eGPU for Steam games?..

[Faberge]

Is there anyone currently using eGPU for gaming on Mac? With current TB3 ports and eGPU support improvement in Mojave that option might become popular. Althouh the results are controversal, I mean in terms of how much you need to pay for FPS increase.

[BNO]

This is hard to answer in a general way, because a lot depends on the Mac computer you are using in conjunction with an eGPU. One general rule you can apply is that the more powerful GPUs like GeForce 1080+ will suffer due to the Thunderbolt 3 bandwidth compared to a proper internal install on a PCIe 3.0 x16 Slot.

I for example am running a 2018 MacBook Pro 15" with the 6-Core i7, 32GB RAM and the Radeon Pro 560X and just this week added a Radeon RX 570 as an eGPU to my home setup. I recently sold my Gaming rig since it was collecting dust most of the time and for most Games I am normally playing the Radeon Pro 560X worked just fine. But here and there I enjoy to play some more taxing titles like GTA V via Bootcamp or even Everspace on macOS and for those the 560X was a bit to slow.

As eGPU box I picked the Zotac Amp Box Mini and the Sapphire Pulse RX 570 8GB. Both combined are about 400 Euro / 460 USD. I still have to test on Windows and macOS with a Metal supporting Game. I tested with Heaven Benchmark and got a drop of about 20%, but Heaven still is using OpenGL and not Metal. In the past I have ssen roughly the same frame rates for example in Rocket League when running it on Bootcamp compared to macOS, but I haven't compared it with the eGPU yet.

[Ivanovsky Krussia]

nice

[lantinian]

I would love to know the result you get in Everspace. What setting you play on when you run the game the External GPU?