DIY eGPU Macbook experiences

[nikyork93]

@eleven: Glad you made it

make sure you check out the specs of the case and your PSU. The RVZ01 can only host small SFX or SFX-L PSUs. Please check out this thread:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/8675-egpu-cases.html

1) Extend the desktops! Most important is to choose the correct main display! That is the one with all the icons and where all apps are starting by default. That screen needs to be eGPU accelerated or you can't play games. With an external display you have to set the external display as your main display. If Optimus is working you can easily test by making the internal display your main display and start sth like Valley Benchmark. Another test is to boot without an external display conencted at all (unplug it from the eGPU!!!!) and test if the internal display has eGPU performance = Optimus.

If Optimus doesn't work, that's when you only have Iris GPU performance, you should install another EFI Bootloader like in my guide (first sentence).

I am using only an external display, because I want to get the best performance and the best quality on the native resolution of my ext. display (1920x1200).

2) I do you coil whine as well. First it was a big problem of the GTX 970 that a lot of people have. I did about 5 RMAs to get a card that has less coil whine / coil buzzing. But I am still not coil whine free

I am not sure if my PSU is causing this or the card. But it's not as audible as in the video you linked.

With your gtx970 have you ever had any problem such as black screen and crash while are you opening games ?

because with mine evga gtx 970 happens everytime

[Dschijn]

No black screens, only that BF4 crashs if I overclock the GPU too much.

[kakashisensei]

The new macbook 12" only has a usb c port. Although the refreshed macbook airs got upgraded to TB2, theres a significant possibility that apple will do away with TB in the long run, similar to what it did with firewire. Most people don't need the bandwidth throughput and pure pci-express that thunderbolt provides. The average consumer prefers convenient devices, which may lead apple to drop TB in all its laptop products. Without apple, TB will fail. Intel and other laptop manufacturers will drop it as well. TB3 may not even see the light of day if this happens sooner.

I don't want to be a doomsayer, but to me it feels TB will be phased out. The only remaining egpu possibilities are proprietary docks or slow 1x/2x connectors to mini pcie ports.

What do you guys think about this?

[Dschijn]

The possibilities of USB 3.1 are awesome!

But I could imagine that Thunderbolt will just stay the way it already is: for the "pro" series (MacBook Pro and MacPro).

The devices for the regular consumer (MB, MBA and Mini) might lose TB.

The biggest advantage that TB has, is that it is a direct PCIe connection. By dropping the classic MacPro with it's PCIe slots, no Mac is left with PCIe slots. But users still need to connect PCIe cards to the Mac (professionals for sure) and that will not be possible with USB.

[Roshambo]

Is anyone aware of or have a resolution to the no-audio problem when using Windows 8 on MBP? It was a known issue with UEFI and I don't know if it was ever resolved.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Is anyone aware of or have a resolution to the no-audio problem when using Windows 8 on MBP? It was a known issue with UEFI and I don't know if it was ever resolved.

Try disabling then re-enabling the audio device in Device Manager. If that solves it then then process can be automated using a batch file to "devcon64 disable [device]" and ""devcon64 enable [device]" (v:\devcon directory in DIY eGPU Setup 1.30), then made as a clickable shortcut on your desktop or added into your startup folder.

[eleven]

@eleven: Glad you made it

make sure you check out the specs of the case and your PSU. The RVZ01 can only host small SFX or SFX-L PSUs. Please check out this thread:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/8675-egpu-cases.html

1) Extend the desktops! Most important is to choose the correct main display! That is the one with all the icons and where all apps are starting by default. That screen needs to be eGPU accelerated or you can't play games. With an external display you have to set the external display as your main display. If Optimus is working you can easily test by making the internal display your main display and start sth like Valley Benchmark. Another test is to boot without an external display conencted at all (unplug it from the eGPU!!!!) and test if the internal display has eGPU performance = Optimus.

If Optimus doesn't work, that's when you only have Iris GPU performance, you should install another EFI Bootloader like in my guide (first sentence).

I am using only an external display, because I want to get the best performance and the best quality on the native resolution of my ext. display (1920x1200).

2) I do you coil whine as well. First it was a big problem of the GTX 970 that a lot of people have. I did about 5 RMAs to get a card that has less coil whine / coil buzzing. But I am still not coil whine free

I am not sure if my PSU is causing this or the card. But it's not as audible as in the video you linked.

