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DIY eGPU Macbook experiences


oripash

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Ah, so AMD cards + Akitio hasn't been attempted yet? Is there any other Thunderbolt enclosure that could work instead?

There doesn’t exists any MBP + AMD + AKiTiO implementation, but two TB1 implementations has been done with the AKiTiO and you can find them from here.

AMD is clearly the minority. @gothic860 has reported stability problems with the 290X: “Akitio was unstable even with an powered riser”.

http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/7388-%5Bguide%5D-15-lenovo-w540-r9_290x-gtx780ti%4010gbps-4gbps-sonnet-ee-se2-pe4l-2-1b.html

I am going to prove that AMD is very good choice especially for MBP owners. OpenCL performance and screen output via eGPU on OS X are those that I want to highlight. With a Netstor NA211TB it certainly works, but I guess it’s not within your budget. I can do some experiment with the AKiTiO as well, and will get back to you later.

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Ah, that's a shame. Stability is very crucial for what I do.

I can afford the case, but honestly: I can get a 2010 Mac Pro for that money - slap in a good graphics card in that and I have a rendering slave that can assist not only with GPU rendering, but with CPU as well. I can't justify buying an enclosure that's four times as expensive as the graphics card.

I am really looking forward to hearing from you regarding the Akitio enclosure. And thanks a lot for being so helpful with a complete rookie like me.

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Ah, that's a shame. Stability is very crucial for what I do.

I can afford the case, but honestly: I can get a 2010 Mac Pro for that money - slap in a good graphics card in that and I have a rendering slave that can assist not only with GPU rendering, but with CPU as well. I can't justify buying an enclosure that's four times as expensive as the graphics card.

I am really looking forward to hearing from you regarding the Akitio enclosure. And thanks a lot for being so helpful with a complete rookie like me.

Yep, will find out, using a proper powering method (I recommend molex-to-barrel plug) should solve the stability issues in theory. You are right, NA211TB is the only plug-and-play TB enclosure I have seen for eGPU purposes, but unfortunately the price is what it is... However, for some eGPU hobbyist like me it offers very intriguing playground; maybe up to 3 external GPUs, but have succeeded with two GPUs so far and Crossfire comes as an extra on Windows: http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/8585-%5Bguide%5D-2014-15-macbook-pro-2x-r9_280x%4016gbps-tb2-netstor-na211tb-win8-1-osx.html#post117016

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Hey tech inferno. I have been having a lot of trouble with my gtx 760/sonnet SEL/13" late 2013 rMBP. I have successfully gotten it to work on windows 10 using the optimus script. On OSX10.10.1 it only works when i have an external monitor set as primary. When i go to about this mac with the external monitor as primary, it shows my gtx 760. But when i set my internal monitor as primary, it says it is set on Intel Iris. What do I need to do? Thanks

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Yep, will find out, using a proper powering method (I recommend molex-to-barrel plug) should solve the stability issues in theory.

If I'm not mistaken the R9 290X is just about the most power consuming GPU on the market. Seeing how the R9 270X's peak power consumption is about half of that of the 290X, perhaps it could be stable with the Atikio? Power Consumption - Radeon R9 290X Review: AMD's Back In Ultra-High-End Gaming

But them I might want to upgrade at some point in the future...

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Another post, maybe someone will be able to help:

MBPRD 2012 + Atikio + EVGA GTX770 + 10.10.1

I am having stability problems... Random Freeze / restart. I just changed my PSU for a corsair RM 750 but still having the issue ://// I was really hopefull on that but it is a miss aparrently.

I tried with the latest webdrivers as well as the apple ones but nothing does the trick. Still random stability issues even when browsing internet.

Do you think my graphic card is faulty ?

Does anyone has a similar setup stable ? I am so disappointed, spent so much money and seem so close but can't make it work. Any help would be appreciated

Does anyone has a rock solid stable system please ???

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RE: http://forum.techinferno.com/implementation-guides/8006-%5Bguide%5D-2012-15-macbook-pro-gtx750ti%4010gbps-tb1-akitio-thunder2-win8-1-bios.html#post109488

Great job,

I have a similar system MacBookR 2012 650 m + AkitoTh2 + GTX480 + Silverstone500w

After installed the BootCamp drivers, reboot, I can not enter windows, always restart automatically.

I've tried using a riser with molex, equal is restarted automatically.

