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Running a MacBook Pro with 2.2GHz Intel Core i7 with 16gb of DDR3 ram and intel Iris pro graphics card. Does anyone have experience with these and external GPUs for mac? I want to get something beefy but not sure even where to start. Any advice would be great. I've no idea what I even need to build one.

I started here, but most of it is a bit meaningless to me since I don't know much about external GPUs viewtopic.php?f=9&t=43439&start=170#p276341

I've looked into a few this one looks decent: https://bizon-tech.com/us/bizonbox2s-egpu.html/
but not sure which version I should get. I also hear people are using multiple GPUs? Do you need several to have a decent running setup?

honestly if I can save some cash and build it myself I wouldn't mind building it myself. Some of these boxes are crazy expensive.

hi there.

in the market for eGPU You can find a lot of solutions, some of them are cheaper (for a reason), but most of them are pretty expensive & the reason being is because it's a niche product (low demand & even lower supply - You can not just go & buy one into any shop). Another thing to keep in mind that GPU over Thudnerbolt2 is a workaround rather than something that should work out of the box, so prepare to have some headache along the way (do not build up Your expectation that it "just works" & You can thank for apple, that has resource, but see no interest in building that because economically it's not profitable solution/product for them).

With this out of the way, You have few options. if You want least amount of headache, simply get Netstor unit (NA211TB) that slots in single GPU, even TitanX & You're ready to go - no messy wires or any customisations to do =) but it would cost around 1000Eu ($) for the case alone depending on where You live. Netstor also posted how-to.

if that's a bit too much & You would like to get eGPU a bit cheaper, You can go bizon route or even buy Akitio Thudner2 (that do not support powerful GPUs out of the box) & do some mods Yourself. However keep in mind that You are paying less & getting less as well. in order to have everything working You would need to make some modifications for the case & do some work, but You can save some money. The questions is whether You're interested in doing that.

I'm building eGPU based on Akitio inside small mITX based case right now. If You want to learn more, feel free to drop a line bellow & I'll be glad to share some insights as I go =) It's simple as You do that for a while, but it You're not used to mess with hardware it might be a bit doubting feeling.

as for multi GPU external solutions - I would avoid that. The more cards You add, more difficult it gets to run them stably..as macOs seems not to like that too much (kernel panics, driver issues, thunderbolt instability, etc). One card as eGPU + render node is much better solution on the long run if You need more power.

Feel free to ask any questions if You have, I'll be glad to help You out.

Sinc.
tom

also You can check some other solutions some Guys are building as well.