Oscar J

Yup, that's the feature I'm talking about. I really want to be ready for the upcoming pure GPU rendering. See this forum post about the issue with NVIDIA graphics: Indigo Renderer Forum • View topic - Best graphics for the forthcoming GPU rendering Good to see you're familiar with Indigo! I'm the car rendering guy on there.

So has anyone tried one of these Cubes? 180 W PSU and support for graphics cards for just $495 is a pretty good deal, no?

I would use a 700 or 900 series NVIDIA card if it weren't for the fact that NVIDIA's card are limited to using 25 % of the available VRAM under OpenCL rendering (probably to make developers move over to CUDA, idiotic). Since the main reason for me to buy new graphics is rendering in Indigo, which boasts an OpenCL GPU rendering mode, I really need a minimum of 3 or 4 GB of ram for my heavies scenes. Quadro cards with 12 GB are definitely out of my budget, and would still give me less headroom memory wise than a 200$ 270X 4GB. Man, this is frustrating.

Yes, but from what I've seen, most users have reported instability with AKITIO + riser + AMD graphics. No?

Thanks for clarifying. Since I have to mod the enclosure no matter what, eGPU seems to be a no-go for me.

I know, but I don't have the tools nor the time to mod the AKITIO unit, so it's worth the extra 110$ for me. My question is: if I get a more powerful PSU, would I be able to use a more power consuming graphics card without risking breaking any components in the Helios?

Posting this here as well: Is there a risk that I'll blow any components in the OWC Helios if I use a 170W graphics card (R9 270X)? Is the included 120 W PSU really the only bottleneck keeping us from using higher power cards in the enclosure?

Is there a risk that I'll blow any components in the OWC Helios if I use a 170W graphics card (R9 270X)? Is the 120 W PSU really the only bottleneck keeping us from using higher power cards in the enclosure?

I googled molex-to-xyz adapter, but didn't seem to get any relevant results. Could you be a bit more exact? I'm an absolute rookie with these things.

What modifications do you reckon I'd have to do except for a more powerful PSU? Surely it can't be that simple?

If I haven't got the tools or the time to mod the Thunder2, and instead buy the OWC Mercury Helios, what would I need to do to run an AMD R9 card (170W+)? Or would it be unstable just like the Akitio is with AMD cards?

Would it be possible to make this work with an R9 AMD graphics card? Or is it the same story as with the AKITO? Is there a risk that I'll blow any components in the OWC Helios if I use a 170W graphics card (R9 270X)? Is the included 120 W PSU really the only bottleneck keeping us from using higher power cards in the enclosure?

Thanks for testing! If you want to play a youtube video while using your eGPU, can't you just use your internal display accelerated by the internal graphics? Oh, and do you think my internal display would be accelerated, even though I've got dedicated 6750M graphics?

goalque: Is the 280X stable under Mac OS X though?

Morv: have you been doing any further testing in OS X? Are the stability issues there too?

Interesting. I'll probably wait until the AMD 200 series has been tried in OS X for a longer while to ensure the Akitio + AMD combo is stable. When I'm rendering, I'll have scenes standing overnight to clear up - so 100 % load for 10+ hours.

My bad, should have mentioned that I meant a budget solution (like the Akitio Thunder2). From what I've seen there has been problems with stability with AMD cards on the Akitio? Good to see that you managed to get it working though! Did you use a powered riser?

Any news on AMD external GPU's on MacBooks in OS X?

Yeah, but the number of people who have tried Akitio + AMD graphics seems to be countable on the fingers of one hand. And I've heard at least two complaining about stability issues.

Well, thank god I didn't buy the Akitio + R9 270X then. Guess I'll have to wait for a more capable thunderbolt enclosure to be released.

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.

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...

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.

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

Hi all, I own a 2011 15" MBP on which I do a lot of 3D rendering jobs. The i7 CPU is fine, but when it comes to GPU rendering, the 6750M card doesn't quite cut it. I am therefore considering upgrading to external graphics. The thing is - it has to be an AMD graphics card, since they allow a much bigger VRAM allocation in OpenCL rendering than NVIDIA cards. Therefore I'm considering on an AMD R9 270X 4GB edition - decent amount of memory for a reasonable price (as a student, I don't want to spend too much money on something I'm not sure will work). I am a rookie at computer hardware, the most difficult thing I've ever done was changing a hard drive in an iMac. Therefore I'm interested in the easiest possible setup without spending too much money (aren't we all though?). Will it work plug and play under OS X? The two parts I know that I need are the Atikio TB2 enclosure, and obviously the graphics card. XFX's version of the 270X is only 8,7 inches long, which means it'd theoretically fit into the Atikio case. I'd appreciate it if you guys could share a few Amazon links of the rest of the gadgets I need - PSU, cables, riser (not sure if I need it - will it fit in the case?) and any other stuff that I'd need to make this work. Thanks in advance! Oscar