2013 Mac Pro (FP D300) [3rd,4C,E] + RX 580 @ 16Gbps-TB2>TB3 (Razer Core X) + macOS 10.14.1 [victored]  

@victored In order to have the eGPU connected at boot, use either Thunderbolt Port #5 or #6. They are the bottom two ports. We found it’s more eGPU friendly and don’t cause the boot process to hang.

@itsage

Oh - im going to try that. I am at port 3 (the middle left) right now. I will report and edit the post if it works. 

OMG @itsage ... this is amazing! It worked. Y'all are geniuses 🙂

@victored

Thanks for the post. Am considering trying this egpu set-up, did you use the Pulse or Nitro+ card? Cheers

@timbousm - i have the Pulse. I actually had the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 first but I noticed that it didn’t boost my multi-cam editing on my 2016 Macbook Pro 15” with RX 455. So I tried to go down and save money and got the Pulse RX 580. I am actually happy to save $130 and get very close to the same performance. 

Installing the eGPU to the Mac Pro Late 2013 was just a bonus for Fortnite. LoL

@victored do you think this set-up would assist in FCPX? In built graphics card is seriously straining 🤯

@timbousm

It does help with FCPX. 

Is there any way to attach Thunderbolt monitors to this? I have two of them to drive.

@craigj

What kind of Thunderbolt monitors?

A Thunderbolt monitor needs to be connected to a Thunderbolt port. Connect them to the Thunderbolt ports of the Mac Pro. If the Thunderbolt displays are 5K then you'll need to use a Thunderbolt 3 add-in card like the GC-ALPINE RIDGE or GC-TITAN RIDGE for each Thunderbolt display. You won't be able to use the non-display features of the display (USB, Audio, Camera, etc.).

@joevt

I just have two 27" Apple Thunderbolt Displays of the non-4K variety. Will this (or any) eGPU setup provide a benefit to me if I can't connect the displays directly to the eGPU?

@craigj

Depends on what you want to do. Most tasks that can benefit from an eGPU can do so without having the display connected to the eGPU. For games, the resolution should be less than the max allowed by the PCIe bandwidth of Thunderbolt 2. Usually, a game is played on a single display. The Thunderbolt display is 2560×1440. That should be ok for Thunderbolt 2 which can output to two such displays.

https://egpu.io/performance-internal-vs-external-display/
https://egpu.io/forums/pc-setup/how-much-bandwidth-ovehead-does-optimusx-connect-accelerated-internal-lcd-mode-add/
https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/egpu-performance-internal-vs-external-display/
https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/how-to-egpu-accelerated-internal-display-macos/

@joevt

Thanks Joe, that's my display all right. I'm mainly looking for improvement in overall performance of graphic design related tasks such as Photoshop and complex layouts in InDesign. It's a work computer so I'm not playing games... mainly just trying to extend the life of my 2013 Mac Pro for another eight or ten years.

@craigj
I'm not sure image apps benefit much. Video apps benefit more.

https://petapixel.com/2018/07/18/why-that-699-macbook-egpu-may-be-a-waste-for-photographers/
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2612767

@joevt

Wow, very disheartening, but glad you shared this. Looks like I should save my money and wait until Adobe puts full eGPU compatibility into their CC suite, ID in particular.

FWIW these are the preferences in the five Adobe CC 2019 apps I have installed. InDesign and Premiere Pro don’t show the eGPU while Illiustrator, Lightroom, and Photoshop have it. The host computer is 2019 13″ MacBook Pro (10.14.6).

@itsage

Thanks for this. It would seem that when Blackmagic was developing their eGPU with Apple, no one bothered to consult with Adobe to let them know they were doing it. Adobe learned of it along with the general public when it was released. Hopefully, though, they are working on incorporating eGPU support into future versions of their primary software mainstays, including InDesign. Then I might be back to look at builds. But for the time being, it doesn't seem to be worth hacking the OS and buying hundreds of dollars worth of new hardware for a barely noticeable bump in Photoshop performance.

@craigj

eGPUs have been around much longer than the Blackmagic eGPU. And a GPU doesn't need to be external to be useful. Mac Pro's have had PCIe slots to add extra GPU's since 2007. And you can add as many PCIe slots as you like. The 2013 Mac Pro came with two GPUs where one of them is explicitly meant for compute.

Great site folks, will probably be looking to use the same build here for my Mac Pro, have just upgraded the CPU, the only thing left is the GPU to do

Hello, 

Thank's for sharing all this informations. I am currently working on a late 2013 Mac Pro - 3,7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon E5 - AMD FirePro D300 2 Go

I already upgraded with 32 Go 1866 MHz DDR3, 1 To SSD from OWC

Recently I learned that next versions of After Effects will treat a lot more information through GPU and my AMD FirePro D300 2 Go is obviously yet starting to be old.

I a kind of a newbie in hardware but I am trying to do it myself anyway, learning the most I can.

My only solution seems of course to be the eGPU. I am considering your build for budget reasons which appears sufficient to me.

My questions are: Should I also upgrade my processor to a Intel E5-2697 v2 2.7GHz 12 Core Processor in order to get the most out of the eGPU or is it enough with the current?

I am reading about problems concerning "video" but can't seem to figure out precisely what is the issue, considering I mostly work on After effects/Premiere/Illustrator and photoshop, is it still a good option?

Thank you again for all this precious work, hoping for an answer, 

Best regards!

@victored

how does it run on bootcamp?

@sylvain_fernandez

My apologies for such a late reply. I am curious what you ended up doing. 

but if you’re still thinking about it. I would upgrade to a 10-core 3.0 ghz because you may want a faster single core speed for some apps. 

is it still a good option? Yes! It is a Xeon. I still edit 4K videos with it. 

@konfuzion_tm

I dont run bootcamp on mine so I can’t tell you. Sorry.