2016 15" Macbook Pro (RP450) [6th,4C,H] + RX Vega 64 [email protected] (Razer Core X Chroma) + macOS 10.14.5 & Win10 1809 [itsage]  

Posted by: itsage

Once the steps above were completed, my 2016 15" MacBook Pro works just like an Intel iGPU-only laptop in Windows. This has multiple advantages. First is the ability to use AMD XConnect for internal display acceleration with an Radeon eGPU (or Nvidia Optimus with a GeForce eGPU). Second is better battery life on the go. The Radeon Pro 460 dGPU can be re-enabled if needed. The modified graphics drivers from Bootcampdrivers.com would allow one set of drivers to work for both dGPU and AMD eGPU.

Lovely post yet again. Thank you. A minor point which may help some users looking to use these steps to extend battery life.

During PC notebook battery discharge monitoring using batterybar, disabling a dGPU's hosting port in Device Manager as your describe resulted often in a substantial increase in idle discharge power. It seems that then the AMD/Nvidia driver no longer had access to the dGPU to put it in sleep mode.

Maybe worth double-checking if it's best to enable the dGPU hosting PCIe port when mobile?

Your firestrike GPU/graphics score is amazing, for reference a good Vega 64 air scores around 26.5K on a desktop

Also the HBM voltage acting as a voltage floor for vCore is actually 951mV IIRC. Not a big deal anyway since your P6/7 are well above that.

Posted by: itsage

For a Mac user, it doesn't get much better than a liquid cooled RX Vega 64 eGPU.

How would iMac Pro's Vega64X compare to it? I would guess about the same.

@nando4 As always, thank you for your insight on technical assesment. I will use it off the charger in the coming weeks with and without dGPU disabled to observe battery life. One feature that does not work when the internal display attaches to iGPU is brightness adjustment.

@gareth_rees I'm very happy with the performance of this setup. Would you care to elaborate on further fine-tuning through Wattman? I'd like to squeeze more performance out of it if I can.

@oliverb While the Vega 64 options in iMac Pro have twice the amount of VRAM, they are certainly down-clocked. The cooling system is not comparable either. At the current OC state, the RX Vega 64 LC eGPU posted over 14 teraflops single precision vs 12 in the iMac Pro's Vega 64X. It's likely clocked to 1475 MHz (1475*2*4096 = 12083 GFLOPS). I'd say it's more closely matched to the Radeon Pro WX 9100 as seen in AIDA64.

It's really up to you but you can right click where it says p7 state max, disable it and use p6 @ 1782 1170mV. Also set hbm to 951mV.

You also have more headroom as that card goes to 1250mV. It's your court and that vega 64 is actually within 8% of a stock R VII. Just need to be careful as upping the voltage also ups the clocks without changing the clock value. That means start by increasing the voltage and if its stable increase the clocks. Also vega has a vdroop of 50mV so 1200 is really 1150.

@itsage
of course, I see. Pro Vega 64X is just an approvement over iMac Pro's Pro Vega 64. Both cards are down-clocked because of "weaker" cooling system (albeit very quiet and very stable with lower clocks).

I have purchased an RX Vega 64 LC and have installed it in the Razer Core X Chroma.

I'm in the processor testing it. Luxmark tests are solid, Geekbench is crap but that appears to be normal as the app is becoming worse on macOS. Unigine tests have crashed so far. I think the GPU might have excessive power draw for the Chroma. I can't figure out any other reason.

@craftsman Check the vBIOS switch position. Mine came with it in the safe/back position and it wasn't running stable. I switched to the front position and the card runs much more stable.

@itsage

This is the settings I received. 

Those switches are lighting controls of the load meter (by the PCIe power cable plugs). The vBIOS switch is located on top of the card by the hoses. You can see it in this photo. When I took this photo the switch was in the safe/back position. I've since moved it to the front.

I added an extra image above. My VBIOS switch was on the left position towards the bracket, which appears to be default. Should it be left or right?

That looks right to me. You can switch it to the other position and see whether the crashing stops. If the GPU wasn't new, I'd recommend flashing the original firmware to it just to make sure. You can only do firmware flashing when this vBIOS switch is in the front position (as your photo shows).

I should do that. The previous owner may have changed the defaults.

Everything solid with the VBIOS in energy saving mode and there's no real performance loss. Valley benchmark completely stable. Previous owner must have changed the default BIOS.

I've finished my tests and will publish the build now.

This Razer Core X Chroma + RX Vega 64 LC setup has been running great. One improvement I wanted to make was cool air intake.

I took off the front fascia (mounted by 5 T10 hex screws). To my surprise the four mounting holes lined up perfectly to a 140mm cooling fan.

The stock mounting screws and nuts from the Core X Chroma were barely long enough to install a spare cooling fan I had. Rubber pins would be the best option imo. Here it is in action.

@itsage That's awesome. If we could find a base stand or 3D print one then this could still work in vertical position with air flowing upwards.

@itsage I Put a 140mm intake fan on the front too. It's running 1-2C cooler in tests but performance is the same.

@craftsman That's good to hear. I think airflow from the front mounted fan helps the PSU more than the GPU.

Core X Chroma did'not work fine on my Macbook pro
The eGPU work fine，the lighting  is on, but the USB ports and NIC of Core X Chroma not working properly on my MacBook Pro 15 2017 later, i don't konw why.