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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

External GPU for MBP

Lucas Wilkinson

Lucas Wilkinson

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Does anyone have any info for an external GPU solution for an MPB? I've been looking around but it looks like all the solutions are ad-hoc and not reliable.

I have a trashcan workstation that I use and that works great but I travel a lot and need to do a lot of on the road delivery.

I've just upgraded to Epic-W so I think it's time that I get a proper GPU to process it.

Any info would be great


Thanks guys.
 
I have a Bizon Box 2 from these guys - https://bizon-tech.com/
It works phenomenally well and I'm really happy I bought it. Just a heads up, the same thing can be achieved with an akito thunder 2 (for cheaper) with a little modifying, but I'm lazy and went with the prebuilt and cleaner looking option.
 
Apple is supposed to release new MBP's this month probably on the 27th with Thunderbolt 3. That is going to really allow effective GPU use on laptops, I would plan for the future with your enclosure, or wait and get a good deal on a TB2. Sonnet Echo 3 offers to upgrade their system to TB3. Razor has a $500 TB3 enclosure too.
 
I'm still running a TB2 MBP (obviously) with no need to upgrade for a little while. Would it be worth looking into a TB3 solution and using a TB3 to TB2 adaptor cord so that I can futurproof my system should I upgrade to a laptop with TB3 in the future? I looked a the Razor core, it looks amazing, although I've heard mixed results from computers that aren't from Razor.
 
I did a Bizon Box 2 and it's great. Use it on my MacBook Pro and iMac5K. Portable and works great. Main reason I went this route was everything is done for me.

I have a Titan X in it.
 
Brody_B said:
Apple is supposed to release new MBP's this month probably on the 27th with Thunderbolt 3. That is going to really allow effective GPU use on laptops, I would plan for the future with your enclosure, or wait and get a good deal on a TB2. Sonnet Echo 3 offers to upgrade their system to TB3. Razor has a $500 TB3 enclosure too.
Click to expand...


I'd do the exact opposite and avoid buying ANY new Apple Mac system.
Apple has no interest in making Macs with high core count workstation class CPUs.
Even with TB3 for ext CUDA, you won't be able to get the needed CPU core count on a Mac.

What ****ing point is there to another 4 core MBP?

Jarred has stated(rough paraphrase) when asked about the future of Rocket-X cards,
that the future is dual socket 40-50 core systems w/ Nvidia CUDA cards,
and Rocket type cards may only be a viable option for another couple years.

Paul Duvilla said:
I have a Bizon Box 2 from these guys - https://bizon-tech.com/
It works phenomenally well and I'm really happy I bought it.
Click to expand...

To keep myself up and running for now, I'm going BisonBox2 as well, with Titan X 12GB (Maxwell)
Read, heard, and have seen "magic" with that combo on Macs over TB1/2, especially in Resolve.
(Just waiting for delivery now, ordered the Maxwell based Titan X directly from EVGA)

Remember the EGPU is being used as a math coprocessor for CUDA calculations,
thus even TB2 gets very very close to the same performance as being in a dedicated pcie 16x slot (for CUDA acceleration).

Once Skylake or Kabylake is out in 2P Xeon EP form, I'm dumping almost everything Apple (my headphone-having iPhone 6S+ too when it breaks).
Windows support for BASH and running native ELF linux binaries should hopefully be good-enough to subplant my UNIX needs currently satisfied with macOS.
I'll keep an iPad around for foolcontrol and some useful on-location apps.


10 years from now I may re-explore Apple's offerings for post work, when iOS and their chips have matured (and Tim Cook is no longer in the picture).
 
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So if I get a Bizon Box, there's not point in getting a new Pascal card? does TB2 just not have the bandwidth to support it.

Say for instance I get a BB with a GTX 1070-80, would this be a better option that the Maxwell Titan?
 
Lucas Wilkinson said:
So if I get a Bizon Box, there's not point in getting a new Pascal card? does TB2 just not have the bandwidth to support it.