I've tried Windows 8 and 8.1.

That could be failing?:05.18-flustered:

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If I'm not mistaken the R9 290X is just about the most power consuming GPU on the market. Seeing how the R9 270X's peak power consumption is about half of that of the 290X, perhaps it could be stable with the Atikio? Power Consumption - Radeon R9 290X Review: AMD's Back In Ultra-High-End Gaming

But them I might want to upgrade at some point in the future...

I did some tests with the 2014 15" MBPr Iris Pro + Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP 3GB (1070MHz) + AKiTiO but 3DMark11 failed twice in the beginning of the Physics test. This shouldn't be GPU intensive so I wonder why I got blank white screen, and during the second test, GPU fan ran at full speed when it crashed. The issue might be application specific. Valley seemed to run fine both on Windows and OS X, I saw power peaks at ~210W (AKiTiO included). Rendering was something about 170-180W.

The good news is that I didn't see any problems on OS X (HDMI, DVI), but this was not a long period testing. I can recommend Asus for OS X, the 270X version should work as well as 280X. I don't know about XFX.

I happen to know that the MBP (Late 2011) with the HD 6750M dGPU should recognize AMD cards, but the dGPU might be a problem on Windows. I hope this information helps to make a decision :)

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Thanks a lot for this. Are you using a powered riser? Anything in particular you had to do in order to run on the Akitio? Also from what I've understood the graphics card won't be able to run the internal display on my MBP. But does that mean that my screen will be black, or can I use any of the two internal GPU's to drive that, and the eGPU merely for rendering, without any display output?

Sorry if these questions sound dumb.

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Thanks a lot for this. Are you using a powered riser? Anything in particular you had to do in order to run on the Akitio? Also from what I've understood the graphics card won't be able to run the internal display on my MBP. But does that mean that my screen will be black, or can I use any of the two internal GPU's to drive that, and the eGPU merely for rendering, without any display output?

Sorry if these questions sound dumb.

Yes, AKiTiO was powered by the riser only (two 12V yellow + two black ground wires + a capacitor) and a Silverstone's 450W 80+ Gold SFX PSU. I just plugged 6pin + 8pin power cables to the GPU, then did the "paper clip" method, power on the PSU from the power strip, and finally turn on MBP (TB cable plugged). That's it.

Sorry, I don't own a 2011 MBP, so cannot say much more about it. But I am happy to help with the questions regarding 2014 15" MBPr Iris Pro. Internal screen is accelerated on OS X, if you keep the external as main screen (you can move the bar under display preferences). On OS X it depends on the application how OpenGL acceleration is programmed, external monitor full screen apps should be accelerated always.

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Yes, AKiTiO was powered by the riser only (two 12V yellow + two black ground wires + a capacitor) and a Silverstone's 450W 80+ Gold SFX PSU. I just plugged 6pin + 8pin power cables to the GPU, then did the "paper clip" method, power on the PSU from the power strip, and finally turn on MBP (TB cable plugged). That's it.

Sorry, I don't own a 2011 MBP, so cannot say much more about it. But I am happy to help with the questions regarding 2014 15" MBPr Iris Pro. Internal screen is accelerated on OS X, if you keep the external as main screen (you can move the bar under display preferences). On OS X it depends on the application how OpenGL acceleration is programmed, external monitor full screen apps should be accelerated always.

As my GTX 780 keeps crashing randomly(driver restored or it's totally gone and I need to reboot) I'm thinking about getting a R9 280 as a replacement. What do you mean with the passage "Internal screen is accelerated on OS X"? Can I use the internal display in OS X together with the external display? Can I play games on it like Optimus in Windows? Using both displays(internal + external) alone without gaming would be nice, too. I don't use internal screen for gaming right now due to performance loss, so I guess I wouldn't mind losing it.

All this on MBPr 15" 2014 Iris Pro only. What about Windows? I'm really curious about this. I don't like that I can't use the external display in OS X without plugging cables in and out, so I'm looking forward to this.

Thank you.

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Hi Nesone,

Thanks for the tutorial, it was very useful for me.

Can you please comment on stability ? Do you use your yosemite system for games or you only do rendering ?

My system is unusable, I am having random freeze and restart with any applications (I guess kernel panic). Is your stable ?

