TechManAsh

Which Mac Mini model did you end up choosing?

That is what it showed for me, when i had web driver set to OS X Default Graphics Driver. To fix this i simply just set web driver to to use NVidia Web Driver. Do you have PCIE connectors inserted to your eGPU? Your eGPU probably wouldn't even be located in OS X without them in though.

Have you tried entering recovery mode and disabling System Integrity Protection (SIP) via terminal with "csrutil disable" and restarting your Mac?

Hi, Have you tried setting Nvidia Web Driver to use Nvidia Web Driver only instead of OS X Default Graphics Driver in Nvidia Web Driver preferences? Make sure you have the right Web driver installed, Goalque’s script should automatically download, modify and install correct web driver for you. This is what it did for me. Make sure you press "y" on every question the script asks.

You are getting PCIe Gen 2.0 signalling issues. This is because your EXP GDC Beast is not strong enough to run your eGPU at PCIe Gen 2.0. You must have gotten a lucky month like i did with the EXP GDC Beast and no problems. Unless you have very minimal power running through wherever you live, you will get power spikes continuously to the PSU and Beast.. The only way to avoid this is to get a PE4C v3.0 or set your mPCIe port to Gen 1.1 through modded bios or if you sign up for TechInferno membership, you can get DiY eGPU Setup 1.30 to set this. Even then the PE4C v3.0 is bound to give you the same issue, though will greatly reduce the chance of it happening. Your hardware is definitely not failing. I recommend the PE4C v3.0 as setting to PCIe Gen 1.1 does quite drastically reduce frame rates and in games that are bandwidth hungry, your performance is going to seriously suffer.

Yea man, bugger the 5 year old 2012 mac mini, and get going with thunderbolt 2. Definitely get an 8-16gb RAM 2014 Mac Mini instead of base model, for more modern games. And get an SSD with Mac instead of HDD, SO much faster! You will be much more happier knowing you went with a more up to date mac.

Did you ever end up fixing your problem?

Very efficient, i mean both power usage and horsepower. You won't even need an overly powerful PSU to power a eGPU, as you are only powering it and not other desktop components. If this answers your question correcly? A few questions are: are you running your eGPU @ PCIe x1 Gen 1.1? This i found had a huge impact on all of my games running with eGPU on EXP GDC Beast V8. Have you tried running any other games? Maybe those games are broken on AMD Polaris GPU? Or PCIe bandwidth bottlenecking is occuring as those games may be PCIe Bandwidth hungry?

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying.

Nice, you will be very impressed with performance with the i7 6770HQ CPU, and (if you get) eGPU combo. I will recommend that you team that CPU up with a GTX 1060 or better for such damn good results, in the latest blockbusters. No kidding you will definitely get 1440p performance in games like Battlefield 1. Like i said, definitely get an Akitio Thunder3 as you will harness the powerful bandwidth that thunderbolt 3 has to offer.

Firstly, AMD cards are really messy when it comes to drivers and clocks/power usage. Someone i know who had a R9 380 Gigabyte gaming 4gb, had relentless amount of problems, they tried clockblocker, which didn't even help. It still stuttered and closed in games with visual artifacting, tried changing amd settings, reinserting the gpu into PCIe slot, though none of this worked. The only way to fix was to simply just go NVIDIA GTX. NVIDIA, i well know for their excellent driver support and optimized drivers. Can you tell me your GPU brand, and tell me the steps on how you setup clockblocker.. perhaps you did it wrong? Maybe you should think about swapping for an NVIDIA Card? Cheers!

Try Guru3D Clockblocker. http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/clockblocker-download.html

The GTX 1050 sure will be a big jump from 850m! Though, you are being limited to x1 Gen 2.0 connection, which is quite the bottleneck. IF you go with EXP GDC Beast, be prepared for common signalling issues with PCIe Gen 2.0, unless you are in a house where power isn’t used much with other electronics. If you go with PE4C V3.0, sure you may get less signalling issues, but either way, you are still bound to get the signalling issues. You may even need DIY eGPU Setup 1.30 for problems and workarounds with TOLUD problems and Anti-Whitelisting. I would strongly recommend GTX 1060 or above for getting decent results with todays games. E.g. Gears of War 4.

Hi, which NUC model is yours? Thunderbolt 3 is way more powerful than the previous thunderbolt 2. 20GB/s of bandwidth with thunderbolt 2 vs 40GB/s thunderbolt 3. Thunderbolt 3 performs at PCIe x4 Gen 3.0 beating thunderbolt 2 at PCIe x4 Gen 2.0. This is a really big difference for games. I’d go with the thunder3 (IF your NUC supports it) as it will only be a bit more than the Aktitio Thunder2. It is really worth it. Importing really is fast, i got my Rocketstor delivered from USA in about 4 days. So importing is no issue, unless you are not prepared to spend the extra for shipping. I do recommend the thunder 3. I’d say from what i have read, there is no big difference in major fps gains between PCIe Gen 2 and 3. So its all cool. It mostly comes down to horsepower of GPU. Not the PCIe get 2/3 difference.

I chose to get a RocketStor 6361a as i didn’t want to have to get a molex to barrel adapter that i would have had to use with other thunderbolt 2 chassis. I just use my PSU Molex connectors with the internal molex connections inside the chassis instead, with paperclip trick. on the 20+4 pin connector. I really have loved it so far. Such good results!! Thanks, this led me in the right direction of eGPU build.

