
Apple egpu macbook air upgrade#
But the good news is that you can continually upgrade and replace these graphics cards to give your Mac even more of a boost as graphics tech improves. Keep in mind that for each of these, the pricing is for the enclosure alone - you’ll have to add your own eGPU to make it work. Here are a couple of Thunderbolt 3 eGPU enclosure options out there for those considering this upgrade path, and the relative merits of each.
Apple egpu macbook air software#
But for anybody looking to extend the life of their existing Mac for a few more years to wait and see how the Apple Silicon transition shakes out, updates from Apple and key software partners make an eGPU a great choice.
Apple egpu macbook air driver#
But while Apple has directly sold a few eGPUs, and natively supports AMD graphics cards without any special driver gymnastics required, it’s still mostly a niche category. These have very high throughput, making it possible for a GPU in an internal enclosure to offer almost as much graphics processing capability as one connected internally.

Existing Macs with Intel chips will still be useful long after the transition is complete, however, and software porting means they might even support more of your existing favorite applications for the foreseeable future, which is why adding an external GPU (eGPU) likely makes more sense now than ever.Īpple added support for eGPUs a few years ago, made possible by the addition of Thunderbolt 3 ports on Macs. And while new Intel-powered Macs will be released and sold leading up to that time, it does mean that the writing is on the wall for Intel-based Apple hardware.

That process is meant to begin with hardware to be announced later this year, and last two years according to Apple’s stated expectations. I think it's safe to say that eGPUs will NOT be compatible with Apple Silicon Macs.Apple recently announced they would be transitioning their Mac line from Intel processors to their own, ARM-based Apple Silicon. Also, it looks like the Blackmagic eGPU on the Apple Store page has removed the M1 MacBook from the compatibility list. But I will leave all these edits up for posterity’s sake.Įdit 3: It's been a few hours and I'm now seeing multiple reports that eGPUs are not supported. So I’m gonna go with a tentative “yes” that Apple Silicon will support eGPUs. It was a link to this article from Apple Insider: Įdit 2: Looks like someone found the Blackmagic eGPU officially has the M1 MacBook listed on the Apple store page. Sad day though :(Įdit: For some reason the commenter's post was deleted. For short links use the reddit markup (link) If your post isn't visible it's probably because of an short/affiliate Link. Comments should be on-topic and contribute to the conversation.Ĥ: No short, ref and affiliate links. We typically lock approved links to sales to enforce the no-discussion rule.Ģ: No sensationalized, misleading or non-descriptive titles.ģ: Keep discussions civil and respectful.


Discussing a sale in comments is not allowed - Take it to PMs or to the linked sale medium. We are not a trading subreddit, and do not want to have to deal with the fallout of potential sale issues in our community.ġa: You are allowed to promote your sale of eGPU equipment via ebay, /r/hardwareswap, or other means, via a link to your sale. 0: Posts must be related to eGPUs (External Video Cards).ġ: Please no selling/trading of eGPUs, video cards, power supplies and other hardware.
