this is gonna be a fun one look at this
multiple components on the table I'm
undertaking a little project here today
well we are this is a thing called the
Mantis experiment with the idea of an
external graphics card on your MacBook
Pro anything that supports Thunderbolt 3
it's referred to as an eg PU an external
graphics unit the reason you would hook
something like this up to a laptop is to
get desktop grade graphical performance
on a system that can be mobile razor
they have their own unit that you can
add to their blade laptops which kind of
operates in a similar fashion but up
until this point that haven't been too
many options for people on Mac laptops
there's a wide variance of Mac books
some of them more powerful than others
some that can really benefit from a
setup like this this thing is not really
meant to go with you anywhere acts as a
hub for not just your graphics but also
some other important peripherals this is
for the graphics card three USB 3s in
Ethernet port a Thunderbolt three not
just for data connectivity it also can
provide the 87 watts of power that your
MacBook Pro wants to charge this is a
single cable setup you simply detach
that one cable don't need to worry about
a power brick or anything extra 2 more
USB 3 port so that's a total of five USB
ports on this thing so you can keep your
peripherals connected to this not have
to worry about running out of ports on
the laptop itself now you probably
noticed this amazing looking box over
here graphics cards always have the
coolest boxes a Vegas 64 card these are
the units that are gonna ship in the
iMac pro and therefore he should work on
the latest Mac OS software without any
drivers will how much did I pay for this
I think I paid like 600 bucks maybe I'm
gonna show you how this thing works this
side panel it just pops off no screws
just like that the power supply unit
that's for mounting either a 2.5 inch
hard drive or an SSD and the SATA
connector for that drive is located
right over here now I've heard that this
fan can be a little bit noisy for some
of course you could swap that out and
then you have your graphics card slot
right here that's the important spot
some of you might not know but you can
also install windows you could
a bootcamp situation on a MacBook Pro oh
look at that oh my Jack Attack even you
love something like that three display
ports and an HDMI this thing will beef
up the graphical performance of your
laptop without being connected to an
external monitor so we have the card
installed over here now and then a
single under Bowl three cable which was
included in the box going to this
MacBook Pro right here now this one is
running Mac OS High Sierra ten point
thirteen point one there's a lot of talk
about compatibility issues with devices
like this but on this version here we
got a prompt immediately external GPU
detected logout to begin using the
external GPU it's charging up to so as
of right now we are running off that
desktop great graphics rather than the
internal graphics in this MacBook Pro
alright so you may have noticed I've got
a different laptop now I was using wills
and now I'm using mine a little bit of
time has passed because I've been
playing with this thing tweaking it a
little bit I really wanted to place it
on my desk and use it for a slightly
more extended period before reporting
back this graphics card setup that I
have here about as native as you can get
when running ten point thirteen point
two this card right here that Vegas 64
it's very power hungry this is a 550
watt power supply in here how is that
really gonna work with this particular
card this card can want more power than
what that's capable of so I've actually
gone ahead and ordered another power
supply in 800 watt power supply to deal
with this I'd recommend going with the
Vega 56 instead of the 64 it's a little
less power-hungry and therefore slightly
more supportive anyhow I've got
Geekbench up here on the display I can
actually test each GPU independently to
start off let's do the Intel HD graphics
530 that's in my laptop here we go
it's scoring nineteen thousand 642 on
the OpenCL score MacBooks without
discrete graphics without their own AMD
cards just the Intel graphics are gonna
benefit the
most from a setup like this because
they're working with relatively weak
graphics to begin with next up we're
gonna move to the Radian Pro 460 let's
see what this can do 48,000 251 all
right now last up and the most exciting
AMD Radeon HD Vega 10 XT prototype who
cares what it's called let's see what it
can do okay boom I've got as high as a
hundred and seventy thousand on this
particular score a huge improvement here
with desktop grade graphics no reason
why it will be meaningful for a lot of
users you want the portability of a
laptop but the graphics performance of a
desktop this kind of so there's a reason
that these have become popular on
systems like Razer and now through
products like this one they're trying to
bring a more Universal approach not just
for Windows computers but in this case
on Mac as well this is still a bit
finicky it's not completely supportive
if you're doing this at the moment at
your own risk
there you have it that's the mantas
Venus with an AMD Vegas 64 working on a
MacBook Pro I think it's pretty cool and
quite frankly it's destroying the
figures that my laptop can produce on
its own I'll have the details down in
the description also let me know you
guys like this type of video
so did it get too technical or are you
into it would you like to see more let
me know with your thumb down below and
I'll catch you on the next one
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