Thanks Dschijn I was surprised at how easily everything came together once I got all the parts and using your guide made it really simple.

Bummer :/ my PSU is definitely ATX The next case I was looking was the Cooler Master Elite 130; but you had switched from that to the Silverstone Raven. Were the problems with ventilation bad enough to result in overheating? Also would a 450W supply be enough for the GPU and for the fans in the Cooler Master Elite 130?

1) Okay, so if I wanted to get the best performance out of my external display and eGPU I would extend the displays but make my external monitor the main monitor? Then would I just decrease the brightness on my MPB? Will that not still be drawing some processing power from the eGPU?

2) Yeah I was worried about that I read that you can't really do much about it either... Do you think it would be worth it to do an RMA just to see if all the 960s are like that? Did you feel better after having switched 5 of them or was it more a waste of time? Mine isn't as bad as the video linked either but it is definitely noticeable, especially when it is sprawled out in front of me on a desk. I'm hoping maybe it will be more muffled when its in an enclosure. Do you know if a SFX PSU causes less coil whine than an ATX PSU?

Thanks again!

[Tech Inferno Fan]

2) Yeah I was worried about that I read that you can't really do much about it either... Do you think it would be worth it to do an RMA just to see if all the 960s are like that? Did you feel better after having switched 5 of them or was it more a waste of time? Mine isn't as bad as the video linked either but it is definitely noticeable, especially when it is sprawled out in front of me on a desk. I'm hoping maybe it will be more muffled when its in an enclosure. Do you know if a SFX PSU causes less coil whine than an ATX PSU?

Gigabyte GTX960 (Windforce and Gaming) lowestl noise amongst the GTX960. They both using a 6-phase design. REF: Noise Level And Frequency Analysis - Nvidia GeForce GTX 960: Maxwell In The Middle .

[eleven]

Gigabyte GTX960 (Windforce and Gaming) lowestl noise amongst the GTX960. They both using a 6-phase design. REF: Noise Level And Frequency Analysis - Nvidia GeForce GTX 960: Maxwell In The Middle .

Hey Nando4, I had seen that link yesterday but I wasn't sure what to make of it because there is no EVGA GTX960 card being tested for noise (unless one of the cards is synonymous to it). So I wouldn't be sure if I exchanged my current GPU for the Gigabyte GTX960 that I would necessarily be getting less/more/negligible coil whine.

[Tech Inferno Fan]

Hey Nando4, I had seen that link yesterday but I wasn't sure what to make of it because there is no EVGA GTX960 card being tested for noise (unless one of the cards is synonymous to it). So I wouldn't be sure if I exchanged my current GPU for the Gigabyte GTX960 that I would necessarily be getting less/more/negligible coil whine.

EVGA GTX960 was tested against MSI/ASUS/Gigabyte amongst others at Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 review: ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, Inno3D, MSI and Zotac put to the test - Cooling, noiseproduction and power consumption | Hardware.Info United Kingdom . It was the noisiest! The quiestest being the MSI and Gigabyte Gaming GTX960 cards.

[eleven]

EVGA GTX960 was tested against MSI/ASUS/Gigabyte amongst others at Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 review: ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, Inno3D, MSI and Zotac put to the test - Cooling, noiseproduction and power consumption | Hardware.Info United Kingdom . It was the noisiest! The quiestest being the MSI and Gigabyte Gaming GTX960 cards.

Oh man! Well that is super disappointing... I keep reopening intensive games to determine whether or not I can stand the coil whine... I don't think I can.... my initial reason for going with EVGA is because it has worked in other cases of eGPUs, specifically squink's post mentions how EVGA is good because it will work with optimus out of the box. If I were to go with a Gigabyte Gaming GTX960 card, would there be any downsides aside from having to manually download Optimus for the internal MBP display?

[Roshambo]

Try disabling then re-enabling the audio device in Device Manager. If that solves it then then process can be automated using a batch file to "devcon64 disable [device]" and ""devcon64 enable [device]" (v:\devcon directory in DIY eGPU Setup 1.30), then made as a clickable shortcut on your desktop or added into your startup folder.

Thanks nando. I have tried that, as well as reinstalling the bootcamp drivers, but no luck. Did you have this problem when you tried Windows 8 UEFI on your macbook?

