Nvidia Announces Mac OS X drivers

not really a OSX user, but thats pretty awesome.
 
It would be nice if Apple decided to use Nvidia in their products, since AMD is just dicking around in mid-range land with iffy power consumption (compared to Nvidia).
 
The drivers have been released. My Titan X is working great. Really excited to never develop on Windows again!

Some caveats:
- Requires automate-eGPU script.
- If eGPU is plugged in, the built-in display does not turn off when lid is closed.
- Hot plugging doesn't work: not detected when plugged in, kernel panic if unplugged.

I'm sure these issues will go away in time.
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Is this pretty much only good for GPGPU stuff or can it be used for gaming? Will it feed back into the display of an iMac? I have wanted to do an eGPU setup for a while but it seems like it hasn't been there yet from a suppprt standpoint.
 
Is this pretty much only good for GPGPU stuff or can it be used for gaming? Will it feed back into the display of an iMac? I have wanted to do an eGPU setup for a while but it seems like it hasn't been there yet from a suppprt standpoint.

It works on both internal and external displays, at least if OS X is reporting it correctly.

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It works on both internal and external displays, at least if OS X is reporting it correctly.

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Would you mind firing up a game and testing a game the old fashioned way, specifically on the internal 13.3" internal monitor? I of course don't expect a huge gaming experience out of OSX, but it would just be nice to know/see. There isn't anything super current on OSX side, but I know you could try DX:HR as an example.

Provided that all works, would you mind telling us what external enclosure you're using?
 
Would you mind firing up a game and testing a game the old fashioned way, specifically on the internal 13.3" internal monitor? I of course don't expect a huge gaming experience out of OSX, but it would just be nice to know/see. There isn't anything super current on OSX side, but I know you could try DX:HR as an example.

Provided that all works, would you mind telling us what external enclosure you're using?

Confirmed that it sometimes does.

If I start the Heaven benchmark on the eGPU's display and drag it over, it runs using the eGPU. If I turn my main display off and start it on the laptop's display, it uses the integrated GPU (with, naturally, substantially lower FPS). I think this may be because OS X does not use the eGPU when no display is plugged into it - I'd imagine somebody has a workaround.

I am using the Akitio Node.
 
Confirmed that it sometimes does.

If I start the Heaven benchmark on the eGPU's display and drag it over, it runs using the eGPU. If I turn my main display off and start it on the laptop's display, it uses the integrated GPU (with, naturally, substantially lower FPS). I think this may be because OS X does not use the eGPU when no display is plugged into it - I'd imagine somebody has a workaround.

I am using the Akitio Node.

Thanks for replying. It's sort of what I figured. Still having issues, and still in its infancy. I suppose purchasing an external 4k monitor and new GPU is one solution. But it is a lot more money to do so. I would more than likely not be buying a Titan X (lol). More likely a used 1070 or 980ti. However if it's not there then it just doesn't make sense. Maybe in another year or so.
 
Thanks for replying. It's sort of what I figured. Still having issues, and still in its infancy. I suppose purchasing an external 4k monitor and new GPU is one solution. But it is a lot more money to do so. I would more than likely not be buying a Titan X (lol). More likely a used 1070 or 980ti. However if it's not there then it just doesn't make sense. Maybe in another year or so.

IMHO as long as you are willing to deal with minor early adopter issues, it's workable. For games you can always boot into Windows, and it's easier than keeping a separate system. My eGPU is primarily for pro use - if I was buying for myself, I'd get a 1080ti w/ the Node or 1070 mini w/ Akitio Thunder3.

Of potential interest: https://egpu.io/how-to-egpu-accelerated-internal-display-macos/
 
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At $320 for the Akitio Node TB3 enclosure, if you have a separate monitor you're probably better off purchasing/building a separate windows PC to play games.

If you do plan to play games on your laptop's monitor, you lose another 10-15% performance on top of the 10-15% for using an eGPU and the 10-35% for running on MacOS. Assuming the game has a MacOS port in the first place and you aren't rebooting to Windows anyway.
 
At $320 for the Akitio Node TB3 enclosure, if you have a separate monitor you're probably better off purchasing/building a separate windows PC to play games.

If you do plan to play games on your laptop's monitor, you lose another 10-15% performance on top of the 10-15% for using an eGPU and the 10-35% for running on MacOS. Assuming the game has a MacOS port in the first place and you aren't rebooting to Windows anyway.

I'd love to see your math. Price me a system for $300 minus a monitor and a video card.
That is going to be incredibly hard, especially if used is off the table. $300 basically buys a processor.

