Macs don't have what it takes to play games.

Thirdly, is that they need to develop drivers for the GPUs - will they exclude Nvidia again? IF so, that further limits the appeal and market (being near dead anyways).

IF you're a gamer, and want to keep playing AAA games, that are available today, then just get a Steam Deck. Cheaper then a eGPU and you'll have access to a game library that dwarfs what is available on the Mac.

 

[Lex404]

What's the feud between Nvidia and Apple that Nvidia refused to make Mac drivers

 

[maflynn]

What's the feud between Nvidia and Apple that Nvidia refused to make Mac drivers

back in the 2008 through 2011 MBPs were all failing due to the GPU. I think that might soured the relationship

 

[Lex404]

But during intel era it was possible to use eGPUs with thunderbolt.

Yet, Nvidia didn’t bother creating drivers.

Even if AMD drivers were integrated by Apple in macOS directly, they could have made separate drivers.

 

[shadowboi]

As an option for users who need that - sure, would be nice.
I wouldn't use it anyway. M1 perfectly covers my needs right now

 

[clam zero]

First off, I think the chance that eGPU support will return before 2030 is essentially zero. Apple's technical leadership is more concerned about building the best SoC than building the most extensible SoC.

Secondly, as the owner of an M3 Max MBP, I can say with confidence that the biggest reason why there aren't more Mac games is because it just isn't economical for most developers to add Mac support. The Game Porting Toolkit is an important step in the right direction, but it's only moved the needle by a hair. If Apple was seriously dedicated to increasing the Mac's reputation as a gaming platform, they would set up a team which works with game companies to bring their titles to the Mac in return for a slice of any resultant revenues. And I don't mean just a title here and there- they already do that. I mean a large team which contracts with a game company for free to get their games ported over and running at native speed. The team would consume corporate resources for many years to come, but Apple would accept that as an investment in the future of the Mac.

 

[groove-agent]

If Apple was seriously dedicated to increasing the Mac's reputation as a gaming platform, they would set up a team which works with game companies to bring their titles to the Mac in return for a slice of any resultant revenues. And I don't mean just a title here and there- they already do that. I mean a large team which contracts with a game company for free to get their games ported over and running at native speed. The team would consume corporate resources for many years to come, but Apple would accept that as an investment in the future of the Mac.

Digressing here, but wasn't there a company in the mid-2000s that ported games to MacOS? Was it Aspyr?

 

[Lex404]

Aspyr sounds incredibly familiar 🧐

oh yes they brought stuff to Switch and MacOS And keep doing it

 

[diamond.g]

Digressing here, but wasn't there a company in the mid-2000s that ported games to MacOS? Was it Aspyr?

Aspyr and Feral Interactive.

Aspyr got bought by embracer group and basically stopped doing macOS ports. Feral Interactive is still around (and not owned by anyone) but they haven't released anything for macOS since Total War:Rome.

 

[maflynn]

As an option for users who need that - sure, would be nice.
I wouldn't use it anyway. M1 perfectly covers my needs right now

Do you want to pay 300 dollars for an enclosure, and around 1,000 for a GPU, just to play games? There are other solutions that make more financial sense and offer a better experience.

 

[shadowboi]

Do you want to pay 300 dollars for an enclosure, and around 1,000 for a GPU, just to play games? There are other solutions that make more financial sense and offer a better experience.

Definitely not. And I doubt games will be supported at all, unless ARM processors become widespread in future so all games will be made for these. Afaik Windows is still Parallels-only on Mac, so I am not sure if eGPUs are going to be useful at all

 

[groove-agent]

Do you want to pay 300 dollars for an enclosure, and around 1,000 for a GPU, just to play games? There are other solutions that make more financial sense and offer a better experience.

But if you already have a decent Mac, and want to do some gaming, it could be theoretically cheaper or around the same to buy an eGPU for your existing setup. If you are a heavy gamer you're probably better off going with a dedicated PC. Otherwise, there is value in integrating gaming into your existing system as you're not duplicating hardware (keyboard, mouse, computer) and not trying to maintain and organize two systems. Some people will find value in that, and don't mind even spending a little extra to streamline and minimalize their setups.

