2014 Mac Mini [4th,2C,U] + RX Vega 56 @ 16Gbps-TB2 (AKiTiO Thunder2) + macOS 11.1  

 

System:

2014 Mac mini

i7 Dual-core

16 GB Ram

Intel Iris

27" Dell 2560x1440 monitor

MacOS 11.1 (No boot camp)

eGPU:

Whats left of an Akitio Thunder 2, Sapphire Rx Vega 56 PULSE 8GB, everything wired to a Corsair CX550F RGB PSU.  Its not pretty.

 

Installation:

Disabled SIP and Authenticated-Root, Booted into 11.1, ran purge-wrangler, rebooted with egpu hooked up, display attached to mac mini HDMI.  Shutdown, rebooted with display hooked directly to egpu on HDMI.  Up and running.

 

Benchmarks:

Games barley ran before.  The intel iGPU is not for gaming.  Elder Scrolls online ran at about 40fps with everything off @720p.  Far Lone sails was crazy choppy.  

With the eGPU hooked up, running ESO at 2048 with everything on High, getting 51-66 fps (60hz monitor)  I feel there is some cpu bottlenecking, but it does run much better than expected for a dual-core.  Very playable.  Far: Lone Sails runs everything on high.  The RGB PSU is cool somehow.  It needs some cleanup and a case for eGPU.  It's an older GPU, it does have some coil whine, but not intolerable.  Fans don't spin too much on the Vega, it dumps a lot of heat out the top of it.