Hey all,
I’ve read all the notchmarks, all the info on recommended GPUs to use best with notch. I’m wondering if anyone has had any specific experience with using an external GPU on an MBP when using with notch. for example, using a 1080 ti on a bootcamped MBP. I know it excels most on windows, but i imagine it would certainly outperform the current native GPU on my 2018 MBP.
Has anyone done this? is it worth it? should i just look for/build a new machine with a recent NVIDIA card?
Hello,
I have seen quite some people using Notch with MBP + External GPUs, if it is Nvidia based card you have, you will be able to draw more less 90% of it’s power.
Best,
Armin
If you use your MBP screen you lose about 30-40% of GPU Power, with external monitor about 15-25%. Еverything is limited by bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 - 32 Gbps, PCI-E - 128GBs
Hm ok. Thanks for this input This is tough news but understandable. Certainly won’t be using an external monitor.
Just trying to weigh the options of getting a new PC or finding an eGPU situation for my MBP.
Sadly, your choice of GPU is going to be limited when you’re Apple-based. Even with an eGPU and running Bootcamp into Windows, you’re simply going to have limited choice (and most of those choices are bad). If you don’t need a laptop to work on, nothing beats a desktop PC with a proper GPU. You don’t even need a very fast CPU or oodles of RAM.
Ya, totally get it. Just difficult to pull the trigger on a whole new PC when I can get a 2080 ti for $1500 and would never be able to build a PC with as big a GPU for that amount.
Yeah, it’s certainly a commitment, no doubt!
Hi,
I used a MBP with a Razer Core X and RTX2080ti to do onsite work for a production about a year ago.
Once it was finally up an running, it worked pretty well, but I had to do a bunch of stuff on the bootcamp side to get it to work properly (most notably, uninstalling the AMD card drivers using creepy third party tools). It might be more straightforward now.
On the balance, once you’ve priced out the eGPU, the card, and the costs and hassles of transporting it, the benefits are marginal. I wound up traveling the eGPU in a 1510, and if I’ve got another case that size, it might as well have a laptop in it instead of a box I connect to another laptop I have to carry anyway. I wound up buying a Razer RTX 15, and mostly use that as my mobile workstation instead now.
Thanks for this insight. I certainly wouldn’t expect them to have made it any easier to do anything on the bootcamp side because why would they 
I don’t expect to be traveling much, at least for now. I’m really a lighting guy that’s diving into 3d designing and notch with all this time off. Just trying to weigh the options strictly price for GPU power.
I’m sort of surprised by the notchmarks only marking a marginable difference between the 2080 and the 1080 ti. Perhaps I’ll be able to wait a bit for the 1080 ti to drop in price a bit more, though I won’t hold my breath.
The 1080 Ti was the top of the line of the previous generation. The 2080 is not the top of the line of this generation, so that actually makes sense. The Notchmarks aren’t that different because the cards are fairly equal in power: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-RTX-2080-vs-Nvidia-GTX-1080-Ti/4026vs3918
In theory: A more budget-y solution would be to go for either the rx5700xt or a rtx 2070 and a Razer Core. Both cards will be somewhere in between a 1080 and the 1080ti in performance. The 5700 xt will be cheaper and it will be natively supported on a Mac provided that you are on MacOS 10.15.1 or newer. The 2070 will be slightly more expensive, require more work to get working (if you get it working!) but has the RT/Nvidia benefits in Windows. Considering the bandwidth limitations of TB3 it is debatable if it’s worth it to go any higher in performance with cost/benefit in mind.
For the record, I use a 5700xt on my home rig for now, and were about to upgrade from a 1080 to a 2080 super at work before everything halted. Performance-wise they are very similar, but Nvidia has had some benefits with CUDA, Optix and optimizations for some applications that has been lacking from AMD.
I just ended up going with a full PC rig with a 2080S. Thanks for all the suggestions here!
Howdy, first post 
I’ve just started with Notch and am looking to go this route. I have been doing the Essentials course (which is fantastic btw) and opening the various sample files you can download.
I’m on Bootcamp with the internal GPU and while following along and opening things is fine, performance on some of the cooler files is pretty slow.
So I have a Razer Core X arriving soon which I’m looking to pair with a 3080, I’ll report back on performance once it’s all setup.
Have to so say I am really loving the look and feel of Notch, coming from a bit of a Processing / TD / vvvv / VDMX background really excited to see what I can do with it. It really looks like the tool suited to my style. Will be ordering the Learning licence as soon as I can, too.
Thanks!
So I have a Razer Core X arriving soon which I’m looking to pair with a 3080, I’ll report back on performance once it’s all setup.
Let us know how you get on. Note that it’s not officially supported, so if you have a bad experience or run into issues, we probably won’t be able to offer much assistance.
Have to so say I am really loving the look and feel of Notch, coming from a bit of a Processing / TD / vvvv / VDMX background really excited to see what I can do with it. It really looks like the tool suited to my style.
Glad to hear it, welcome aboard!
Cool! Thanks!
Yes liable to build a little PC at some point in any case, but this will get me started. I’m aware of the performance hit I’ll get over TB3, too. To be honest internal GPU seems to work fine for most things, but if I run an external display with the lid closed it starts to hit performance.
Dongle en route, can’t wait!