Say for instance I get a BB with a GTX 1070-80, would this be a better option that the Maxwell Titan?
Click to expand...


Pascal 10XX series not supported on macOS

Have to use Maxwell 9XX series, such as Titan X 12GB or 980Ti 6GB
When dealing with 6K Dagon, the 12GB is needed to avoid the "out of GPU memory" issues w/ neatvideo.
 
Daniel Reed said:
I'd do the exact opposite and avoid buying ANY new Apple Mac system.
Apple has no interest in making Macs with high core count workstation class CPUs.
Even with TB3 for ext CUDA, you won't be able to get the needed CPU core count on a Mac.

What ****ing point is there to another 4 core MBP?
Click to expand...


TB3 is the fucking point. We are talking about laptops here not a 12 core desktop solution.
 
Daniel Reed said:
Pascal 10XX series not supported on macOS

Have to use Maxwell 9XX series, such as Titan X 12GB or 980Ti 6GB
When dealing with 6K Dagon, the 12GB is needed to avoid the "out of GPU memory" issues w/ neatvideo.
Click to expand...

Do you know if there will be support for Pascall in the future? I'm in no hurry to buy an external solution just yet as I have access to a solid Mac Pro setup that handles my R3Ds well.
 
Brody_B said:
TB3 is the fucking point. We are talking about laptops here not a 12 core desktop solution.
Click to expand...

CUDA acceleration over TB3 is 0 to 5% faster then TB2. Remember, it is processing Math.
Math problems and solutions are not high bandwidth - problem sent, processed, answer sent back.
The computations are high bandwidth, but that happens on the card, not over wire.

Sure, RAID will obviously benefit w/ TB3.
And gaming.

On a side note, a 12 core desktop is not a solution.
We need 40-50 cores for processing/editing/compositing/grading 8K for competitive post turn-arounds.


For what its worth, I was a staunch supporter of Apple for many years.
Now, not so much.
 
Daniel Reed said:
CUDA acceleration over TB3 is 0 to 5% faster then TB2. Remember, it is processing Math.
Math problems and solutions are not high bandwidth - problem sent, processed, answer sent back.
The computations are high bandwidth, but that happens on the card, not over wire.

Sure, RAID will obviously benefit w/ TB3.
And gaming.

On a side note, a 12 core desktop is not a solution.
We need triple cores for processing/editing/compositing/grading 8K at competitive timeframes in post.


For what its worth, I was a staunch supporter of Apple for many years.
Now, not so much.
Click to expand...


Interesting. I have read/heard conflicting information, but I'm not going to say your wrong. I would like to see some tests but TB3 is too new with not much out there. I am looking to buy a new MBP anyhow so I will post back with my results, good or bad.
Side note: What are you using for mobile computing since you left the Mac platform?
 
So best solution for me would be an Akitio TB2 box with a Titan X? Would I get by with a 980ti? Or am I just best going for the top of the line?
 
Curious about performance over TB2 vs internal PCI. I built a machine about a year ago to edit and color on and it's great, but I intentionally skimped on the GPU because I needed to cut costs and was only working with 4k ProRes at the time. Just got my Epic-W and will need a better solution and have planned for it. Been looking at the 1080 but am going to wait for official OSX support (hoping soon??? folks are guessing November for Pascal support).

My question is about modularity because a solid amount of my work is done on the road and handing off to clients. For those clients I'll be shooting 4k ProRes up to 30fps but for off-speed I'll need to shoot R3D and then transcode. I'm looking to have an external solution to bring with me on the road and hook into my MBP for overnight transcodes. If I were to go the 1080 route, I'd like to have the ability to use it at my workstation and on the road. Maybe it's too much to ask for and that's OK, just looking to get some clarity. Thanks guys!

PS wanted to add that I hope I'm not threadjacking. Figured it was relevant enough
 
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Brendan_H_Banks said:
Curious about performance over TB2 vs internal PCI. I built a machine about a year ago to edit and color on and it's great, but I intentionally skimped on the GPU because I needed to cut costs and was only working with 4k ProRes at the time. Just got my Epic-W and will need a better solution and have planned for it. Been looking at the 1080 but am going to wait for official OSX support (hoping soon??? folks are guessing November for Pascal support).

