William Gallagher
Despite overall feature and performance improvements for external GPUs, the new macOS Catalina is now failing to work correctly with certain combinations of Mac and GPU card.
Apple has been steadily improving how its Macs work with external graphics processing units, eGPUs, and in general macOS Catalina continues that effort. But, with the release of Catalina, some users are finding that their Macs may now no longer drive their eGPUs as expected.
The issue is to do with specific combinations of Mac and eGPUs. From AppleInsider research, it appears that Radeon 570 and 580-based eGPUs are having problems with the Mac mini most commonly affected.
Typical problems reported by many users include an inability to boot up the Mac with a display connected to the eGPU. If the Mac will start with the monitor attached, it immediately restarts. Others report their Macs freezing.
Our own direct testing can confirm that the problems are happening on a Sonnet eGPU with the Sapphire 570 card that was in Apple's own developer's kit from two years ago.
Through both our own testing and the reports of users, AppleInsider can report that Vega 56, Vega 64, and Vega VII cards in any eGPU enclosure of suitable power aren't impacted by the problem. Additionally, an eGPU installed and connected to a Mac, with the display connected directly to the Mac and not through the GPU will still accelerate workflows like video processing with no issue.
Apple has been clear that not all eGPU cards and enclosures will work with all Macs — the most notable omission being anything made by Nvidia. However, Apple also publishes a list of compatible systems and that includes some of the devices currently experiencing problems.
One significant factor in that compatibility list is to do with the power requirements of the eGPUs. However, power does not appear to be an issue here as the same problems with the Polaris-based Radeon 570 and Radeon 580 are reproducible in the Sonnet's 350W and 650W variants.
Currently, it seems most likely that the issue is tied to drivers for Polaris AMD cards, but as yet Apple has not commented.
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
48 Comments
The missing support for NVidia / CUDA is driving me nuts. All I'm asking is an eGPU solution to be able to combine both worlds. Portability and OS from my MBP and fast rendering via GPU. Hell, I'm willing to pay significant money which would probably buy me a PC laptop with a decent CUDA graphics solution or a small desktop with an even better one. If Apple won't move, I just have to get a windows machine not to have to render slowly via CPU.
The entry system with eGPU is a bastardized system that have all kinds of issues both now and in the future.
It is time Timmy & Co get off their high horses and make an affordable Mac that will accept standard cards and standard storage, including user upgradable memory.
It would also really help if the started talking with Nvidia again.
I’ve been wondering about the added complexity of putting the GPU externally to the machine, and wondering if an eGPU could be the workaround for the pathetic thermals of these tiny Apple computers and the desire to do gaming on them (obviously with Windows)...
... and indeed, it all seems like a PITA. It seems that these little boxes are still not the right choice for heavy GPU usage. If you want a full-size computer from Apple, you now get to fork over twice the cost of the already too expensive 2013 Mac Pro. What’s that? If we can’t afford a workhorse Apple computer, that computer isn’t for us? Fine. Show me another Mac that is appropriate. Needs an eGPU... which is currently hackish and unreliable, because Apple seem not to be testing OS features before releasing their latest OS to the public... again.
This is progress at Apple? If they’re going to go this route (using an eGPU add-on as a justification for their anorexic machines being the only semi-affordable offerings), they really must get this eGPU stuff to be simple and reliable. It needs to just work.
Apple has had a glaring disinterest in gaming, and now they want people to pay for a game subscription service. Wait. What? Is there anything in that subscription that even remotely compares to PC gaming? I assume not (?), but I haven’t looked (I have ZERO interest in subscription services). Heavy GPU gaming demands more than what Apple’s anorexic machines can offer, and these eGPUs don’t seem to be a simple solution. I can only assume the games on offer will never be up to par with the offerings on PC. Is that a sustainable model for a gaming subscription?
Third-party eGPUs scare me to death. This is exactly why I am getting a new Mac Pro as soon as it ships! Not sure what configuration yet but whatever it is I know it will 'just work'. I already have a PC gaming machine so I'll have all my bases covered for quite a few years to come.
Steve J would be furious about this mess, and heads would roll.