As an Apple fan, I rarely get the luxury of options.
If youre like me, none of these are ideal.
I like to tinker.
Take the display of the iMac Pro.
Its beautiful; but I dont want it.
Im willing to sacrificesomeresolution to keep using the 34-inch Acer Predator ultra wide Ive fallen in love with.
Being an all-in-one, though, I dont get that option.
Im going to pay for the screen whether I want to use it or not.
Theres the MacBook Pro.
Its newly upgraded, and a powerhouse in its own right.
But its still a laptop.
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When Apple announced external GPU support at last years WWDC, my heart skipped a beat.
Theres a lot to like about Blackmagics eGPU offering.
Its the first of its kind to support Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C monitors, although these are still semi-rare.
Which, for anyone that owns that monitor, is great.
For everyone else, youll need to grab a display port adapter and hope for the best.
It certainly works on other monitors.
Looks-wise, its about as good as it gets.
Its also whisper quiet.
So quiet, in fact, I routinely found myself checking the GPU monitor to ensure it was on.
Inside theres a non-upgradeable AMD Radeon Pro 580 GPU with 8GB of VRAM.
Unlike the Razer Core and other comparable models, you cant swap the graphics processor for a beefier card.
This, for lack of a better word, is a bummer.
Setup is a breeze.
It was, literally, plug and play.
Plug and play, though, was pretty much limited to my MacBook recognizing it existed.
So I turned to Google.
There was nothing to allow me to prioritize Blackmagics card.
But it didnt really matter.
The eGPU, while supported, was optimized for almost none of the programs I use most often.
Theres some truth to this statement.
Support for eGPUs on Apple devices is lagging, and sometimes non-existent.
Its not a Blackmagic problem; the company seems to have nailed its end of the deal.
This is a marketing problem.
These simply arent ready for primetime, support-wise.
Its a $700 machine that, currently, doesnt seem to offer much in the way of upside.
But for me, this, and most other eGPU models, are still just really expensive hubs.
Theres not enough bang for the buck to warrant a recommendation at least not yet.
Where I did see an obvious benefit was in gaming.
Fortnite, for example, was nearly unplayable on even medium configs with just the MacBook Pro.
It was definitely playable though.
When switching to High, it maintains its playability but adds a bit of lag.
I declined the invitation for two reasons.
I hope thats not the case, anyway.
Were still in the earliest stages of eGPU support.
Over time, as developers latch on to their potential, well see the benefits of these devices.
Story byBryan Clark
Bryan is a freelance journalist.Bryan is a freelance journalist.