I tried absolutely everything except changing the Graphic card.... I have the latest web drivers + 10.10.1 + EVGA GTX 770 + atikio

Thanks in advance

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Ok, got a R9 280(aka HD7950). Works like a charm in OS X after editing some kexts as described by goalque in his R9 280X Crossfire thread. Internal and external display both work parallel. External has got the power of the eGPU, internal does not. Tested Unigine Valley and got 23-35 FPS on Extreme HD setting. Iris Pro gives about 6-13 FPS.

Windows works as usual, external display only. Didn't test Evo*'s modification which shall enable internal display on Windows too, as described by goalque in said thread.

I'm using an Akitio Thunder2.

Unfortunately the card has unacceptable coil whining in Windows so I hope I'll get another one.

Thanks to goalque at this point.

Edit: Eeehm ok. It just crashed in Windows the way it did before(graphics driver crashed). I guess I'll have to replace my PSU. It's the only part left which I didn't replace yet. Thought it would be ok because it could the most load I could put on it and only crashed now and then and even on Desktop without anything open than a browser. Bought another riser already and the graphics card today. This somewhat sucks =/

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As my GTX 780 keeps crashing randomly(driver restored or it's totally gone and I need to reboot) I'm thinking about getting a R9 280 as a replacement. What do you mean with the passage "Internal screen is accelerated on OS X"? Can I use the internal display in OS X together with the external display? Can I play games on it like Optimus in Windows? Using both displays(internal + external) alone without gaming would be nice, too. I don't use internal screen for gaming right now due to performance loss, so I guess I wouldn't mind losing it.

All this on MBPr 15" 2014 Iris Pro only. What about Windows? I'm really curious about this. I don't like that I can't use the external display in OS X without plugging cables in and out, so I'm looking forward to this.

Thank you.

EVGA GTX780 6GB was stable with the AKiTiO when I attached it directly to the x16 slot. At the moment, GTX780/GTX780Ti give the best OpenGL performance on OS X, not even GTX980 can beat them in OpenGL due to the fact that Nvidia drivers are not optimized for Maxwell architecture and OS X yet.

I try to clarify what I said. For instance, if you run the OS X version of Valley benchmark test in a window mode on external monitor, you can move it to the retina screen and still see much better FPS than Iris Pro can do. It’s the same behaviour regardless of the GPU (Nvidia or AMD). But you must have the correct Mac hardware or MVC’s modified GPU in order to enable Nvidia screen output. AMD is the key for eGPU screen output on OS X. Steam games often give you an option to choose the screen, but I haven’t seen a Mac game yet that can be moved to the internal screen (a mouse pointer is within the game window) so that it would be accelerated by the eGPU. By selecting the internal screen from the game menu, Iris Pro takes the job.

On Windows, I recently realized that the internal screen seems to be accelerated as well, because I can move and play games in retina screen too. I assumed this would be only possible with the Optimus/Nvidia technology, but AMD surprised me.

AMD gives enough OpenGL performance for my needs. OS X is not really a good gaming platform after all. I am much more interested in OpenCL calculation and rendering.

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EVGA GTX780 6GB was stable with the AKiTiO when I attached it directly to the x16 slot. At the moment, GTX780/GTX780Ti give the best OpenGL performance on OS X, not even GTX980 can beat them in OpenGL due to the fact that Nvidia drivers are not optimized for Maxwell architecture and OS X yet.

I try to clarify what I said. For instance, if you run the OS X version of Valley benchmark test in a window mode on external monitor, you can move it to the retina screen and still see much better FPS than Iris Pro can do. It’s the same behaviour regardless of the GPU (Nvidia or AMD). But you must have the correct Mac hardware or MVC’s modified GPU in order to enable Nvidia screen output. AMD is the key for eGPU screen output on OS X. Steam games often give you an option to choose the screen, but I haven’t seen a Mac game yet that can be moved to the internal screen (a mouse pointer is within the game window) so that it would be accelerated by the eGPU. By selecting the internal screen from the game menu, Iris Pro takes the job.

On Windows, I recently realized that the internal screen seems to be accelerated as well, because I can move and play games in retina screen too. I assumed this would be only possible with the Optimus/Nvidia technology, but AMD surprised me.

AMD gives enough OpenGL performance for my needs. OS X is not really a good gaming platform after all. I am much more interested in OpenCL calculation and rendering.

