AHNR Thunderbolt 3 USB C Hub, Type C Hub MAC Pro Adapter Dongle for 2016/2017 MacBook Pro 13”&15”, USB-C Adapter with 4K HDMI, 3 USB 3.0 Ports, USB- C Port, SD/TF Card Reader, PD Charger Port.
System specs Model: 13' MacBook Pro 2017 w/ TouchBar CPU: 3.5 GHz i7-7567U iGPU: Intel Iris Plus 650 dGPU: none OS: macOS 10.14.3 & Win10 (1809) eGPU hardware eGPU enclosure: Video card: RX 580 inc. W/ enclosure Hardware pictures None yet. Installation steps No workable step-by-step yet. See comments. MacOS Installation Plug and play. External monitor works via Display Port. Internal display works.
Windows 10 (1809) Bootcamp Installation. Install Windows 10 with Bootcamp Assistant. In Windows, download and extract DDU. In, remove AMD & NVIDIA drivers using DDU. In macOS, download and extract the latest version of (0.11.0+).
Boot into macOS Recovery Mode by holding ⌘R right after turning on the MBP until the Apple logo appears. Open Terminal, located under Utilities in the menubar. Navigate to where you extracted rEFInd and install it. If it's in your Downloads folder, the command might look something like: cd /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users//Downloads/refind-bin-./refind-install. Reboot into macOS. Open Terminal and navigate again to where you extracted rEFInd and run mountesp. Then open the ESP volume in Finder: cd /Downloads/refind-bin- sudo./mountesp open /Volume/EFI. In the EFI volume in Finder, open the EFI folder, then the refind folder.
Then open refind.conf in a text editor. Find the line that has 'spoofosxversion' in it and delete the '#' in the beginning of that line. Probably around line 463. Boot into Windows by pressing W on the rEFInd boot screen.
In Device Manager, disable the Thunderbolt 9D18 controller. Plug the eGPU into the lower left TB3 port (closest to TAB). Download and install Adrenaline 19.2.2 from BootCampDrivers.
The official AMD download may work too but I didn't try. Download and install the following: AORUS ENGINE and VGA Tools. Benchmarks None yet. Previous Attempts This is very much a work in progress. I'm completely stuck at the moment, but will update this post accordingly.
I hope incomplete or failed builds can find a home here too. First Attempt I read that this box is pretty much plug and play with macOS, so I hooked the eGPU up to power with the provided cable, to my monitor (AOC 24P1) via Display Port, and then to my MBP with the provided TB3 cable to the top left port. At this time the MBP was in sleep mode and not connected to anything else. Immediately the MBP woke up, the eGPU LEDs lit up with fans spinning, MBP started charging, then the screen froze.
Only moving the mouse was responsive; keyboard, touch bar, and mouse clicks were not registering. I disconnected the TB3 cable from my MBP and the system went black with some text saying there was a system error and the system will now restart. Subsequent Attempts When booting up the with eGPU plugged in, the boot up freezes — black screen with the white Apple logo and white progress bar halfway. If I unplug the eGPU, boot up will resume.
If I plug the eGPU back in any time after this, the system will eventually freeze either at the login screen or at the desktop. I once saw a No GPU Detected notification in the corner. I've tried with all 4 USB-C ports, without the external monitor, with another TB3 cable from the Mantiz Titan.
No matter what, the system freezes. Meanwhile the eGPU is powered with the lights on and fans spinning.
I don't have boot camp installed, but I'll get to that in the coming days. Fingers crossed I find a way to make it work. At worst, I'll get a replacement box or just a refund and try another eGPU. MacOS Recovery Mode With eGPU plugged in, boots into Recovery Mode just fine. No screen freeze or crashes. However, when connecting an external monitor to the eGPU, the external monitor's display is glitched.
I've seen similar glitches with my 2011 MBP and Mac Mini due to GPU issues. I'm quite sure something similar is going on here that the eGPU is somehow faulty. Is how it looks like. The square block follows the mouse cursor. When I drag a window to the monitor, it appears behind the white bars. Re-installing macOS No improvement at all after re-installation.
Everything is as it was in my previous attempts. Boot Camp Attempts I did the usual: install Windows 10 using Boot Camp, remove NVIDIA and AMD drivers with DDU, install rEFInd and edit refind.conf to spoof os x, plugged in the eGPU and install the AMD driver from Gigabyte support. Results are inconsistent except that ultimately the eGPU is unusable.
