Apple released 10.14.4 Developer Beta 3 [18E194d] today. It's not plug-and-play with AMD Radeon VII just yet. I decided to try an older trick when RX 480 first released, borrowing the personality of a supported card. In this case RX Vega10 was the one to use and it worked. The Radeon VII can now function like a natively supported eGPU in macOS 10.14.4 beta. This same trick should allow it to work inside a Mac Pro tower.
System specs:
2018 13" QC MacBook Pro - i5-8259U/Iris Plus Graphics 655 iGPU/8GB RAM/512GB SSD
eGPU hardware:
Razer Core + PowerColor Radeon VII + 2m Thunderbolt 3 cable
Hardware pictures:
Installation steps:
I'm pairing the Radeon VII with the original Razer Core which has the unsupported TI82 USB-C controller. First order of business was to run @mac_editor's Purge-Wrangler to whitelist this TI82 block. Once this is done the Thunderbolt 3 connection was working. Next step was to add the Radeon VII's PCI ID into the appropriate kext to allow the drivers to load. AMDXRadeon5000.kext was the one to inject 0x66AF1002. Run permission repair then restart and it should work.
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Benchmarks:
Here are some benchmarks. Luxmark showed all 60 compute units with strong performance.
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Comments:
Even though the drivers are not finalized, this Radeon VII looks to be a computing beast. Not sure why AMD pushed it as a gaming card. Also it does not seem to suffer from power-related crashes like the RX Vega 64. I've used the Radeon VII with ASUS XG Station Pro and Razer Core and no issues so far.
• external graphics card builds
• best laptops for external GPU
• eGPU enclosure buyer's guide
2021 15" ASUS TUF Dash F15 [11th,4C,H] + RTX 3080 @ 32Gbps-TB4 (AORUS Gaming Box) + Win10 2004 // my 3rd RTX 3080 build [build link]
Do you have your BIOS updated?, i'm thinking that we would need UEFI support for it to boot with Mac no?
2018 Mac Mini Core i7 8700B 32GB RAM 512GB SSD + Razer Core X + AMD Radeon VII
Great!! I’m quite sure 10.14.4 will officially support it!
MacBook Pro 13" 2020 Touch Bar M1 8-core CPU 8-core GPU - 16GB unified memory - 512GB PCIe SSD
MacBook Pro 13" 2020 Touch Bar i7 quad-core 2.3Ghz - 16GB RAM - 1TB PCIe SSD
my awesome Radeon VII eGPU
my Mantiz Venus extreme mod with Sapphire Nitro+ RX Vega 64
2018 13" MacBook Pro [8th,4C,U] + Radeon VII @ 32Gbps-TB3 (Mantiz Venus) + macOS 10.15 [build link]
I recall @mac_editor has kept track of typical macOS updates and .4 version brings major changes. This is shaping up well for Radeon VII driver release.
• external graphics card builds
• best laptops for external GPU
• eGPU enclosure buyer's guide
2021 15" ASUS TUF Dash F15 [11th,4C,H] + RTX 3080 @ 32Gbps-TB4 (AORUS Gaming Box) + Win10 2004 // my 3rd RTX 3080 build [build link]
@itsage thanks! i was able to make it work with MBP 2017, however i'm not getting the beta update for my mac mini 2018, did you get it for yours?
2018 Mac Mini Core i7 8700B 32GB RAM 512GB SSD + Razer Core X + AMD Radeon VII
I no longer have the 2018 Mac mini. I tried this kext edit on 2018 13" and 15" MacBook Pro. They both worked. The Macs must be enrolled to Developer Beta.
• external graphics card builds
• best laptops for external GPU
• eGPU enclosure buyer's guide
2021 15" ASUS TUF Dash F15 [11th,4C,H] + RTX 3080 @ 32Gbps-TB4 (AORUS Gaming Box) + Win10 2004 // my 3rd RTX 3080 build [build link]
@itsage Good find. The first to get Radeon VII going on macOS. One could use a codeless kext to accomplish the same (slightly neater IMO).
purge-wrangler ✧ tbt-flash ✧ purge-nvda ✧ set-eGPU
Insights Into macOS Video Editing Performance
Master Threads:
2014 15-inch MacBook Pro 750M
2018 15-inch MacBook Pro
2019 13" MacBook Pro [8th,4C,U] + RX Vega 64 @ 32Gbps-TB3 (Mantiz Venus) + macOS 10.14.6 & Win10 [build link]
This is great! Does the Radeon VII works in bootcamp as an XConnect GPU?
X1 Yoga Gen3, X1 Tablet Gen 3, MacBook Pro 15" 2018
Razer Core X / Mantiz Venus
Asrock Radeon VII, Zotac Nvidia 1080Ti Amp Core Extreme, Powercolor Vega 56 reference (flashed to V64 bios)
This is great! Does the Radeon VII works in bootcamp as an XConnect GPU?
Yes it does, I'm using it with my mac mini 2018, and let me tell you with FFXV running at 3440x1440 vsync on and Max settings (wtihout nvidia tech) it runs between 52-60fps (i have an overclock in the card) but before with my vega 64 it was in 33-42 fps
2018 Mac Mini Core i7 8700B 32GB RAM 512GB SSD + Razer Core X + AMD Radeon VII
Thanks Juan! I'm currently using Bootcampdriver for no fuss Vega 64 support in bootcamp, for this you installed the official AMD driver?
X1 Yoga Gen3, X1 Tablet Gen 3, MacBook Pro 15" 2018
Razer Core X / Mantiz Venus
Asrock Radeon VII, Zotac Nvidia 1080Ti Amp Core Extreme, Powercolor Vega 56 reference (flashed to V64 bios)