[Dschijn]

Thanks Dschijn I was surprised at how easily everything came together once I got all the parts and using your guide made it really simple.

Bummer :/ my PSU is definitely ATX The next case I was looking was the Cooler Master Elite 130; but you had switched from that to the Silverstone Raven. Were the problems with ventilation bad enough to result in overheating? Also would a 450W supply be enough for the GPU and for the fans in the Cooler Master Elite 130?

The Elite 130 is good, but I wanted to go better and quieter. The Elite 130 provides enough cooling and the card didn't overheat. I switched to the RVZ01 because of the smaller footprint & better direct cooling of the GPU.

450W should be fine, but you need to make sure that the PSU has enough 6/8-Pin PCIe power connectors. Additionally you might check if the PSU can provide enough Amps on the 12V rail to support your card. But the new GTX 9X0 cards don't need so much power.

1) Okay, so if I wanted to get the best performance out of my external display and eGPU I would extend the displays but make my external monitor the main monitor? Then would I just decrease the brightness on my MPB? Will that not still be drawing some processing power from the eGPU?

Because the internal display will be powered by the Intel GPU, all eGPU performance can be routed to the external display directly connected to the eGPU.

In my setup I am using (in Windows 8.1) my external display as the main display and the MBPr display is just extending the screen. By that gaming is done on the external display and the internal display is used to monitor my GPU and CPU with Intel XTU and MSI Afterburner. With the Bootcamp drivers installed I can reduce the internal screens brightness to 0% (it turns black).

There is no major performance difference with using the setup this way.

2) Yeah I was worried about that I read that you can't really do much about it either... Do you think it would be worth it to do an RMA just to see if all the 960s are like that? Did you feel better after having switched 5 of them or was it more a waste of time? Mine isn't as bad as the video linked either but it is definitely noticeable, especially when it is sprawled out in front of me on a desk. I'm hoping maybe it will be more muffled when its in an enclosure. Do you know if a SFX PSU causes less coil whine than an ATX PSU?

Currently I am not aware of Coil whine problems of the GTX 960 series. I had so many RMAs because it is a big problem of the GTX 970 series. EVGA released an improved GTX 970 FTW, the GTX 970 FTW+ with a better power management and less coil whine.

You should also know that almost every card has coil whine! But GTX 9X0 cards are audible especially with high FPS. How many FPS you get in games? Most display are 60Hz displays and more than 60FPS are useless on that screens. So a framerate limit of 60FPS will reduce the load, temp and noise of your card. In general the coil whine gets louder and a higher pitch at high FPS (like in game menus with FPS beyond 200+ FPS).

EVGA is offering a good service and they might help you.

SFX PSUs aren't better, because the manufacturers have limited space inside a SFX case. ATX PSUs are the best way to you, but cheap PSUs might be more sensitive to coil whine.

[eleven]

The Elite 130 is good, but I wanted to go better and quieter. The Elite 130 provides enough cooling and the card didn't overheat. I switched to the RVZ01 because of the smaller footprint & better direct cooling of the GPU.

450W should be fine, but you need to make sure that the PSU has enough 6/8-Pin PCIe power connectors. Additionally you might check if the PSU can provide enough Amps on the 12V rail to support your card. But the new GTX 9X0 cards don't need so much power.

Do you recall how many 6/8-pin PCIe power connectors you needed for the fans? My PSU only has one 6-pin PCIe then the GTX960 card came with a 6 to 8 pin cable adaptor that splits the 6 into two 8s.

Because the internal display will be powered by the Intel GPU, all eGPU performance can be routed to the external display directly connected to the eGPU.

In my setup I am using (in Windows 8.1) my external display as the main display and the MBPr display is just extending the screen. By that gaming is done on the external display and the internal display is used to monitor my GPU and CPU with Intel XTU and MSI Afterburner. With the Bootcamp drivers installed I can reduce the internal screens brightness to 0% (it turns black).

There is no major performance difference with using the setup this way.

Ahhh okay that makes sense. I had read around on some forum where someone said that the internal GPU was disabled but I thought that sounded odd especially when you are booting up your CPU running the internal GPU first.

Currently I am not aware of Coil whine problems of the GTX 960 series. I had so many RMAs because it is a big problem of the GTX 970 series. EVGA released an improved GTX 970 FTW, the GTX 970 FTW+ with a better power management and less coil whine.

