VR is the reason Apple will continue to support eGPUs

[endlessike]

I felt reasonably certain that the recency of Apple’s initial rollout of eGPU support was an indication that it would not be phased out just two years later, and became even more confident with Apple’s re-iterated support for Thunderbolt v. USB4 earlier this week.

There have been a number of recent articles about Apple’s ongoing development of VR/AR headsets. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/19/...-external-hub-jony-ive-bloomberg-go-read-this
Maybe there will be an additional widget to provide the necessary GPU horsepower, maybe not, but Apple obviously sees VR/AR as a big item on the horizon of computing.

Fair to say that not very many people are using VR headsets today, and most of those who are, are doing it for gaming. How much Mac-native VR is going on? Mac VR gaming? Not a lot...pretty niche.

Now go look at the eGPU Apple
support page. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208544

First sentence of the article mentions VR. Interesting for such a niche use case to feature so prominently. And what are all the wonderful things an eGPU is good for with an Apple computer?

(1) making applications run faster. A very mainstream reason to use an eGPU.
(2) Adding additional monitors and display. Another super common reason to use an eGPU.
(3) Use a virtual reality headset.
...

I think the eGPU page is a dead giveaway Apple has something planned for VR, and an acknowledgement that they need a way to provide the necessary graphical capability to macbook and imac purchasers that don’t have that internal GPU capability.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

If Apple is truly serious about the VR market on eGPUs, they need to start supporting Nvidia graphics architecture which is installed on about 75% of Windows gaming PCs.

There's also the real discussion about price-performance valuation.

The eGPU entry point starts around ~$450 (e.g., $250 Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box 550W + $200 Radeon RX 580 card). I had this recently running on a $1650 MacBook Air 2019, total $2100 without a VR headset.

Or you can plug the eGFX into a $750 Windows 10 ultrabook, pay the extra $300 for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super and walk away with $850 in your wallet, more than enough to cover an Oculus Rift S and a bunch of paid VR content.

Windows does have a higher system administration load. My Acer notebook is not as solidly designed and built as the MacBook Air. I expect to get three years of worthwhile service out of the Acer whereas I would expect five years from an Air.

Macs also come with a wealth of useful free software, the iWork and iLife suites so the total cost of ownership is more balanced.

That said, Windows offers a huge selection of available software. Even the software that runs on both platforms, often the Windows version has more functionality. Handbrake is one notable example.

 

[matrix07]

Mac VR headset would be a big hit because of all VR porns out there.