Offering amazingCPUandGPUperformance in portable, low-power systems.
Unfortunately, there’s one major flaw with Apple Silicon: no external GPU support.
What’s an “External” GPU?
Justin Duino / How-To Geek
By “external” we mean a GPU that’s not part of the Apple SoC (System-on-a-Chip).
The combination provides impressive performance and energy efficiency for many tasks, including graphics-intensive ones.
In addition, none of these computers have any sort of expansion slots for GPUs.
One of the most popular eGPU enclosures, the Razer Core X has enough room and power to fit all but the most large and hungry graphics cards.
Why Is This a Problem?
Why the Lack of Support?
There are a few potential reasons why the M1 chip does not currently support external GPUs.
However, since Apple has not publicly commented on the issue, our notes are just pure speculation.
One reason could be that the M1 chip is already relatively powerful and efficient in graphics processing.
Related:Can You Play Games on an Apple Silicon M1 Mac?
What About Desktop Mac Pros?
This brings us to the biggest reason the lack of external GPU support is concerning.
At the moment, the latest Mac Pro workstation desktop computers are still Intel-based systems.
We have yet to see exactly what an Apple Silicon desktop workstation will look like.
