黑魔设计eGPU Pro

In this review we'll discuss my experience over the last few weeks with the Blackmagic eGPU Pro. What you're looking in the video review above is a very elegant all-metal enclosure, 里面是AMD的Vega 56卡. 在后面, 你有你需要的所有端口, 当然包括电力, 你用来连接电脑的主接口, 哪个是Thunderbolt 3, 这里有两个端口. 你也可以在这里面得到一个完整的USB集线器. 所以你有四个额外的USB 3端口. 你有一个HDMI端口和一个显示端口.

这取决于你用的是哪款Mac, this could be really helpful because you're going to use one Thunderbolt port on your computer, 但是你会得到所有这些额外的端口. 所以它不仅仅是一个更快的显卡.

用例

那么这个产品是为谁设计的呢? 想想黑魔法公司的盒子上都写了些什么. 两边各有两幅画. 一面展示游戏，包括VR游戏. The other side of the box shows color correction in DaVinci Resolve and then in Resolve as well.

A closer look at this box reveals what computers are being used with this. 大多数都是MacBook笔记本电脑，但这里有一台iMac. 我在2019年的iMac上使用eGPU Pro. 我几个月前才买的这台iMac, 它完全是苹果的，里面有Vega 48卡. 记住这个是织女星56. It has 64 gigs of RAM, the highest i9 processor, and everything else is loaded out in it. 我已经有一台很漂亮的机器了.

连接eGPU

连接它的过程非常简单. 你只要插上电源, 拿上你的Thunderbolt 3电缆, 把它插到电脑上, 它应该马上就会显示出来. 现在 one thing I had to learn about this is it essentially sees it as a separate display-type device, 所以在拔掉插头之前，你必须先断开连接. Think of it like mounting a USB drive, you should always disconnect before you unplug the cable.

现在, 我确实有几次需要断开连接, and I went through the process of clicking on the top where the clock is on your MacOS. 告诉它断开连接, 然后花上20到30秒, and all my applications completely crashed and the computer went to the Please Press a Button to Restart screen. 这是一个灰色的屏幕，背景是一个很大的电源按钮, 这就像Mac的蓝屏死机.

So 我真的不知道 what caused that other than sometimes when I disconnected it, it caused that. 有时我把它断开，它还能正常工作. It took it off, and then I was able to unplug it and move on without any trouble. So, 可能是软件故障, 会在苹果这边发生什么, 会在黑魔法的尽头吗, 我真的不知道. But, assuming you're using this all the time, you won't really need to disconnect it. 

The eGPU automatically powers on with the computer so you don't need to turn it off or unplug it when it's not in use.

测试:将滤镜应用于4K素材

现在我正在做一个很棒的项目. 都是4K的，所以我开始用Resolve编辑. 我在Resolve中进行了色彩校正. 然后我也使用了一些非常重的gpu效果, 有很多模糊和特殊效果.

这取决于你使用的是哪个版本的MacOS, if you open your Activity Monitor and go to the Window button at the top, 你会发现你可以打开一个GPU显示器. It's a small black persistent window that'll stay overtop of every window on your screen, 除非你把它最小化. And it just gives you a black box with a bar graph that goes across over time that shows you how much your GPU or GPUs are being used.

When I didn't have this connected, it only showed me the Vega 48 that's in my machine. 蓝色条形图会根据我的活动上下变化. 但是当我把这个代入, 它实际上垂直地分成了两部分，所以它显示了两个条形图, 一个叠一个, 上面是48，下面是56. And I can see how much of each GPU is being used 不管我在做什么. So I tried this by having it open and just going through my whole day leaving this window open and just keeping an eye on it.

我所看到的是非常有趣的，因为大多数时候, 不管我在做什么, 两张卡的使用水平大致相同. So the OS did a really good job of utilizing both cards evenly to not put too much stress on one over the other. 现在 the downside to that was I never felt like I was getting a huge boost out of either because the most I could get them to push was about 40% on screen according to the bars that I was looking at. 这并不是很多, 但这也并非无关紧要, 因为如果你知道我只有一张牌在里面, 它可能会使用80%的能量, 哪个会有更多的瓦数, 更多的热量, 能源使用.

Maybe I'm saving a little money by using this or maybe it's about the same, because this is equaling out no matter what; it's just split over two different cards. 我们来谈谈性能. I did several encoding tests and also some GPU-heavy effects and some color correction both with and without the eGPU connected. I can tell you from my experience I saw virtually zero difference in performance.

其中一些是观点, because I can sit there and wait on a color correction and scrub back and forth and I can say, “嗯, 看起来它的速度更快，反应也更快."

编码测试

But then there are other things that don't lie: for example, waiting on an encode. 所以我用我的4K镜头导出了一个4K H.264或H.265. 我还将其分辨率降低到1080p.

No matter what I did, every single encode was within one to two seconds of each other. And that's certainly within a margin of error depending on how you want to rank things. So maybe it's me, maybe my laboratory wasn't the greatest way to test this.

无论哪种方式, 不管它是否真的对我有帮助, it was still fun to try and it was still neat to be able to find the GPU monitor that's found on the MacOS so that I could see actually how my GPU is being used, 无论是内置GPU还是内置GPU.

但请记住，Pro版售价约为1200美元. So that's a pretty expensive investment to get some performance gains. And unless you know that your GPU is what's causing your bog down on your machine and your workflow, 我不知道这是不是最好的答案. But for those that need a portable machine like a laptop and they have the Thunderbolt 3 capability, the eGPU Pro might just give you some performance gains that'll really speed up your processes.