#Which radeon pro mac for gaming for mac
#Which radeon pro mac for gaming mac os
#Which radeon pro mac for gaming install
#Which radeon pro mac for gaming full
#Which radeon pro mac for gaming mods

I installed GeekBench 5 and was pleasantly surprised to get a Metal Score of 69,157, which is apparently on par with an NVIDIA GTX 1080ti! Ethernet Driver for Mac EGPU In fact, the noise and heat are probably less than when I used the Mac’s discreet graphics card.

#Which radeon pro mac for gaming full

With that city and the new EGPU, I’m averaging 35-45 frames per second (FPS) with max graphics settings at 3440×1440 full screen resolution (34″ QHD).Īnd I can barely tell that the Mac, EGPU, or 5700XT is running.

#Which radeon pro mac for gaming mods

About 5-10 mods like TMPE and Realistic Population.

Specifically, my 850k-population city ran silky smooth on my partner’s HP Omen X (i7-6700k, Nvidia 1080i, 32gb RAM, 32″ QHD monitor). I started going down this EGPU route in earnest when I realized that CitiesSkylines has the capability to run smoothly on a better machine.

#Which radeon pro mac for gaming mac os

Remember, Mac native support for the 5000-series AMD cards only started with Mac OS Catalina 10.15, so if you haven’t updated yet, you will have to in order to get plug-and-play with the latest cards like this one. Also I couldn’t get the 3-fan “Nitro” variant, because it was too long for the PowerColor. This AMD card was basically the most powerful, reasonably priced card available at the time with Mac compatibility. Radeon 5700 XT with Cities Skylinesįor my graphics card, I bought the Sapphire Radeon 5700 XT Pulse Overclocked from Microcenter. While this frustration only required about 30-minutes, I did need my specialized screwdriver set (tiny Philips-head screws) FWIW, the Razer gets by with 0 screws. And I had to fiddle with at least 3-screws to get everything open and the card seated properly. The metal (some sort of steel?) was really hard to pull apart initially.

#Which radeon pro mac for gaming install

The PowerColor Gaming Station just works and all of those ports allowed me to shelve my dongle/hub (except when I need an SD card reader for my camera).īut the box was relatively difficult to open up and install the card in.

Ethernet didn’t work out of the box (see below).

310mm max graphics card length (aka 2-fans and NOT 3-fans).

The USB ports and Gigabit Ethernet are really nice to have.It’s relatively cheap at less than $250.The PowerColor ended up being basically a Razer Core X Chroma for half the cost (minus the 700w power supply and uncontrollable LED lighting). FWIW, they also sell a $20 2-year warranty with same-day exchanges if you’re squeamish about open-box stuff. I inspected the goods in the store and decided it looked fine. I had initially ordered a Razer Core X Chroma from Amazon for $399, because the Razer is widely praised as the best EGPU for Mac users, it looks good, and it had all of those aforementioned ports, which would allow me to dump my USB hub.īut Amazon Prime was suffering from unusually slow delivery estimates (4 calendar days), I had a lot of time on my hands over the winter holiday, and I really didn’t want to pay $400 for what’s basically a box with a power supply and LED lighting that I neither wanted nor could even control.Ī 10-minute drive later, Microcenter not only had the Gaming Station in stock, but they also had an open-box unit for an even bigger discount, and I’m a sucker for discounts. $185 open-box, grab-and-go at MicroCenter.550W power supply with 87-watt charging.I bought the PowerColor Gaming Station at Microcenter because of its availability, specs, and price: Graphics card, which is inserted into that EGPU.

External Graphics Processor Unit (EGPU).

So in order to get desktop-level graphics performance on your Mac laptop or Mac Mini, you just need to acquire two things: (Note, you must be running Catalina 10.15 or newer in order to use the Radeon 5700). Your Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later can access additional graphics performance by connecting to an external graphics processor (also known as an eGPU). PowerColor Gaming Station with Mac Review These specs are still pretty high end 3-years later and perfectly sufficient for my daily revenue-generating activities, but no match for a $1200 Windows gaming rig with a medium-level $400 graphics card.

Radeon Pro 460 w/ 4GB VRAM + Integrated 530 Intel HD Graphics.

The quick backstory is that I have a 2016 MacBook Pro 15″ laptop: Having received some bad information from a well-meaning salesperson at the Houston MicroCenter, I thought I’d put my experience out there for your Google/Bing satisfaction.

That’s probably all you care about if you’re reading this post. Yes, the Radeon 5700xt is plug-and-play with MacOS Catalina and delivers performance on par with an Nvidia 1080ti or 2070.