MMV performance with an eGPU.

[ddr]

HI Guys,
thought this might be of interest to some of you ( especially Macbook Pro users ).

I am still rocking my 2012 Macbook Pro 15" ( 2.6GHZ i7 / 16GB / 500GB SSD & 1TB HDD ) which runs all my audio apps ( Logic, Ableton, etc ) with aplomb.
Where it lets me down is on GPU performance ( it has an NVIDIA GT650m with 1GB RAM ).
I was considering taking out a second mortgage ( or selling a kidney... ) to buy a new MBP when I discovered there is quite an active community of DIYers who build external PCIe enclosures to run desktop GPUs over the Thunderbolt bus.
I priced up a system with an Akitio Thunder2 PCIe chassis and an EVGA GTX960 ( 4GB RAM ) and decided to give it a go.

eGPU.JPG (60.73 KiB) Viewed 5667 times

The half length card fits perfectly in the chassis.
After a few hours of study and debugging I got it working ( https://egpu.io is an excellent resource for anyone interested in trying it out )

To test its performance with MMV I loaded the 'Many Scenes' project and added a 'MASTER' scene to sum all scenes together at once, i figured this would give it a good test and its something any of you could try if you wanted to compare performance.
I set the output resolution to 1280x720 and turned the 'Vertical Sync' off.

MASTERScene.png (159.09 KiB) Viewed 5667 times

On the internal GPU I get an average of around 31-32FPS and the fans blow so hard it sounds like the machine is about to take off...

FPSTestINT.png (222.03 KiB) Viewed 5667 times

On the external GPU I get a nice boost up to 83-84FPS and the machine runs quiet as a mouse.
Thats almost triple the performance compared to the internal GPU.

I have tried a few other OpenGL Benchmarks and get a pretty consistent performance boost versus the GT650m:
FurMark GPUTest (@1920x1080) - Internal 16FPS, External 39FPS
Unigine Valley ( Ultra HD preset ) - Internal 11FPS, External 32FPS

I even get a nice boost in Final Cut Pro X ( which uses OpenCL ):
BruceX FCPX export benchmark - Internal 75s, External 52s

So, while it is definitely a DIY project and there is some minor 'hacking' required, the modest cost compared to buying a new machine ( less than $500 ) is well worth the performance boost I think.
Another side effect is that I now run a 40" screen at full 4K/60Hz resolution.

I think I will get another year or two out of the old war horse yet....

[Magic]

Wow! That's very cool.

there is some minor 'hacking' required

Can you describe this a bit more? I'm curious to know exactly what would be involved.

[ddr]

Hi Eric,
there is some modification of Kernel Extensions required, mostly related to the graphics drivers and to enable recognition of the GPU over the Thunderbolt bus. In order to do this the SIP ( System Integrity Protection ) needs to be disabled as the modified kexts are no longer signed.
I don't claim to understand much of it as there is a script that takes care of most of it available at the www.egpu.io site.
Hot plugging is a definite no go as it will result in an instant Kernel Panic.
I hope that as the scene matures the tools and 'hacks' will become better over time but as is the boost in performance is definitely worth it for me.
I'm not really a Windows guy but there are just as many people having success at this using BootCamp and Windows.

[Magic]

Ok, sounds good, thanks.

Personally, I have two Macs and three PCs that I use regularly, and each system does certain things well, so I don't have too much of a preference. But, for Magic specifically, my honest opinion is that a PC is a better value, especially a desktop -- you get the same performance for less money. I'm just mentioning this in case you do eventually decide to buy a new computer .