The penalties aren't nearly as severe as you say, especially considering the limited library of games in OSX (as in, even if it is, which it isn't, there isn't any game that is going to thrash a 1070 in OSX). And booting into windows isn't that big a deal. If you have all the money in the world, sure, buy your way out of every solution.

eGPU is definitely more cost effective.
 
I'd love to see your math. Price me a system for $300 minus a monitor and a video card.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mHGvcc

Add $20 for a Windows key from Kinguin.

Quality components too, no off-brand power supplies or AMD FX CPUs here. The CPU is 2 cores/4 threads, just like the 13" tMBP. It doesn't boost but it's a desktop CPU running at 3.9Ghz; the highest-end CPU you can get in the 13" tMBP boosts to 3.4Ghz. This cheap i3 will smoke it.

Drop in a GPU and you've got a very capable gaming machine.
 
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Which i7, though? The i7 in the 13" tMBP is 2 cores/4 threads and boosts to 3.4Ghz.

The i7 in the 15" tMBP is 4 cores/8 threads and boosts to 3.8Ghz. So its single-core performance (important for games!) is slightly slower than the cheapo i3 I listed. It will smoke it in multi-threaded applications of course, but the vast majority of games care about the GPU, not the CPU.

SSD only impacts initial load times, not gameplay. But yeah, you will load maps faster on your laptop.

You don't need to worry about rebooting to bootcamp, this computer runs windows natively. If all you ever use it for is to play games, the lack of a SSD doesn't matter.

I looked into eGPUs myself, and they just don't make a whole lot of sense except in a "this is really cool technology" sort of way. Prices need to come down, bandwidth needs to come up, and all the bare-bones eGPU enclosures without extra USB ports and ethernet need to die in a car fire.

I mean, when you can buy an entire computer for a comparable price, it's blatantly obvious that eGPU enclosures aren't priced right yet.
 
Which i7, though? The i7 in the 13" tMBP is 2 cores/4 threads and boosts to 3.4Ghz.

The i7 in the 15" tMBP is 4 cores/8 threads and boosts to 3.8Ghz. So its single-core performance (important for games!) is slightly slower than the cheapo i3 I listed. It will smoke it in multi-threaded applications of course, but the vast majority of games care about the GPU, not the CPU.

SSD only impacts initial load times, not gameplay. But yeah, you will load maps faster on your laptop.

You don't need to worry about rebooting to bootcamp, this computer runs windows natively. If all you ever use it for is to play games, the lack of a SSD doesn't matter.

I looked into eGPUs myself, and they just don't make a whole lot of sense except in a "this is really cool technology" sort of way. Prices need to come down, bandwidth needs to come up, and all the bare-bones eGPU enclosures without extra USB ports and ethernet need to die in a car fire.

I mean, when you can buy an entire computer for a comparable price, it's blatantly obvious that eGPU enclosures aren't priced right yet.

Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz. 2011 iMac. Although I may upgrade if and when the 2017's come out if the package and specs are right.
Or 2013 Late MBPr. 2.0GHz. This guy is slow in the CPU department but has a PCIE SSD and of course TB2.

And I disagree with how you minimalize how much an SSD does just in terms of performance. At least just in terms of frustration alone.

I do however agree with you about pricing. I don't think it will come down anytime soon as eGPUs will always be a niche product and therefore will never have production levels high enough to give a massive discount. Unlike cheap mass produced hardware.

This does pave a possible future for those wanting a Mac with a better GPU though. It will be possible to buy a Mini and slap on a 1070 without too much hassle, provided drivers continue to get smoothed out and Apple benevolently allowing it to occur.
 
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/mHGvcc

Add $20 for a Windows key from Kinguin.

Quality components too, no off-brand power supplies or AMD FX CPUs here. The CPU is 2 cores/4 threads, just like the 13" tMBP. It doesn't boost but it's a desktop CPU running at 3.9Ghz; the highest-end CPU you can get in the 13" tMBP boosts to 3.4Ghz. This cheap i3 will smoke it.

Drop in a GPU and you've got a very capable gaming machine.

The problem here is that this does not account for the value of your time. I do not have the capacity to manage a separate Windows PC, updates, etc, because I have other things to do. One system is much simpler.
 
And I disagree with how you minimalize how much an SSD does just in terms of performance. At least just in terms of frustration alone.
It's huuuuuge in desktop responsiveness too. But my post assumed you used that computer for gaming, period, end of sentence. If you want it to be reasonably usable for desktop stuff put an SSD in it-- but then it isn't really competing against an eGPU anymore.

