But there's clearly a lot of work ahead.Ĭheck out Apple's official eGPU support page for a list of the computers, graphics cards and eGPU enclosures that currently work. Official Apple support is a major milestone toward that goal. (Search that page for 'The Ugly' to see a chart depicting just how much worse.)Īfter playing with the Razer Core eGPU and a pair of thin Windows laptops, I'm personally super excited about a future where eGPUs could make traditional desktops obsolete. According to the eGPU experts at egpu.io, performance on MacOS is far, far worse than with the same eGPU running on Windows.You'll need to plug in an external monitor to see the benefit.Apple presumably could discourage or block third-party graphics cards or eGPUs with. In basic terms, an eGPU effectively is just a box with PCIe slots and one or more video cards. Apple only supports AMD graphics cards right now. If an Apple Silicon-based tower Mac supports a PCIe-based video card, it would not be much additional work for Apple to also support eGPUs across the Mac line, either. Just know there are still a few catches right now: Technically, the feature had been kinda-sorta enabled in MacOS since High Sierra first launched, but this latest update brings official compatibility for a host of external GPU enclosures and AMD graphics cards, plus the abilities to hot-swap and/or safely disconnect an eGPU by tapping a button in the operating system.

That day has arrived: MacOS High Sierra 10.13.4 now officially supports eGPUs, letting you plug a box containing a desktop graphics card into a laptop or all-in-one PC to drastically up its graphics performance and hook up additional monitors. yet.Īpple promised it would let you tap into the power of an external graphics card with your late-model MacBook Pro, iMac Pro and 2017 iMac. Neither it nor this Nvidia GPU officially work with Apple computers. The Razer Core, an external graphics box for Windows laptops.

Apple egpu cards