4 ms·

I have never seen a single review or benchmark of eGPUs that was impressive.

by forrestthewoods 4y ago

rektide 4y ago
I've never seen a review that had any real issue with them? They performed fine everywhere I saw.
- lmeyerov 4y ago
  We mostly want this for development of CUDA apps, not even super worried about performance. Increasingly, I'm thinking just a mobile eGPU Ubuntu node you plugin and ssh into, and just a nice remote setup...
- forrestthewoods 4y ago
  It’s hard to even find a review with gaming benchmarks. A quick search and I’m not sure any eGPUs are even being made? All the reviews seemed to be from 2019. It’d be awesome if eGPUs provided high throughput and low latency. But it really doesn’t seem like that’s the case.
  - izacus 4y ago
    There are whole sites dedicated to eGPU reviews so I'm not sure what are you looking at?
    - forrestthewoods 4y ago
      Share links.
      - oneplane 4y ago
        http://egpu.io http://egpu.io
        forrestthewoods 4y ago
        Their #1 rated eGPU is from 2018. They don't measure latency. Their gaming FPS benchmarks don't list either resolution or quality settings, when they're even available. Their top 2 eGPU recommendations for mac don't contain benchmarks when running on mac. Yeah, the eGPU market is a disaster and the review quality is terrible. I personally wouldn't touch eGPUs. Which is a shame because I absolutely adore the concept.
        oneplane 4y ago
        I used an Akitio Node 3 with RX580 for years, works fine on macOS, Linux and Windows on both Thunderbolt 2 (reduced performance) and Thunderbolt 3. Only reason I stopped using it is because I used it less and had more use for it on Linux than anywhere else, so it's permanently installed in a Linux desktop machine now. It works passthrough to a Windows VM as well. The Intel Mac it was connected to is no longer used with more than 2 displays so the internal GPU works well enough, and an M1 has no problems with it either. For the time where I used it, it was a perfect solution for me; lots of portable use, but when working from home more the portability aspect isn't worth much. Add to that that GPU usage on-the-go is pretty much gone for me (most GPU workloads just run on AWS for me now), and having a high-power GPU connected to a laptop just doesn't help me with anything. If in the future I'd need more local GPU power than a mobile device (in a form factor I enjoy) can handle, maybe it'll be interesting again. Have one at home, another at an office, only move the laptop between places...
        izacus 4y ago
        What a bizarre set of complaints. What "latency" would you like to measure? It's PCI-express, the latency has to be the same as the builtin GPU to function. The #1 eGPU is #1 because it still works reliably and well. I have one and it's a reliable product that does what it says on the tin - provides an external cradle for a GPU. As for lack of Mac benchmarks - Apple dropped support for eGPUs, so why would they benchmark a legacy unsupported system?
        forrestthewoods 4y ago
smcleod 4y ago
Really? I used to run a 1080 with my old iMac back in the day when they came out and it cleaned up.

I have never seen a single review or benchmark of eGPUs that was impressive.

rektide 4y ago

I've never seen a review that had any real issue with them? They performed fine everywhere I saw.

lmeyerov 4y ago
We mostly want this for development of CUDA apps, not even super worried about performance. Increasingly, I'm thinking just a mobile eGPU Ubuntu node you plugin and ssh into, and just a nice remote setup...
forrestthewoods 4y ago
It’s hard to even find a review with gaming benchmarks. A quick search and I’m not sure any eGPUs are even being made? All the reviews seemed to be from 2019. It’d be awesome if eGPUs provided high throughput and low latency. But it really doesn’t seem like that’s the case.
- izacus 4y ago
  There are whole sites dedicated to eGPU reviews so I'm not sure what are you looking at?
  - forrestthewoods 4y ago
    Share links.
    - oneplane 4y ago
      http://egpu.io http://egpu.io
      - forrestthewoods 4y ago
        Their #1 rated eGPU is from 2018. They don't measure latency. Their gaming FPS benchmarks don't list either resolution or quality settings, when they're even available. Their top 2 eGPU recommendations for mac don't contain benchmarks when running on mac. Yeah, the eGPU market is a disaster and the review quality is terrible. I personally wouldn't touch eGPUs. Which is a shame because I absolutely adore the concept.
        oneplane 4y ago
        I used an Akitio Node 3 with RX580 for years, works fine on macOS, Linux and Windows on both Thunderbolt 2 (reduced performance) and Thunderbolt 3. Only reason I stopped using it is because I used it less and had more use for it on Linux than anywhere else, so it's permanently installed in a Linux desktop machine now. It works passthrough to a Windows VM as well. The Intel Mac it was connected to is no longer used with more than 2 displays so the internal GPU works well enough, and an M1 has no problems with it either. For the time where I used it, it was a perfect solution for me; lots of portable use, but when working from home more the portability aspect isn't worth much. Add to that that GPU usage on-the-go is pretty much gone for me (most GPU workloads just run on AWS for me now), and having a high-power GPU connected to a laptop just doesn't help me with anything. If in the future I'd need more local GPU power than a mobile device (in a form factor I enjoy) can handle, maybe it'll be interesting again. Have one at home, another at an office, only move the laptop between places...
        izacus 4y ago
        What a bizarre set of complaints. What "latency" would you like to measure? It's PCI-express, the latency has to be the same as the builtin GPU to function. The #1 eGPU is #1 because it still works reliably and well. I have one and it's a reliable product that does what it says on the tin - provides an external cradle for a GPU. As for lack of Mac benchmarks - Apple dropped support for eGPUs, so why would they benchmark a legacy unsupported system?
        forrestthewoods 4y ago

smcleod 4y ago

Really? I used to run a 1080 with my old iMac back in the day when they came out and it cleaned up.