As of the latest public beta patch for macOS Mojave, eGPU support for the Mac is truly worth getting excited about. Back when I first covered Mac eGPU support, I noted that it came with one significant drawback: You could only see its benefits through an external monitor. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. Apple now lets you accelerate graphics directly on the display of a MacBook Pro or iMac, and even more impressively, it lets you easily choose which apps will benefit from that acceleration.
The general process of hooking up an eGPU hasn’t changed much. All you need to do is have a compatible graphics card (which will almost always be AMD, as Nvidia cards still aren’t supported) and an eGPU enclosure to put it in. From there, you just plug the eGPU into your Mac through the Thunderbolt 3 port (which means this only works on Macs made within the last couple of years). Your Mac will immediately recognize the eGPU. There’s no need to install specific drivers or restart your Mac. Overall, it’s a good example of the elegant simplicity we expect from Apple.
