Sonnet eGPU Pucks and CMP 5,1

[crusetech]

Anyone using one of the Sonnet eGPU pucks? As my monitors will most likely be shared between a Mac mini M1 and a 5,1 Mac Pro I"m almost thinking this might be a good way for me to go to drive 6 screens. (I'm not into gaming or heavy intense graphics. Just the ability to view a bunch of CCTV cameras and email, YouTube etc.

Thoughts?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Anyone using one of the Sonnet eGPU pucks? As my monitors will most likely be shared between a Mac mini M1 and a 5,1 Mac Pro I"m almost thinking this might be a good way for me to go to drive 6 screens. (I'm not into gaming or heavy intense graphics. Just the ability to view a bunch of CCTV cameras and email, YouTube etc.

Thoughts?

When the world is moving toward IPTV cameras and one big TV for surveillance, you are still sticking with 2,3 graphic cards and 6 PC monitors.
Any merits in doing that?

 

[Amethyst1]

As my monitors will most likely be shared between a Mac mini M1 and a 5,1 Mac Pro I"m almost thinking this might be a good way for me to go to drive 6 screens.

You can drive six monitors with a single AMD graphics card. You just need to get one with six outputs such as the Radeon Pro W5700 (requires macOS Catalina). Or go with two NVIDIA graphics cards, as NVIDIA GPUs can drive four screens. Two NVS 510s will do this without breaking the bank. Each has four Mini DisplayPort outputs.

No need to go for an expensive Thunderbolt eGPU at all. (Do you have a Thunderbolt 3 card in your Mac Pro?) An eGPU won't work with the M1 Mac mini either FYI. If you want to hook up more than two screens to that, you need to go with DisplayLink.

 

[crusetech]

Thankyou for your reply! It turns out the NVS 510 cards are exactly what I'm looking for. I've ordered 1 to test. This should suit my needs perfectly.

 

[Amethyst1]

Thankyou for your reply! It turns out the NVS 510 cards are exactly what I'm looking for. I've ordered 1 to test. This should suit my needs perfectly.

Cool. Please report back on how it’s going. Two things are worth knowing:

(1) These cards are not “flashed” for Macs, so you won’t see anything on the screens connected to them until the macOS login screen appears. But IIRC you’ve also ordered a “flashed” GT 640 so you’ll see the boot-up process on a screen connected to that.

(2) Support for these NVIDIA GPUs has been removed from macOS Monterey, so if you’re going to run a patched Monterey install on the machine you’ll need to restore support for them. But OCLP will handle that.

 

[crusetech]

yes the entire GPU support / macOS compatibility still confuses me. I have a CMP 4,1 and a CMP 5,1 en route to tinker around with so I'll learn by putting my feet in the fire on one of them! Happy New Years everyone.