Truly amazing how your needs dictate the kind of computer you require. I’m not a gamer, so I don’t need the GPU that you do. The Mojave is a nice improvement; I saw speed gains on an 2013 MPB and 2015 MBA. I don’t think I’m read to drop the $600 on a eGPU. I don’t think I really need it. Though, I could get one in from OWC for a test drive and send it back if I don’t see the performance gain in every-day tasks.
Have a great holiday.
The thing is, I use my “gaming computer” for high power photo processing, too. If I need to do something extra-demanding, like a final upsample in A.I. Gigapixel to a crazy large size, then I use the AMD R9 290. The term “gaming computer” will soon lose all relevance as the generic “application” has more robust demands from the machine that a CPU alone won’t be adequate to handle. The inclusion of A.I. tools in everyday software will also demand more from your machine, and specially designed hardware (think ray-tracing in the new NVIDIA RTX cards) will likely be introduced to do those normally very heavy calculations, offloading them from the primary CPU. As our needs evolve, so, too, shall our hardware.
Wonderful information for Mac users. Thanks to Joe for explaining in detail.
Hi Joe,
I have an add on question. If I decide to add on a eGPU for my 2018 Mac mini, does the Radeon 580 is suffice or will Topaz Sharpen or Gigapixel AI leverage additional resources if I rather go for a Radeon Rx Vega 56/64 ? Your reply will allow me to make a choice to go for 580 and save the additional cost or spend the additional cost and get Vega 56/64 if it would be a significant improvement to the 580.
I have a Nikon z7 and at full resolution, the raw files are huge, processing and saving them in either Sharpen or Gigapixel seems to be a pain.
