Which external graphic card for MacBook Pro

[Jacques Sorgniard]

I just got a macbook pro with 32 g of ram, 256 of memory and the 4g Radeon in it.

 

For archiviz, which external graphic card should I get?

[Francisco Penaloza]

Well, that depends on what you want the video card for.

If it is only for monitors, then the one on your Computer should be ok, unless you want to run a couple of 4K large monitors.

 

If you hope to use for GPU rendering then you may not have much performance gain because most of the GPU render engines are based or mainly use CUDA code and that is NVidia territory.

 

Apple closed the option for NVidias video cards in their Macbook line up which is a bad option IMO.

[Jacques Sorgniard]

It is actually for all the work from modeling to rendering. I really was hoping that I could plug and play an external card with more memory. That's bad news...

[Francisco Penaloza]

What render engine do you use? and what 3D App?

if you are using Cinema 4D(Since you are in a mac) then AMD card should work fine, Cinema OpenCL is very efficient. Better than 3D Max Direct x IMO. Also in Cinema 4D you could use AMD pro render that will work fine with an externals video cards.

Sketchup kind of get confused if you are using external monitors, but overall it also should work with an external video card.

[Jacques Sorgniard]

Thanks for taking the time! I'm on Blender and I'm quite happy with Cycles but I plan to maybe work with Unity for my renders in the future

[Francisco Penaloza]

I know people like Apple's computer, for some reason, but honestly, most of the technology is moving in a different direction than what Apple is going to, When you buy a Mac computer as a workstation, you need to understand the sacrifices you will have to deal with it, and depending on what you do as profession then those sacrifices are not worth the investment.

 

 

"AMD OpenCL GPU rendering is supported on Windows and Linux, but not on macOS."

 

Quoted from this link.

[Jacques Sorgniard]

I use it primarily for my music production work and it can work for months and months without any problem. I can't say that about Microsoft. I was hoping I could avoid buying a pc to do both on the same machine. Thanks a lot, that was really useful. Now I know where to go

[Jacques Sorgniard]

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMQT2VC/A/blackmagic-egpu-pro

 

So there is an option for those who want to stay on Mac... Or I can build it myself...

 

But I guess this won't fix my GPU rendering...?

 

Quite a dense jungle for beginners

Edited December 5, 2019 by jacquessorgniard

[Jacques Sorgniard]

Here you go

 

[Francisco Penaloza]

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMQT2VC/A/blackmagic-egpu-pro

 

So there is an option for those who want to stay on Mac... Or I can build it myself...

 

But I guess this won't fix my GPU rendering...?

 

Quite a dense jungle for beginners

Building it yourself may be a hit and miss, Apple cut all corners so the user has to buy only their authorized products and nothing else.

 

 

For any external GPU system you need to check with your software if it will work with an external GPU, not all of them do that. If you find that Blender will play along with that eGPU then go ahead and use it, be inform yourself first.

Most of software developer list all hardware compatibility for their software.

 

 

BTW I used to be an apple user too, long time ago but because of the advances in software I had to move a head to a hardware that was more compatible with my profession and be able to get more bang for my bucks.

I use CUBASE and many VST's on Windows system never had major issues, about the same that I had when use apple products.

But of course it all depends of what and how you do it right?

Best luck.

Edited December 7, 2019 by fco3d

[nancysummers]

I just got a macbook pro with 32 g of ram, 256 of memory and the 4g Radeon in it.

 

For archiviz, which external graphic card should I get?

 

I am also going to buy Macbook Pro in January. It is also interesting to know the feedback from participants

[Jacques Sorgniard]

I am also going to buy Macbook Pro in January. It is also interesting to know the feedback from participants

 

So after reading tons of posts and articles, after calling AMD and Apple a few times, if you want it to be your workstation for architecture, I wouldn't go with Apple. I posted this because I already have a Mac and I won't sell it for a fraction of his price. Also being always on the go, I'm not into buying a second machine. But!

 

If you still want to go that road, my conclusion is to get the best processor you can and lots of RAM on the MBP, especially if you're gonna work on complex scenes.

 

For the rest, having read a lot about various configurations and considering the fact I'm using Blender, I recently decided to go with the Sonnet 650 and for the card and for my budget, I'm still hesitating between the Sapphire Vega 64 and the AMD WX 7100. I guess the higher memory clockspeed of the WX 7100 makes it a good option for VR, animation etc but I think I will go with the Vega because lots of people talk about their perfectly working configuration with it and I'm having hard time finding reviews of MPB / Sonnet / WX 7100.

 

The Radeon pro WX series is designed for visualization, according to their architecture and engineering page on their website.

 

So maybe someone can help with this dilemma here...?

 

Cheers!

 

EDIT : also last thing, because of this openCl recent conflict with Mac, in Blender, no choice but to work with RadeonProRender instead of the built-in render engine Cycles

Edited December 26, 2019 by jacquessorgniard

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