I actually decided to get a Late 2014 Mac Mini, as i wanted the ease of plug and play with thunderbolt eGPU. And OS X. EXP GDC and PE4C eGPU solutions aren’t even worth it in the long run, as you get signalling issues, and a bottlenecking x1 get 2 connection. Even if you can get x4 get 3.0, they just aren’t easy plug and play like thunderbolt. Needing to pull apart a computer just to plug in a connection, is not worth it. From what i have experienced, EXP GDC is ok, until you harness the power and ease of thunderbolt, and you will really think that these eGPU solutions are just simply cheap and nasty. Get a laptop or something different with a thunderbolt port. Mike means he flashed a bios update to get an x4 get 3.0 connection going with his eGPU.

Hello, I would really like to know why i am getting such poor performance in Borderlands GOTY (Mac) even with it running on a GTX 960 eGPU inside OS X El Capitan 10.11.6. Every other game i have been playing has worked flawlessly. Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider. I have tried settings all settings to low, which doesn’t even improve the fps much at all., and isn’t even worth playing. I am thinking that the problem comes down to how I’m using 10.11.6 with a game that requires 10.6.8. Others on MacGameStore.com have had success with running the game, though not sure if they were running it on 1.6.8. I won’t be setting up a Boot Camp as an alternative for better performance. Thanks!

Update: I am now playing Borderlands 2, Tomb Raider 2013 and Bioshock Infinite at 1600p maxed out in 10.11.6. This i am achieving by using DisableMonitor.app application, and disabling intel HD 5000 display output, and setting GTX 960 display output to 1600p manually. I would go even high resolution but i can’t go any higher than 1600p unfortunately. This does make my 10.11.6 desktop look very non clear to view, but when i am not gaming i set resolution back to 1080p. Certainly did not expect this performance from Mac with OpenGL, simply outstanding!!

Here is my eGPU build with Rocketstor 6361a over thunderbolt! Guide: Removed outer shell of Chassis, and bent the chassis slightly to fit in a Asus Strix GTX 960 Pulled out the original molex connectors and connected my own 550w PSU Molex connectors. Inserted GPU into PCIe x16 slot, insert PCIE 6 pin connector to top of eGPU, and insert HDMI connection from eGPU to tv, and thunderbolt cable from chassis to Mac Mini thunderbolt 2 port. Do the paperclip trick, bent paperclip to fit into green and neighbouring black wire holes in 20+4 pin PSU connector, to get PSU started without motherboard. Start up PSU and turn on Mac Mini. Ensure that Rocketstor is Detected. Once it is detected, i rebooted into recovery boot and disabled CSRUTIL from terminal with csrutil disable. Rebooted mac again and ran Goalque’s AUTOMATE-EGPU.sh with sudo from terminal.app. Pressed “y” every time terminal asked for it. Rebooted Mac Mini, and needed to enable NVIDIA Web Driver since eGPU was only listed as “PCIe GPU” in system information under Graphics/Displays. After set to NVIDIA Web Driver, rebooted and VOILA!! Could barely run Borderlands 2 and Tomb Raider 2013 on Intel HD 5000 at 720p which is pretty filthy, but what do you expect with HD 5000 eh? Now can run both games swiftly at 1080p with high to ultra at really good fps. This was done in OS X El Capitan, I’m looking forward to running some sort of VM with PCI Passthrough soon. My eGPU Build Over thunderbolt 2 with HighPoint Rocketstor 6361a.

Hi, If i was to use a Akitio Thunder2 PCIe Expansion Chassis with a GTX 960 Strix 4GB on a late 2014 Mac Mini, how big would the performance improvements be in OS X El Capitan over the HD 5000 iGPU? Specifically in Games such as Borderlands 2 or Tomb Raider 2013? Very unsure of the performance boost with eGPU as game is rendered with OpenGL API in OS X. Would using a Hypervisor with Xen and Windows inside OS X with eGPU using PCI Passthrough be a better choice? This is the 1.4Ghz, 4GB RAM Mac Mini Model. Thanks.

Hi, If i was to use a Akitio Thunder2 PCIe Expansion Chassis with a GTX 960 Strix 4GB on a late 2014 Mac Mini, how big would the performance improvements be in OS X El Capitan over the HD 5000 iGPU? Specifically in Games such as Borderlands 2 or Tomb Raider 2013? Very unsure of the performance boost with eGPU as game is rendered with OpenGL API in OS X. Would using a Hypervisor with Xen and Windows inside OS X with eGPU using PCI Passthrough be a better choice? This is the 1.4Ghz, 4GB RAM Mac Mini Model. Thanks.

Hi, Wondering about MSI Cubi 2 Plus with i5 6400T barebone pc, if i was to get it: If i used PE4C v4.1 M key to PCIE with MSI Cubi 2 Plus' M key slot, would i get PCIe Gen 3.0 x4 connection with eGPU? (GTX 960 Strix) Or would it be 4 lanes at PCIe Gen 1? If not could i use DIY eGPU Setup 1.30 to achieve this result on this model? If anyone else has used this PC with eGPU please let me know what it is like. And please let me know if i have got this all wrong. Thanks

Is your refresh rate set to 30hz on your internal display?

Significantly faster boots with UEFI is the answer you are looking for. From what I have read, you can potentially get different eGPU error codes or other problems with using a different bootloader. There is no magic such as FPS increase with games or anything like that. My GTX 960 works perfectly with both Legacy and UEFI boot. Not sure about even more recent GTX cards, though I am guessing they should be fully backwards compatible with Legacy boot.

Of course its possible to get gen 2 with mPCIe just depends on the laptops motherboard, and with EC, you will get Gen 2.0 with EC slot 2.0. Any electronic that is being used for example; phones charging, gaming consoles turned on, TVs in use, dryer on. Celing lights turned on cause the issue to happen when turned on and off. Turning these off as much as possible whenever not needed stops signalling issues completely, and while i use them i put my laptop to sleep . The EXP GDC Beast from what i am experiencing is completely capable of delivering PCIe Gen 2.0. Though if you live in a neighborhood that is full of heavy power users all the time, this will not help.