My question is about modularity because a solid amount of my work is done on the road and handing off to clients. For those clients I'll be shooting 4k ProRes up to 30fps but for off-speed I'll need to shoot R3D and then transcode. I'm looking to have an external solution to bring with me on the road and hook into my MBP for overnight transcodes. If I were to go the 1080 route, I'd like to have the ability to use it at my workstation and on the road. Maybe it's too much to ask for and that's OK, just looking to get some clarity. Thanks guys!

PS wanted to add that I hope I'm not threadjacking. Figured it was relevant enough
Click to expand...

Jack away....haha. Very similar situation as to what I'm in.
 
Brendan_H_Banks said:
Curious about performance over TB2 vs internal PCI. I built a machine about a year ago to edit and color on and it's great, but I intentionally skimped on the GPU because I needed to cut costs and was only working with 4k ProRes at the time. Just got my Epic-W and will need a better solution and have planned for it. Been looking at the 1080 but am going to wait for official OSX support (hoping soon??? folks are guessing November for Pascal support).

My question is about modularity because a solid amount of my work is done on the road and handing off to clients. For those clients I'll be shooting 4k ProRes up to 30fps but for off-speed I'll need to shoot R3D and then transcode. I'm looking to have an external solution to bring with me on the road and hook into my MBP for overnight transcodes. If I were to go the 1080 route, I'd like to have the ability to use it at my workstation and on the road. Maybe it's too much to ask for and that's OK, just looking to get some clarity. Thanks guys!

PS wanted to add that I hope I'm not threadjacking. Figured it was relevant enough
Click to expand...


Not sure the amount, but TB2 chokes things like external RRX and GPU pretty bad. Somewhere on here I remember there was a test and they had come to approximate amount of restriction when going thru TB2. I want to say it was like 30% or 40% but honestly I can't remember the exact amount.
 
Ultimately I will be getting an external graphics solution and it will be TB2 as I won't be upgrading my Mbp for at least a year.
So I guess straight and simple what's the best bet for me, cost/performance ratio. A maxwell titan x now or wait for Mac support for pascalland get a gtx 1080? Wil probably get an akitio and mod myself. Need some serious advice on this as I'm close to pulling the trigger on something and want to do it in the best possible way.

If and when I upgrade my Mbp to TB3 I can just upgrade the enclosure.
 
Lucas Wilkinson said:
So best solution for me would be an Akitio TB2 box with a Titan X? Would I get by with a 980ti? Or am I just best going for the top of the line?
Click to expand...

If you working in 4K, the 980Ti should work well.
You'll also need an external power supply rated at ideally at least 300watts, or 400watts if going Maxwell based Titan-X for 6K+ work, which will end up making a mess on your desk.

Its just plan easier to get a bizonbox2
 
Shiblon Wixom said:
The only external TB GPU option Apple would allow is with their future TB display with a built in GPU, otherwise Apple prohibits the use of external GPU over thunderbolt on the Mac OS.

Unless you want to run Windows boot camp.
Click to expand...

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/28/apple-out-of-display-business/

Like I said before, Apple is not releasing another dedicated display, at least not anytime this decade.
Only full Macs with integrated displays, like Macbooks and iMacs, but we should see an iMac Pro by this time next year.
 
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Could if they wanted to...

Could if they wanted to...

MacOS Sierra and TB3 (with the newer controllers) have the potential to support eGPU configs more fully. How soon, and how well...

As others have noted, Apple doesn't seem that motivated to implement and optimize tech that the mass market isn't demanding. Tim Cook's Apple seems to see pros as requiring too many resources per unit sold, so not a priority. Perhaps the maturation of the cell phone market will crimp iPhone sales enough that Apple will decide that the computer division is worth paying attention to again - or not...

Cheers - #19
 
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