hey welcome back to the channel. So recently I did a video of using an
external GPU with an older Mac and in that video I asked if anybody wanted to
see some benchmarking comparisons of the integrated GPU with the eGPU and a
bunch of you said you did. So that's what this video is all about. In this video
I'm gonna be using that 2014 Mac Mini that I used in the other videos, I'll put
a link up here if you want to see those. I'm also using a radiant RX470 video
card in that Sonnet eGPU enclosure that I have. I'll have links down in the
description to all the stuff that I talk about and if you have any
questions or comments as I go along please feel free to leave those in the
comments section, I try to answer all my comments. With all that out of the way
let's jump right into it.
Alright so the first thing I want to talk about is the
synthetic benchmarking and I started this section with Geekbench. Now
Geekbench lets you test the CPU or the GPU. I didn't test the CPU because that's not
changing so I only did the OpenCL GPU test and there was quite a difference.
With the integrated GPU on this 2014 Mac Mini we got a score of 19,115 which
is kind of low but using that RX470 with that external GPU we got a score of
a 111,299, so that is a massive
difference, again this is just a synthetic benchmarking but you can see
how much more powerful this eGPU setup is than just using the integrated
graphics. Next up is Cinebench and as expected there was no difference with
the CPU but the GPU with the OpenGL was quite a difference with the integrated
graphics on the OpenGL score we got a score of 24.29
frames per second and then with the RX 470 external GPU we got a score of
6 2.41 frames per second, huge difference right there and this is kind of an
indicator of what we're gonna see when we talk about the game section as well.
So the next graphic test I did was Unigine Heaven and I started off on the
low setting I only tested the integrated GPU on low
because anything higher than that was pointless and with that low setting we
got an average frame rate of 19 frames per second now switching over to the
external GPU on low we got an average frame rate of 93.9 frames per second so
basically 94 per second I bump that up to the high
setting in Unigine heaven and we were still getting an average of fifty point
six frames per second again massive increase even though this is only
Thunderbolt 2 were and we're not using that graphics card to the full potential
it's still a significant increase over that integrated video card alright next
up is the gaming section and I tested three games I tested seven days to thy
shadow of Mordor and Mad Max didn't do fortnight you'll be able to figure out
if fortnight's gonna perform better from these other results so the first thing
we did was seven days to die now this game does not run very well on Mac
anyway and with that integrated GPU with
everything on low at 720p we were getting a frame rate of 13 frames per
second so completely unplayable using the external GPU bumping it up to 1080p
and increasing the video quality to medium we were getting a solid 30 frames
per second playing this game that can be tweaked more this is just with the
default settings and I think I turned motion blur off but other nat default
medium settings 30 frames per second versus 13 on the low settings for the
integrated video card so for these next two games as soon as I launch them on
the Mac Mini with the integrated GPU I was greeted with a message that said the
machine didn't meet the minimum specifications but I tried it anyway and
on shadow of mordor at 720p everything set on the lowest settings 13 frames per
second just like seven days the die totally unplayable using that external
GPU bumping it up to 1080p and setting the default settings on high I was
getting right around 35 frames per second it was a little bit higher and
lower at times but it a verge doubt - 35 frames per second that's a totally
playable frame rate you can even increase that a little bit by messing
with the settings this was just the default settings next up is Mad Max and
like I said I initially got that message about it not being compatible I tried it
anyway and guess what 13 frames per second I see a theme here it was on low
720p 13 frames per second with the integrated GPU using the external GPU
bumping everything up to 1080p and keeping the graphics settings at about
medium I was getting right around 30 frames per second again a playable
framerate as opposed to 13 frames per second completely unplayable
so I know 30 frames-per-second is not that great but you got to keep in mind
this is a 2014 Mac Mini with a dual-core mobile CPU in it so being able to play
these games as well as I did was pretty impressive and again you'd be able to
get much better frame rates out of this by tweaking those settings I just use
the default settings as they were all right so the last thing I'm going to
talk about is video editing and although I'm specifically talking about video
editing this is gonna equate to graphic design and 3d editing and all that kind
of stuff - the performance gains that we see here are gonna translate pretty well
over to that other stuff so using DaVinci Resolve with the
integrated GPU was completely unusable very slow playback was horrible I didn't
even bother capturing video using the external GPU with the Vincent resolve it
took full advantage of it and it worked great I was able to load my 4k mp4s in
there scrub playback at full speed add transitions effects color correction
overlay text all that stuff worked extremely extremely well in fact it
worked pretty much as well on this machine as it does on my coffee like
machine that I have with the GTX 1070 in it I do know that DaVinci Resolve is
much better optimized on Mac than the Windows version is so that it may have
something to do with it but this external GPU made a huge difference with
DaVinci Resolve took it from being completely unusable
to work in really really well so Nexus Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Pro actually
works pretty well with this integrated GPU all by itself on this machine I can
add a 4k video with no problem as long as the timeline is really simple if I
start adding effects layering text stuff like that it really bogged down with the
external GPU it worked even better and I could add much more layers make the
timeline much larger than I could with that integrated GPU before I saw any
slowdowns if you're gonna use Final Cut Pro with an external GPU there's a
setting if you go to get info you can check prefer external GPU that will kind
of force it to use that external GPU and it works beautifully so the next test I
did in Final Pro is the export test and I use the
Bruce X benchmark on this with the integrated GPU that took two minutes and
nine seconds to complete using that external GPU and forcing it to use that
through that setting I just mentioned brought it down to 39 seconds so it went
from two minutes and nine seconds down to 39 seconds so massive massive
difference with Final Cut Pro using that external GPU just like we saw with
DaVinci Resolve alright so there we go I don't really have a whole lot to say
because that comparison pretty much speaks for itself if you have an older
Mac and you're looking for a way to up the graphical performance and external
GPU is a fantastic way to go even with the Thunderbolt 2 if you have
Thunderbolt 3 it's gonna be even better because you'll be able to use that full
bandwidth there but even with the Thunderbolt 2 you can see how much of a
difference that makes if you're somebody that's gaming or doing media creation of
basically any kind and external GPU is gonna be a massive increase for you if
you're somebody that's just browsing the web checking your email and stuff like
that this is a pointless upgrade it's not really going to improve anything but
for those other people that need that extra GPU horsepower this is a great way
to get that on your older Mac without having to buy a whole new machine
hopefully you found this useful and informative if you did please hit that
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