System specs
- 2017 15'' Macbook Pro Touchbar with Intel Core i7-7920HQ@3,1GHz, 16GB RAM, Radeon Pro 555 and Intel HD Graphics 630
- MacOS Mojave 10.14 and Bootcamp Windows 10 Pro (1809)
eGPU hardware (eGPU enclosure, video card, any third-party TB3 cable, any custom mods)
- Sonnet Breakaway Box 550
- Asus Radeon RX Vega 56 ROG Strix 8GB OC (standard clock)
- Acer Curved 27'' 1920x1080 144Hz FreeSync monitor
Comments:
I like the minimalistic design of the Breakaway. I don't need any other ports beside the one USB-C TB3. As mentioned somewhere else the USB-C port is bad in that way that the USB plug does not fully go into the port, looks and feels just wrong. When in idle mode you only slightly hear the PSU fan (which is the one only running), want to replace it later maybe.
I went for Vega 56 due to Plug&Play support on MacOS, now okayish prices and better cost-performance ration compared to Vega 64 cards. Didn't do any overclocking so far. Everything is known about the card (noise, heat) and i can unfortunatelly confirm the coil whining, in my case at the beginning if the card is not yet warm. Disclaimer: it could be the PSU of course as well, didn't check that so far.
Hardware pictures
Installation steps
Hardware: Pretty straight forward since i didn't do any mods (yet). Due to the length of the Vega card (just 2cm space left) i had to remove the big case fan (see pictures above) and slide in the card diagonally. Added the fan again afterwards. My plan is to replace that fan with a better (more quite) fan later. Also the PSU could be better.
MacOS: Plug&Play since Radeon drivers are pre-shipped already. Works with both internal and external display(s). The performance of the drivers is not as good as on Windows 10 (see benchmarks later).
Windows 10: A bit more work. I cleaned the Bootcamp Radeon drivers using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU). Installed the Vendors Amd Radeon Drivers 24.20.11016.4. In this forum i was reading to disable (not uninstall) the Microsoft Basic Display Adapter (aka iGPU). The result is a working setup with external display only (which is ok for me under Windows).
Benchmarks
3DMark 2.6.6174 (will share later)
Windows 10
MacOS
Comments
All my games are runing fine on Windows BUT but EA games (aka Origin) don't. Battlefront 1 and Battlefield 1 are complaining that AMD driver version is 0.0 while it should be x.y. That seems to be a general problem search the web and also some hints in this forum show same issues (but unfortunatelly didn't help). Something i have to get fix 😡
I compared the setup with an AORUS GTX 1070 Gaming Box which had around 8%-10% better benchmark performance 🙄
I will replace the big case fan with something more quite later since when running its very loud compared to the GPU fans.
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), 3,1 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3, Radeon Pro 555 2048 MB, Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB + 8GB Asus Radeon RX Vega 56 ROG Strix OC + Sonnet Breakaway Box 550
I have a Vega 56 too and just did some tweaks in Wattman that yielded 10%+ gains, might be worth it for you too? Struggling to find the guide I used, might have saved it in Windows...
@eightarmedpet if you can find it that i would be very much interested! I was reading that you can get it easily up to +10%, of course with temperature and power consumption increase, but hey its Vega anyway 😆
MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), 3,1 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3, Radeon Pro 555 2048 MB, Intel HD Graphics 630 1536 MB + 8GB Asus Radeon RX Vega 56 ROG Strix OC + Sonnet Breakaway Box 550
@benjamin_benson I prob won't be in Windows for a few days but will defo hunt it out when I ma... worst case I will screen grab my Wattman settings... actually I think I can actually even send you the XML file which you can load up.
This is excellent. Can’t wait for my Asus Vega 56 ROG OC to show up this week. Might be putting my old second 23” display in used next to the 30” I use now. Hopefully the DVI with work with the 30”
MacBook Pro 2015 15” 2.5 GHz
I got my setup working. A little issue with the 30" monitor getting the green dots distortion but unplugging and plugins the monitor cord fix this for now. Soon I will post the build
MacBook Pro 2015 15” 2.5 GHz