Hence, support for Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt eGPU enclosures is not officially supported.ġ3-inch MacBook Pro users need to make sure that they utilize the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the left side of the machine for best performance. The common thread here is that each of these Mac computers feature Thunderbolt 3 support, a requirement for eGPU setups. This is very good news for those of us who don’t wish to connect an external display, but your favorite app’s developer will need to get behind eGPU support. Apple notes that this capability is opt-in, and will need to be enabled by the app’s developer. The internal display on a MacBook Pro or iMac can be accelerated by games and apps that choose to support built-in display acceleration. Final Cut Pro X now supports VR headsets, and an eGPU allows editors to monitor 360-degree video via an HTC Vive. eGPUs are also useful for connecting supported VR headsets, like the HTC Vive, to the Mac. One notable use case of an eGPU is for connecting one or more external displays, especially a high resolution display with a high refresh rate. What’s even more interesting is that the Mac can support multiple eGPUs simultaneously, which opens up lots of possibilities for applications that can take advantage of the processing power provided by such a setup. Games are the obvious application, but machine learning applications also stand to heavily benefit.

eGPUs are able to accelerate apps that use Metal, OpenGL. Why use an external GPU?Įxternal GPUs provide extra graphics processing power for graphics-intensive applications. If you’re considering adopting an external graphics setup, then you definitely want to be familiar with Apple’s published requirements. Apple has published a new document to help users navigate the ins and outs of eGPU support, including a list of eligible Mac hardware, external graphics enclosures, and GPUs. Today Apple released macOS 10.13.4 to the public, bringing official external graphics support to the Mac.

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