

In particular, Apple’s past laptops were known for having substantial RAM and processing power but lacking in graphical processing power. It’s unclear exactly where the incompatibility begins does the M1 chip itself not play friendly with eGPUs, or is it something else about the three new Macs announced today?Ĭonsumers have long turned to these external graphics cards to give computers a dramatic boost in memory-intensive tasks eGPUs allow laptops or underpowered desktops to punch out of their weight class.
#EGPU FOR MACBOOK AIR PRO#
This is a massive switch, and as the dust settles from the announcement, details are starting to appear around options for the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac Mini.Īpple’s first Macs built around its self-developed SoC do not support eGPUs, TechCrunch has learned.

Called the M1, the system on a chip (SoC) is based on an Arm architecture rather than an Intel-built platform.
#EGPU FOR MACBOOK AIR FOR MAC#
You can play this content on the built-in display on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and iMac.Ħ. If you use Akitio Node with a Mac notebook, you may need to connect your Mac to its power adapter to ensure proper charging.ħ. Only Radeon RX 6900 XT models made or sold by AMD are supported (Device ID 0x73BF).Apple today announced its first self-developed processor for Mac hardware. These chassis provide at least 85 watts of charging power, making them ideal for use with 15-inch MacBook Pro models.ĥ. Playback of HDCP-protected content from iTunes and some streaming services is not supported on displays attached to Radeon 560-based eGPUs. macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later don't support eGPUs in Windows using Boot Camp or when your Mac is in macOS Recovery or installing system updates.Ĥ. If you're using a 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2016 or 2017, always plug eGPUs and other high-performance devices into the left-hand ports for maximum data throughput.ģ. After you've logged in and can see the macOS Desktop, you can unplug the display from Mac mini and connect it to your eGPU.Ģ. If you have a Mac mini (2018) with FileVault turned on, make sure you connect your primary display directly to Mac mini during startup. Because of this deep system integration, only graphics cards that use the same GPU architecture as those built into Mac products are supported in macOS.ġ.
#EGPU FOR MACBOOK AIR DRIVERS#
The GPU drivers delivered with macOS are also designed to enable a high-quality, high-performance experience when using an eGPU, as described in the list of recommended eGPU chassis and graphics card configurations below. Aftermarket GPU drivers delivered by third parties are not compatible with macOS. In order to deliver the best possible customer experience, GPU drivers need to be engineered, integrated, tested and delivered with each version of macOS.

This deep integration also enables optimal battery life while providing greater system performance and stability.Īpple develops, integrates and supports macOS GPU drivers to ensure that there are consistent GPU capabilities across all Mac products, including rich APIs like Metal, Core Animation, Core Image and Core ML. These include accelerating the user interface, providing support for advanced display features, rendering 3D graphics for pro software and games, processing photos and videos, driving powerful GPU compute features, and accelerating machine learning tasks. This design fuels the visually rich and graphical macOS experience as well as many deeper platform compute and graphics features. Mac hardware and GPU software drivers have always been deeply integrated into the system.