I'm not interested in heavy gaming on OS X either. It would have been just nice to not have to replug cables everytime I want to use OS X on my external display. Nvidia cards don't give any output to the external screen in OS X on a MBPr 15" 2014 Iris Pro only, I asked you in another thread where you stated this. Only OpenCL/CUDA calculations could be made with the attached graphics card but neither gaming nor output on the external display.

As for now, I'll have to see what exactly my problem is. In my edit I wrote that the AMD card also crashed. I don't know what exactly is wrong but it's starting to annoy me. Especially because those crashes seem to appear totally random and can not be reproduced at will. I really hope it's simply my PSU which is dying of old age because if it isn't I don't have any more ideas...

Thank you though.

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OS X is not really a good gaming platform after all. I am much more interested in OpenCL calculation and rendering.

True! One of the reasons I don't mind, that my eGPU setup isn't working in OSX.

I'm not interested in heavy gaming on OS X either. It would have been just nice to not have to replug cables everytime I want to use OS X on my external display. Nvidia cards don't give any output to the external screen in OS X on a MBPr 15" 2014 Iris Pro only, I asked you in another thread where you stated this. Only OpenCL/CUDA calculations could be made with the attached graphics card but neither gaming nor output on the external display.

I am using a screen with multiple inputs and the input signal is set to auto recognition.

For OSX the screen is connect by mini DP -> DP.

For Windows and eGPU the screen is connected by DVI. But the screen is recognized two times in Windows (1st DVI, 2nd DP). To avoid that I simply disabled the mini DP -> DP screen in Windows. So I can just reboot into Windows/OSX and the screen is automatically selecting the correct input signal.

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So, I turned in my R9 280 with coil whining and got a Asus R9 280 Strix. Nice card, which is quiet overall. I also bought a new PSU(Corsair VS550, did not buy the VS450 in case I'll build a desktop again if I can't solve the issue)

Still, and that's the problem, the system crashed again.

So I switched everything except the Akitio board and the Thunderbolt cable and the issue is always the same: crashing graphics driver.

Any ideas?

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Still, and that's the problem, the system crashed again.

So I switched everything except the Akitio board and the Thunderbolt cable and the issue is always the same: crashing graphics driver.

Could please be a bit more precisely?!

Is the whole system crashing -> shut down / reboot?

Or is just the driver crashing -> game stops -> back to Windows desktop?

The last option might be related to overclocked GPUs. I experienced problems like that when I overclocked my card too much.

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Could please be a bit more precisely?!

Is the whole system crashing -> shut down / reboot?

Or is just the driver crashing -> game stops -> back to Windows desktop?

The last option might be related to overclocked GPUs. I experienced problems like that when I overclocked my card too much.

System hangs, audio stutters, FPS decrease. Then black screen on Nvidia, white screen on AMD card. The driver crashes which can be seen in the Event Log of Windows. Sometimes the driver gets restored. It happens randomly even on desktop.

Indeed all of my cards, the old GTX 480, the newer GTX 780 and the freshly bought R9 280 Strix are overclocked by the vendor.

Though if a card is stable on high load for a time and then crashes sometimes in the same game or even on the desktop, is it really the OC? I don't think so. I was running Furmark for 15 minutes without problems.

Can a powered USB hub interfere with the thunderbolt stuff? I have a USB hub attached to my right USB slot of the Macbook so I can attach all the desktop stuff I need. I did not try to remove it and play then or moving it to the leftside USB slot.

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Ive tried a R9 290X (Saphire TRI-X) yesterday with my Macbook and OSX. It gets recognized after editing the .kexts but after about 5 seconds i get freeze or beachball and freeze some seconds after that. I also tried a fresh install of OSX but same problem. Some time ago i was trying it on my W540 with an ASUS R9 290X and it was nearly the same problem in Windows 8.1. It was working and after some seconds i was getting a bluescreen.

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@gothic860: 290X has a different chip than 280X. Did you also add IOPCITunnelCompatible true value for the “AMDHawaiiGraphicsAccelerator” block in AMDRadeonX4000.kext?

@Morv: You might have a faulty riser. I bought a couple extra of them because I got one from eBay that didn’t work. I could try to power AKiTiO with a molex-to-barrel adapter + a powered riser together from the same power source (ATX PSU), and see if that helps to pass the Physics part in 3DMark11 test.

Confirm that you have installed the latest drivers from AMD: Apple Boot Camp Software Graphics Drivers (14.301).

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