Blender Discussions

[kehyler]

Hi All,

I am a newby considering setting up the following system, but I am concerned whether or not it will work. Can anyone give me some insight?

Macbook pro late 2013 (supports metal 2) with dedicated nvidia GPU. Currently running 10.14. Note that I have thunderbolt 2, and that egpu support is not "officially" supported. You have to enable it like in the following:

https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/potentially-accelerate-all-applications-on-egpu-macos-10-13-4/ 

To make my system more blender friendly, I was considering something like a RX 580, or maybe vega 56-64 egpu in a thunderbolt 3 chassis.

I would use the following equipment:

Apple Thunderbolt Cable (2.0 m) - White - Apple 

Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter - Apple 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q78VMPW/ref=twister_B07GSDLQ1D?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Thanks! I'm excited to maybe join the community!

[bsavery]

If that machine doesn't support an eGPU it's hard to see how one would work.  I'm not a mac hardware expert though.  I would go with Apple's recommendation here. 

[kehyler]

You can software enable an egpu (as shown in the link I provided).