You should also know that almost every card has coil whine! But GTX 9X0 cards are audible especially with high FPS. How many FPS you get in games? Most display are 60Hz displays and more than 60FPS are useless on that screens. So a framerate limit of 60FPS will reduce the load, temp and noise of your card. In general the coil whine gets louder and a higher pitch at high FPS (like in game menus with FPS beyond 200+ FPS).

EVGA is offering a good service and they might help you.

SFX PSUs aren't better, because the manufacturers have limited space inside a SFX case. ATX PSUs are the best way to you, but cheap PSUs might be more sensitive to coil whine.

From listening to it yesterday it is quite bad. I know that all cards have some coil whine but I think even if I enclosed my eGPU and put it under my desk I would still hear the whining. It actually might be as bad as the video I linked. I was trying this on Witcher 2 and it would be the most noticeable once you got into the game, although in the game menu at ~130-140 it was still there (just less annoying). On high settings ~50-60 fps it was bad and V-sync was on. Turning off V-sync makes the whine way, way worse. I have the benq xl2411z monitor and I can get 144hz refresh rates with the monitor which is nice but is probably contributing to the coil whine. I am going to try to RMA the card and switch it for a Gigabyte GTX960 G1 that Nando4 pointed out, as it is supposed to be one of the quieter 960 GPUs. I just hope that I can RMA my card from NCIX.com because it has been almost a month since I ordered the card because I was waiting for other components to come in before I realized this.

[Dschijn]

Do you recall how many 6/8-pin PCIe power connectors you needed for the fans? My PSU only has one 6-pin PCIe then the GTX960 card came with a 6 to 8 pin cable adaptor that splits the 6 into two 8s.

What? ^^

Fans can easily get the power from a simple molex (4-Pin) connectors. The amount of required 6/8-Pin PCIe connectors depends on your GPU… you should know how many connectors yor card has/needs.

A splitter of one 6-Pin to two 8-Pin is nonsense, Sorry. guess it is 2x6-Pin to 1x8-Pin?!

From listening to it yesterday it is quite bad. I know that all cards have some coil whine but I think even if I enclosed my eGPU and put it under my desk I would still hear the whining. It actually might be as bad as the video I linked. I was trying this on Witcher 2 and it would be the most noticeable once you got into the game, although in the game menu at ~130-140 it was still there (just less annoying). On high settings ~50-60 fps it was bad and V-sync was on. Turning off V-sync makes the whine way, way worse. I have the benq xl2411z monitor and I can get 144hz refresh rates with the monitor which is nice but is probably contributing to the coil whine. I am going to try to RMA the card and switch it for a Gigabyte GTX960 G1 that Nando4 pointed out, as it is supposed to be one of the quieter 960 GPUs. I just hope that I can RMA my card from NCIX.com because it has been almost a month since I ordered the card because I was waiting for other components to come in before I realized this.

1. Can you make sure if it is a) from the GPU or from the PSU

2. If you want to switch to another brand you have to contact NCIX.com. If you want to keep the EVGA you should go with a RMA directly at the EVGA homepage.

A big german website tested 5 GTX 960s and the EVGA GeForce GTX 960 Super Superclocked was the 2nd quietest card. No clue what the review linked from nando measured… :/

[eleven]

What? ^^

Fans can easily get the power from a simple molex (4-Pin) connectors. The amount of required 6/8-Pin PCIe connectors depends on your GPU… you should know how many connectors yor card has/needs.

A splitter of one 6-Pin to two 8-Pin is nonsense, Sorry. guess it is 2x6-Pin to 1x8-Pin?!

Wops, yes it is 2x6 pin to 1x8pin. I thought you meant that I needed to use the 6-pin PCIe to power the fans for the Cooler Master Elite 130.

1. Can you make sure if it is a) from the GPU or from the PSU

2. If you want to switch to another brand you have to contact NCIX.com. If you want to keep the EVGA you should go with a RMA directly at the EVGA homepage.

A big german website tested 5 GTX 960s and the EVGA GeForce GTX 960 Super Superclocked was the 2nd quietest card. No clue what the review linked from nando measured… :/

1. Yes I am 100% sure it is from the GPU just because everything is so spread out. Right now, I have my PSU sitting on a stand next to the desk and my GPU on my desk it is very clear that the noise is from the GPU and not the PSU.

