#External graphics card for macbook pro#

#External graphics card for macbook pro#

Despite these issues, the Blackmagic eGPU is an essential tool for anyone with Apple’s MacBook Pro in their office arsenal, especially if you’re handling graphic-intensive work on a day to day basis. If this is the price to pay to double your MacBook Pro’s graphics capabilities then, well, I’m all for it.

Likewise, if you try to plug it into another Thunderbolt 3 port on any other device, it simply won’t work – it’s locked to the MacBook Pro. This presents serious issues for future-proofing, especially since the included Radeon Pro 580 graphics card is well over a year old at the time of writing. While other graphics enclosures can be fitted with practically any graphics card on the market, you can’t open this one up and tinker with it. In fact, you would have saved more than a few quid, too.įinally, and perhaps most importantly, this external GPU can’t be upgraded. You wouldn’t be faced with these issues if you’d just decided to buy a laptop fitted with one of Nvidia’s Max Q graphics chips like, say, Dell’s recent XPS 15. Weighing 4.5Kg with a footprint of 177 x 177 x 294mm, you won’t be slipping the Blackmagic into your rucksack anytime soon. Second is that the Blackmagic eGPU takes up a fair amount of space on your desk, and isn’t all that portable. This can be rectified if you buy a longer 2m cable for roughly £50 from Amazon, but this isn’t ideal if you’ve just splurged on a brand new GPU. For one, the supplied USB-C Thunderbolt 3 cable is only 0.5m in length perhaps a little too short for many office desk setups. There are a few notable downsides, however. Despite the flashy internals inside our top-end configuration – a 2.9GHz Intel Core i9-8950HK processor and 32GB of DDR5 RAM – the 15in MacBook Pro is seriously let down when it comes to graphics-heavy processing tasks, but not anymore. Putting it through its paces, then, it’s clear that the Blackmagic eGPU provides serious oomph for your MacBook Pro. Likewise, the Blackmagic eGPU is powered by a regular kettle lead connection. There’s also an HDMI 2.0 output for hooking your laptop up to an external display, and a total of four full-fat USB 3.1 connections. On the back of the device, you’ll find two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports – one of which is used to connect to your MacBook – with transfer speeds of up to 40Gb/s. A soft pool of light lights up the underside of the eGPU when it’s plugged in and powered on. The thermal grill on the top dissipates heat (more on that later), with a super-quiet variable speed fan inside. It certainly looks rather sci-fi, matching the MacBook Pro’s gunmetal aesthetic. Its chassis is constructed from a single block of aluminium with an anodised finish. This might not be the speediest card on the market, but it’s a serious step up from the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 chip inside both the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros.

If you didn’t already know, the Blackmagic eGPU is an external graphics accelerator powered by an 8GB GDDR5 Radeon Pro 580 graphics card, which is clocked at 1.2GHz.