External Video Card For Mac
Amazon's Choice for external video card for mac. StarTech.com USB 3.0 to DisplayPort Adapter 4k Ultra HD, DisplayLink Certified, Video Converter w/External Graphics Card - Mac & Windows (USB32DP4K) 4.0 out of 5 stars 132. 99 $87.87 $87.87. Get it as soon as Wed, Sep 4. Make Offer - STARTECH USB to DVI External Video Card Adapter for PC & MAC 1920x1200 -NEW. Mini PCI-E V8.0 EXP GDC Laptop External Independent Video Card Dock For Beast US. Free shipping. Make Offer - Mini PCI-E V8.0 EXP GDC Laptop External Independent Video Card Dock For Beast US. An external graphics card (also known as an eGPU or external GPU) enclosure allows you to house an desktop graphics card, such as the blisteringly fast GeForce GTX 1080, and connect it to your laptop and allow it to run applications or connect to an external monitor with the desktop graphics card.
Many 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks have two graphics processors (GPU)—a discrete GPU and an integrated GPU. The discrete GPU provides substantial graphics performance but uses more energy. The integrated GPU optimizes battery life by using less energy.
Check if the discrete or integrated GPU is in use
To see which graphics cards are in use, choose Apple () menu > About this Mac. The graphics cards currently in use appear next to Graphics. Learn which integrated GPUs your Mac might have.
Check if an app is using the dedicated GPU
To see if an app is using the higher-performance discrete GPU, open Activity Monitor and click the Energy tab. If you don't see the Requires High Perf GPU column, your computer only has one graphics processor.
In this example, iMovie and Final Cut Pro are using the higher-performance discrete GPU:
Learn more
Here are a few examples of apps and accessories that use the higher-performance discrete GPU:
External Graphic Cards For Macbook Pro
- iMovie
- Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign
- An external display
Learn how to use an external graphics processor (eGPU) with your Mac.
Carbon copy cloner download. Learn how to set the graphics performance on your MacBook Pro or MacBook Pro with Retina display computer.
Last week, as the result of a straw poll on Facebook, Village Instruments agreed to begin development of an external Thunderbolt-connected graphics card enclosure. Village Instruments already has experience with its ExpressCard-connected ViDock graphics card chassis, which provides extra GPU juice for Windows and Mac laptops, and the Thunderbolt version is expected to be the same kind of thing — but faster. This would be a Mac-exclusive until 2012 when Thunderbolt ports begin to appear in Windows-powered PCs.
External Video Card For Macbook Pro
A ViDock is simply an external case with enough space for a full-length, two-slot-high graphics card — or eGPU — and a convenient two-port USB hub. The current top-of-the-range ViDock 4 Plus provides up to 225 watts and two six-pin connectors — enough to power an Nvidia GTX 560 — and presumably the upcoming Thunderbolt equivalent will provide the same wattage or even more. Like the Thunderbolt Display it might also provide Ethernet and FireWire connectivity, which would be useful for MacBook Air or other ultralight/ultrabook laptops.
There is no denying the allure of an external graphics card. For as long as portable computers have existed we have chased the laptop that is both powerful enough to play games and also light enough to carry without sustaining a back injury. The ViDock sounds like it could help on both counts, but there are two big problems: The existing ViDock uses ExpressCard, a socket that is only connected to the system bus by 1x PCI Express 1.0, which has a total throughput of 2.5Gbps — enough space for a graphics card that can beat an integrated GPU, but certainly not enough bandwidth for a modern graphics card like the GTX 560. A Thunderbolt version of the ViDock would alleviate this problem considerably, but even Thunderbolt only operates over 4x PCI Express 2.0 — and it isn’t understood whether an external graphics card would get the full 4x — bidirectional 16Gbps (2GB/sec) — or just 2x.
Video Card For Mac G4
Then there’s the need to carry an LCD monitor with you. The ViDock doesn’t allow you to feed graphics data back into your laptop: you need an additional monitor (or two) to reap the benefits of the external, desktop-class GPU. Now, you could carry a secondary monitor with you — but then you could just buy a proper gaming laptop in the first place. It’s better to look at the ViDock as something that you would leave at the office, like the Sony Vaio Z docking station — but again, who plays Crysis at work? And if your job involves 3D graphics, you’re going to use a proper workstation, not a laptop.
In other words, the concept of an external graphics card certainly sounds appealing at first blush, but once you analyze its actual use cases you can begin to see why the ViDock is really the only product of its kind. There’s no doubting that the ViDock 4 Plus and the upcoming Thunderbolt version can provide considerably more processing power for laptops with crippled integrated solutions, but not significantly more than the PCIe Radeon and Nvidia cards found in modern laptops like the MacBook Pro.
Finally, there’s the cost: at $279 for a ViDock 4 Plus, you can be guaranteed that the Thunderbolt version will be at least $300 — and that’s without a graphics card! You are far better off building your own eGPU for around $300 — including the graphics card. There’s also a very cool hack using Nvidia’s Optimus drivers to feed the eGPU’s output back into the laptop’s internal LCD. Who knows how long it’ll be before you can build your own Thunderbolt eGPU, though.
Read more about ViDock and the Thunderbolt-enabled version