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External Graphics Card

Tig-71Tig-71 Posts: 17
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Just looking for a bit of advice.  I have a Macbook Pro that's only a few years old.  I've been using DS4.9 for about a year...The only thing I wished was faster rendering.  It takes about 8 hours to get 1000 iterations for a 1920x1080 image.. My images usually have 1-2 characters in it.. yada yada..

I am thinking about a Bizon Box.. which is an external GC made for Mac's.  Will one of these make a big difference in render times and quality?  I know it depends on which one you get but Im thinking about getting a NVIDIA GTX 1080 Ti, 11 GB, 3 DP, HDMI (3584 CUDA Cores).. 

Would love some input.. If anyone has any.. maybe get something less powerful?  More powerful?  Will it even make a dent in my render times?

Thanks in advance to all the vets out there.

Comments

  • agent unawaresagent unawares Posts: 3,513

    A 1080 Ti will make a huge difference in speed and you should be able to fit 1-2 characters easily.

  • EsemwyEsemwy Posts: 578

    I'm using a 980 Ti in a Akitio Node, with a USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter on an older Macbook Pro. I'll upgrade to a 1080 Ti when I get my iMac in a month or so. The Node is cheaper than the Bizon Box, and has a more capable power supply. I bought mine off Amazon. 

  • Tig-71Tig-71 Posts: 17
    edited September 2017
    Esemwy said:

    I'm using a 980 Ti in a Akitio Node, with a USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter on an older Macbook Pro. I'll upgrade to a 1080 Ti when I get my iMac in a month or so. The Node is cheaper than the Bizon Box, and has a more capable power supply. I bought mine off Amazon. 

    Awesome!  Thanks Esemwy..  How's the Rendering Speed?  I was on the website and it says the Node isn't compatible with MacOS or Bootcamp.  (I wouldn't and don't use Bootcamp anyway).. I of course am not doubting you in the least.. but how are you using it?  Is it the adapter?

    Post edited by Tig-71 on
  • Tig-71Tig-71 Posts: 17
    Esemwy said:

    I'm using a 980 Ti in a Akitio Node, with a USB-C to Thunderbolt adapter on an older Macbook Pro. I'll upgrade to a 1080 Ti when I get my iMac in a month or so. The Node is cheaper than the Bizon Box, and has a more capable power supply. I bought mine off Amazon. 

    Also.. did you buy the card separate and put it in yourself?  

  • highpasshighpass Posts: 2
    edited September 2017

     

    The Node is a great unit, I run 1080 Tis in them and have never had an issue. The Thunderbolt adapter is to go from Thunderbolt 3 (on the Node) to Thunderbolt 1 or 2 (on 99.9% of Macs). You also have two options to run it, either a) headless as a second card, or b) as the primary card using either 1) an external display or 2) the internal display via adapter. There are ups and downs to each approach.

    It's really very simple to get going, have a read up on eGPU.io for more information. The people there are glad to help. 

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,128

    Oh!  It can attach to the Thunderbolt 1 on my late-2013 (last NVidia model) iMac??  If you can confirm this really works (realizing the transfer times will not be the greatest), I am very interested!

  • SombraVegaSombraVega Posts: 6

    I have an iMac 2017 5K, and love to work in daz studio, but the renders take forever, so I have been trying to find the way to make those renders take less of my time, and I just saw that there are some new eGPU on the market, but i don't know if they'll work on my imac and specifically with daz studio. Do you know if they'll work? which one is the best for a iMac 5K 2017 on High Sierra? Thanks in advanced.

  • Kaleb242Kaleb242 Posts: 344

    I've heard the throughput on the older Thunderbolt 1 or 2 is not high enough to support external GPUs, ideally you should use USB-C (Thunderbolt 3).

    However, this hasn't stopped many enthusiasts from coming up with hacks to make it work...
    appleinsider.com/articles/18/04/11/egpu-support-for-nvidia-gpu-plus-thunderbolt-and-thunderbolt-2-connections-arrive-with-pair-of-hacks

    I have a Sonnettech eGFX Breakaway box with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti inside it, connected via USB-C to a Mac Book Pro that has 4 USB-C ports (and a dozen missing dongles).

    "Official Thunderbolt-connected external graphics card support is limited to macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 (and greater) and Thunderbolt 3 equipped Macs."

    @SombraVega — you can definitely connect an external GPU with your hardware. You're on the right macos version for official support, and have two USB-C ports in your system.

    egpu.io/setup-guide-external-graphics-card-mac/
     

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