2. Seriously...?! Now I'm wondering if I just have have a card with loose capacitors... could you link the website to the german comparison? I can see how well google translate works. The website linked by Nando said:

"In idle, the fans on all six cards are at a standstill. Seeing as we can't register coil-whine, we note the lowest possible value our professional sound meter can measure: 17 dB(A). Under load the MSI card is clearly the quietest of them all: we measure an average of 27,5 dB(A) which is virtually inaudible. The Gigabyte card is about as silent though, at 30.4 dB(A). ASUS trails and procudes 36.5 dB(A), followed by the Zotac and Inno3D cards which produce slightly more noise. The EVGA card is the only noisy card with 53.8 dB(A) at 10 centimeters, which is too much for a GTX 960 in our opinion."

They say they "can't register coil whine", and I don't know if they mean below a certain decibel that they cannot register coil whine OR that their equipment cannot pick up the frequency of coil whine at all meaning that they are measuring the sound made by the fans.

If the german website mentions that they can test coil whine, I might have better luck going with a RMA with EVGA as opposed to NCIX.

[Dschijn]

5x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 im Test

[jtomes123]

Hi I was able to get echo pro thunderbolt to expresscard for cheap, could someone point me to an egpu solution for 2014 Macbook pro 13".

[guill96]

Hello, i got 2141 with 51.2 fps with a msi gtx 970 and a macbook pro 15" late 2013 with a gt 750m in Unigine Valley benchmark 1.0

It's a good result for a egpu ?

I dont know anything about benchmark on windows!

Thank you

[Dschijn]

@guill96: In OSX? Benchmark Settings?

[guill96]

Humm i was using this config in windows 8.1 pro:

Render:	Direct3D11
Mode:	1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset	Extreme HD

FPS:	51.2
Score:	2141
Min FPS:	24.1
Max FPS:	98.9

[h]

System

[/h]

Platform:	Windows 8 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model:	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4850HQ CPU @ 2.30GHz (2294MHz) x4
GPU model:	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 9.18.13.4788/NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 9.18.13.4788 (4095MB) x1

[h][/h]

[Dschijn]

Seems fine!

[clasper]

I am aiming to replicate Dschijn's 15 inch setup. He seems to be using the 2.5 ghz cpu, but it seems as though there's a big boost from the 2.5 ghz 4870 to the 2.8 ghz 4980

I think the same may be true for this year's 15 inch, so I'm wondering if I should splurge to upgrade all the way to the 2.8 ghz iris pro model for that extra physics score boost? Or will the CPU strain only a worry for the 13 inch MBP and lowering voltage as Dschijn does would take care of any demanding processor applications?

I was also curious, offhand, what kind of weight this setup might have? I was mostly considering eGPU for portability versus a hackintosh, but it looks like they may end up weighing the same given the weight of the raven's case.

[Dschijn]

The main problem is the cooling setup of the MBPr. Without any adjustments the cooling can't keep the CPU under 100°C and keep the boost up.

The upgrade to the 300MHz faster i7 is (imho) too expensive, but if you don't mind the money... go for it

Overall the i7-4980HQ will have a 300MHz faster boost with any load, but the undervolting will extend the time the boost can be kept.

Regarding the size of the eGPU setup: There are smaller cases, the Raven is just "slim" and close to the size of the Sonnet III-D.

[R-U-S-S]

Hi all, first off thanks to all the members here I have found your advise invaluable over the last couple of years!

I currently have the following setup and thought I would post here in hope to get some advise and feedback once again.

Magma Expressbox 3t (thunderbolt 2)

nVidia GTX 750 ti

Cheap mac compatible USB card

2 x 256GB SSDs

2 x USB 3 to SATA adapters

I have been using this setup successfully in a plug and play setup with both a Macbook Air 11" 2013 and a 13" Macbook Pro 2014 with optimus working on the MBP using the grub boot loader.

I have today however taken delivery of a new 2015 13" MBP to which I eagerly connected my eGPU, alas whatever I do I cannot get the GPU detected in windows, the USB card and devices are functioning fine but no GPU!

Looks like Apple may have changed something (probably EFI) to block Thunderbolt GPUs?

If anyone one is able to provide any assistance on trying to get this working I would be grateful. I have 14 days before I will return this is I can't get it working so I am happy provide any EFI register outputs etc if it helps.