
Sonnet Radeon RX 570 eGFX Breakaway Puck.


What graphics cards are compatible with Mac?.So marginal that many reviewers suggested it is not worth the cost of the BlackMagic unit and users should spend money elsewhere (most suggested ideas were assembling or procuring other less expensive eGPU options).Īpparently macOS Catalina has native support for eGPUs so at least no special driver add-ons are required (or so the reviews suggest).Īll being said, it is your machine and your decision. But when compared to Macbooks of the same era that have the inbuilt Pro 580, the eGPU only has marginal improvements in performance. Performance-wise, yes it will be a noticeable improvement over the Intel iGPU HD 650-ish graphics of the Macbook. In so doing, the GPUs can be swapped out as warranted or desired (provided there is OS support for the upgraded GPUs). Yes, the BlackMagic unit is Apple-ready plug-n-play, but is that worth its cost? One can assemble their own eGPU using recent video cards and cases, or even assemble a complete low-budget PC that can be better performing for Firestorm that costs less than this BlackMagic eGPU unit.

The cost of the unit in question is many times more than the cost of the RX 580 by itself, though one can assume the additional cost consists of the engineering of a commodity GPU into a non-upgradable premium Apple-only device add-on. The BlackMagic unit is not upgradeable, so it must be entirely replaced when the need for stronger graphics is warranted (or the unit dies). I would instead investigate alternative eGPU arrangements using much newer GPUs and probably at much less cost. Having spent an hour or so reading and viewing reviews of the eGPU, if it were me, I would not get the BlackMagic unit if performance is the only goal.