 

[maflynn]

it could be theoretically cheaper

Steam deck

You can pick one up cheaper then an egpu enclosure/gpu and you have access to a wider array of games

 

[dmccloud]

But if you already have a decent Mac, and want to do some gaming, it could be theoretically cheaper or around the same to buy an eGPU for your existing setup. If you are a heavy gamer you're probably better off going with a dedicated PC. Otherwise, there is value in integrating gaming into your existing system as you're not duplicating hardware (keyboard, mouse, computer) and not trying to maintain and organize two systems. Some people will find value in that, and don't mind even spending a little extra to streamline and minimalize their setups.

Even if you're not a heavy gamer, a PC might be a better option if you're primarily playing a game that is Windows-only (i.e., Cyberpunk 2077, Diablo IV, Overwatch).

When I built my gaming PC, I wanted to address three main criteria: having a system that can easily last several years without having to replace/rebuild from the ground up; easy upgrade path if I did decide to upgrade the CPU, GPU, or another component, and enough connectivity to support external HDDs/SSDs, audio/video equipment for streaming, and other peripherals I might use. While an eGPU/enclosure would most likely have been significantly cheaper, I would have been using it on a system where maybe 30% of the games in my library were playable. While I have WoW installed on my MBP, that machine is first and foremost my development machine rather than a gaming rig.

 

[Macalicious2011]

eGPU = Abandonware

 

[Random_Matt]

Nope, I prefer a minimalistic setup. More than happy to buy a console for the rare modern game I may like.

 

[padams35]

Half the eGPU market was for Macbooks. When Apple Silicon stopped supporting eGPUs the industry fizzled. 🙁

Anyway, I've been using an eGPU since 2016 (hack).
My current setup is a $180 (used) enclosure with a $340 GPU.
So about the same cost as a 512GB Steam Deck, but with over 6x the GPU power.

For me having an eGPU has extended the lives of my desktop Macs by about +40% and has been worth it, but "just use a console" is a close second.

 

[avro707]

But during intel era it was possible to use eGPUs with thunderbolt.

Yet, Nvidia didn’t bother creating drivers.

Even if AMD drivers were integrated by Apple in macOS directly, they could have made separate drivers.

AMD puts the driver issue into Apple. I had that comment from them last week.

I can use the W7900 Radeon Pro in Windows with my 2019 Mac Pro, but not MacOS.

It would be nice to be able to use cards like 4090RTX which are really, really powerful for many tasks outside of gaming. For the money that 4090 is hard to beat by anything.

I don’t need eGPU enclosure but do have one. I can just use the cards directly in my machine without bother.

 

[Macalicious2011]

I would love to see eGPU support for the iPhone fir playing games on the tv.

 

[carylee2002]

I have both my mac mini's supported to egpu's for dual pc streaming since the internal video options are pretty bad. Thankfully my mac mini's are both Intel mac's and still able to add years to my gaming and streaming.

 

[venom600]

I'm all for eGPU support, however it isn't coming back until Apple includes something other than Thunderbolt 3/4 to connect it. Most PCs that use it effectively use Oculink, which is twice as much bandwidth as TB3/4. The computer may be fast, and the GPU may be fast, but over thunderbolt they simply cannot deliver enough data to feed powerful modern GPUs. It wasn't as much of an issue when they were first available and the fastest cards were Radeon Vega 64 or GeForce 10 series cards. Today it's a waste of money unless you're using something super low power like a steam deck.

 

[MRMSFC]

My opinion is that there’s really no point. The whole strength of Apple’s architecture is based on the unified RAM. Theoretically they could add functionality where it copies instructions over Thunderbolt but I have a feeling that would degrade performance enough that it wouldn’t be a big uplift over the built in gpu.

There’s also the problem of drivers, which NVidia (the dominant gpu maker) wouldn’t let Apple have access to their API’s, and AMD (Apple’s old partner) has recently abandoned the high end.

And for the main purpose of having a powerful GPU, gaming, Apple is having trouble just getting games made for the Mac. (Which has issues separate from raw gpu power).

Aside from Apple, I think the industry is past “peak GPU”, where consumers are going to focus more on mid-to-low end hardware that’s cheaper and more convenient (think Steam Deck).

 

[avro707]

and AMD (Apple’s old partner) has recently abandoned the high end.

Oh? How is that?

Sure looks like they are making W7900 Radeon Pro 48GB cards.

And normal 7900XTX? Both are high end in their respective categories.

On the topic of drivers for newer AMD cards, they put the responsibility at Apple. I can dig out the email from AMD.