Ms word for mac 15.3. The graphic processing unit card. For this project we used mid-range GTX 960 and 970 GPUs. These cards are great for most HD video editing tasks and run otherwise-unplayable games smoothly.

Now that we are starting to see some Mac drivers for some nVidia GPUs, has anyone successfully used an eGPU on a 2012 Mini? I have a quad i7 Mini (2.6 GHz) which came with two 1 TB HDDs. I recently added an external SSD (actually an internal drive, EVO 850 with 500 GB, with enclosure -- didn't have the guts to install internally yet) and this thing is SO much faster. The one albatross around its neck is the GPU. It may not be currently cost effective, but that aside. Has anyone managed to get a 2012 Mini hooked up successfully with an external GPU under Sierra?

I would think that a quad i7 with SSD, combined with a better GPU solution, would continue to add some years to the useful life of this Mac, especially for gaming. At least in theory. I know it sort of exists now, and looking at it more I see it's even been done with the 2011 Mini. The thing is, all the equipment for it would probably cost $500 right now, even with a relatively modest GPU (such as a 1050 Ti or 1060 or RX480) -- about $300 for the enclosure (something like the $299 Sonnet Breakaway Box when it is released), $50 for the adapter from TB3 to TB2 (also compatible with TB1 from what I can tell), and $200ish for the GPU itself. I don't ever see needing more than 60 fps at 1080p on this machine, and I could probably live with 30+ fps on high settings. Seems like a lot, but on the other hand, this is still a very capable machine and seems like it will be for a few more years if the graphics can be upgraded. And some of these parts will still be worth something if I want to sell them in a major hardware upgrade.

Click to expand.That's interesting, perhaps a bit of a narrow combination of components and use-case where an eGPU-Mini makes sense. I was thinking more along side with video editing and/or 3D modelling where both multi-thread and GPU compute performance are needed. I am not positive that the High Sierra eGPU implementation would work with TB1/2 though, and from some bits and pieces it seems like Apple's intention is to partner with only AMD (on the driver/software side), at least for the time being.

Click to expand.Not so much experimental as less practical, though I have seen reports of using even a 2011 Mini (also with TB1) with an eGPU getting 40-50 FPS -- sometimes even 60 -- on decent settings with a midrange card like a GTX 970, RX480, or GTX 1050 Ti. At those rates, even the 10Gbps limit on TB1 doesn't come into play. It's not likely cost effective for someone wanting, say, 60 fps @ 1080p on high settings (and something like a GTX 1080 would likely be wasted on a machine with only a TB1 connection), but it could make unplayable games playable on medium to medium-high settings with 30+ FPS at 1080p, especially on a Mini like mine, a 2.6 GHz quad i7. (I consider 30 FPS to be the bare minimum of 'playable'.) The TB3 to TB2 adapter also works with TB1, of course at slower speeds, just like you can use a USB 2.0 device on a USB 1.1-equipped system but you only get 1.1 speeds. The SSD alone has already improved my FPS considerably on the Mini -- probably close to 50% -- even with the weak integrated GPU (indicating that the HDD might have been even more of a bottleneck than the weak GPU).