I disagree about pricing coming down. Once chinese OEMs start in on the market, prices will drop like a brick. All we're talking about here is a cheap steel case, a 400ish watt PSU, and a thunderbolt to PCI-e bridge. Maybe a splitter for extra USB ports and ethernet. The profit margin charging $400 for something like that has got to be enormous. The chinese will eat that margin for breakfast.

AVT, the initial build is a bit of work but after that Windows 10 updates itself. Aggressively so, in fact.
 
I disagree about pricing coming down. Once chinese OEMs start in on the market, prices will drop like a brick. All we're talking about here is a cheap steel case, a 400ish watt PSU, and a thunderbolt to PCI-e bridge. Maybe a splitter for extra USB ports and ethernet. The profit margin charging $400 for something like that has got to be enormous. The chinese will eat that margin for breakfast.

AVT, the initial build is a bit of work but after that Windows 10 updates itself. Aggressively so, in fact.

We'll see.

Price only gets driven down when the supply side goes up. Supply only goes up if there is a market demand big enough to make a producer interested in increasing supply (via production). The issue I see is that there simply may not be enough demand. Obviously I may have on blinders, I'm okay with being wrong. However I can't see many people buying an eGPU enclosure outside of people on Macs (which of course will NOT be every Mac user, just a small subset) and a VERY limited amount of the PC side for GPGPU purposes.

And I say that because precisely what you countered with earlier... why buy an eGPU enclosure when you could just buy a dedicated machine? I think it will be a tough sell to most people that don't want "less systems" such as myself. Even at $150, I think it's a niche product that most couldn't be convinced to buy. And if a provider can only sell a small number of them at $150, they may not bother with the market at all.

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EDIT: As a quick aside, I do think a possible place we'll see eGPU's in the future is for GPGPU functions done via server hardware. It would make a lot of sense to have a 1U enclosure that can support 4 GPUs that can be used to grind whatever out. This is of course provided that nVidia/AMD ever gets back to allowing Quad SLi. That is of course a limited group that would want it, most likely people doing a lot of math heavy stuff. But interesting none the less.
 
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Laptops dominate PC sales just like they do on the Apple side. You can buy a cheapo Asus Zenbook with an i5, 8GB RAM, and a SSD for like $800. It's thin and light and gets 8+ hours of battery life. Actually a really nice, completely usable little ultrabook.

So you've got that cheapo Zenbook and maybe you want to play Mass Effect 4.

Imagine you can buy an enclosure for $300 that connects with a single cord and:

- Charges your laptop
- Gives a bunch of extra USB-A and USB-C ports
- SDcard reader
- External audio
- Ethernet
- Displayport & HDMI ports
- Space for two 2.5" SATA drives
- A PCI-e 3.0 16x slot

That's a pretty attractive purchase, wouldn't you think?

But lets get honest, what I described above is the enthusiast product. The mass market product is the size of a couple cellphones stacked together, costs $200, and with that same single cord,

- Charges your laptop
- Gives maybe 2 USB-A and 1 USB-C port
- SDcard reader
- HDMI-out
- Integrated Geforce 1050ti GPU

Obviously these products aren't available yet, not at these prices and featuresets. But tech moves fast. Blink, and you'll miss it.
 
We'll see.

Price only gets driven down when the supply side goes up. Supply only goes up if there is a market demand big enough to make a producer interested in increasing supply (via production). The issue I see is that there simply may not be enough demand. Obviously I may have on blinders, I'm okay with being wrong. However I can't see many people buying an eGPU enclosure outside of people on Macs (which of course will NOT be every Mac user, just a small subset) and a VERY limited amount of the PC side for GPGPU purposes.

And I say that because precisely what you countered with earlier... why buy an eGPU enclosure when you could just buy a dedicated machine? I think it will be a tough sell to most people that don't want "less systems" such as myself. Even at $150, I think it's a niche product that most couldn't be convinced to buy. And if a provider can only sell a small number of them at $150, they may not bother with the market at all.

===

EDIT: As a quick aside, I do think a possible place we'll see eGPU's in the future is for GPGPU functions done via server hardware. It would make a lot of sense to have a 1U enclosure that can support 4 GPUs that can be used to grind whatever out. This is of course provided that nVidia/AMD ever gets back to allowing Quad SLi. That is of course a limited group that would want it, most likely people doing a lot of math heavy stuff. But interesting none the less.

This is the current standard solution, at least in statistical machine learning and AI - many people use servers with Tesla cards on Amazon AWS and similar services.

The problem is that this requires developing remotely, which is never as nice as developing locally. You need to deal with SSH, transmitting big files over the internet, and a whole host of other inconveniences.
 
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