Is anyone getting better viewport and rendering power with an eGPU on a Mac?
My late 2017 27" iMac with 32Gb RAM is enough for me to produce illustration and game assets but I see the viewport slow down with big scenes in Eevee and the system with big renders.
So I am thinking of getting eGPU with an Radeon W series card or a Vega?
In this post in the eGPU Builds forum the builder has had no problem with a Razer Core X enclosure and Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX Vega 56 8Gb card running with a late 2018 Mac Mini running 16Gb ram.
Although you don’t get the CUDA multi-core render boost of an Nvidia card, I read in this Best Computer Build for Blender guide that this card will give you power for things like large scenes and/or high-rez modelling, like detailed sculpting.
The power in this setup for sculpting is something I am very much considering.
I a moving to Windows 10 with RTX 2080.
We can compare our Mac systems to the blue bar since Cycles only runs on the CPU. So CUDA would already make a huge difference for us and now with RTX the difference is ridiculous. Eevee is GPU supported but I highly doubt an RX5700XT or higher will make a big difference.
For 3D Mac is a no go! Even though I can run games very well so these systems are capable their priority is definitely not supporting 3D artists.
Good luck!
I’ve also been using Apple for a long time. It’s been a really tough road trying to learn 3D so a Windows (or Linux) might be a possibility. I’m very tired : )
Thanks for your reply @Snowy
Yeah there is no way around it anymore I’m afraid, if you are serious about 3D then Mac is out of the question. Build yourself a much cheaper desktop for 3D and use the laptop for all other work.
I will not recommend spending money on eGPU, to me that is wasted money. How much are we looking at here anyway, over 1k for eGPU and enclosure? Meanwhile a pc user with a much cheaper and lower end Nvidia card wipes the floor with your iMac plus eGPU.
Good luck mate!
Yes, around AU$1400 for only part of the benefit.
Go a bit more, and as you say, I can have the lot in a proper 3D workstation, with a second graphics station.
Cheers @Snowy