Booting Windows with the eGPU plugged in usually causes the boot up to hang. Boot up resumes normally after unplugging the eGPU. Plugging the eGPU back in any time after this yields similar results as macOS – a mostly frozen display except for the mouse, sometimes a black desktop and only the ability to right-click the task bar. After unplugging, Windows resumes as normal and the display refreshes itself according to whatever mouse and keyboard actions done prior. Sometimes the eGPU LEDs aren't powered and the fan is unusually quiet when plugged in. These times, the display doesn't freeze.
And device manager gives an Error 12. Disabling the right-side TB ports doesn't help. Sometimes plugging it into the lower left port (closest to TAB) disables the trackpad. Success I got everything up and running after returning the Gaming Box and getting another one from Amazon. Installation steps above. Comments The first Gaming Box was definitely defective somehow. It would cause my computer to crash in both macOS and Windows.
My second one was plug and play with macOS. With Windows I had some problems setting it up. WiFi, the trackpad, or the whole system would sometimes crash.
But eventually I got everything working well in Windows by using DDU to ensure all previous drivers were uninstalled, then installing the BootCampDrivers.com AMD Adrenaline 19.2.2 drivers and Gigabyte utilities. I've already had a couple instances of the 'boot coup' described, where the rEFInd boot screen doesn't appear when booting up, preventing me from choosing which OS to use. To fix this, just repeat Steps 4 & 5. I'm using the eGPU USB ports with my keyboard and with my mouse RF receiver. So far I don't have any connections problems.
There also hasn't been any problems with loud PSU fans yet. I'll update if anything else happens. Sorry, couldn't log in for the past week. Update after trying macOS Recovery Mode, re-installing macOS, and using Boot Camp.
Long story short, no dice. MacOS Recovery Mode With eGPU plugged in, boots into Recovery Mode just fine.
No screen freeze or crashes. However, when connecting an external monitor to the eGPU, the external monitor's display is glitched. I've seen similar glitches with my 2011 MBP and Mac Mini due to GPU issues. I'm quite sure something similar is going on here that the eGPU is somehow faulty.
Is how it looks like. The square block follows the mouse cursor. When I drag a window to the monitor, it appears behind the white bars. Re-installing macOS No improvement at all after re-installation. Everything is as it was in my previous attempts. Boot Camp Attempts I did the usual: install Windows 10 using Boot Camp, remove NVIDIA and AMD drivers with DDU, install rEFInd and edit refind.conf to spoof os x, plugged in the eGPU and install the AMD driver from Gigabyte support. Results are inconsistent except that ultimately the eGPU is unusable.
Booting Windows with the eGPU plugged in usually causes the boot up to hang. Boot up resumes normally after unplugging the eGPU. Plugging the eGPU back in any time after this yields similar results as macOS – a mostly frozen display except for the mouse, sometimes a black desktop and only the ability to right-click the task bar.
After unplugging, Windows resumes as normal and the display refreshes itself according to whatever mouse and keyboard actions done prior. Sometimes the eGPU LEDs aren't powered and the fan is unusually quiet when plugged in. These times, the display doesn't freeze. And device manager gives an Error 12. Disabling the right-side TB ports doesn't help. Sometimes plugging it into the lower left port (closest to TAB) disables the trackpad. Because of the glitches in Recovery Mode, I'm fairly certain the eGPU itself is somehow faulty.
I will return the eGPU to Amazon and get a refund. Unfortunately Amazon no longer has it in stock, so I can't get a replacement. As for other enclosures, I can't quite bring myself to spend $500+ on another enclosure and an RX 580 that will undoubtedly be bigger and more cumbersome than the, which I got for $400. Success I got everything up and running after returning the Gaming Box and getting another one from Amazon. Installation steps below. MacOS Installation Plug and play.
External monitor works via Display Port. Internal display works. Windows 10 (1809) Bootcamp Installation. Install Windows 10 with Bootcamp Assistant. In Windows, download and extract DDU.
In, remove AMD & NVIDIA drivers using DDU. In macOS, download and extract the latest version of (0.11.0+).
Boot into macOS Recovery Mode by holding ⌘R right after turning on the MBP until the Apple logo appears. Open Terminal, located under Utilities in the menubar. Navigate to where you extracted rEFInd and install it.
If it's in your Downloads folder, the command might look something like: cd /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users//Downloads/refind-bin-./refind-install. Reboot into macOS.
Open Terminal and navigate again to where you extracted rEFInd and run mountesp. Then open the ESP volume in Finder: cd /Downloads/refind-bin- sudo./mountesp open /Volume/EFI. In the EFI volume in Finder, open the EFI folder, then the refind folder. Then open refind.conf in a text editor. Find the line that has 'spoofosxversion' in it and delete the '#' in the beginning of that line. Probably around line 463. Boot into Windows by pressing W on the rEFInd boot screen.
In Device Manager, disable the Thunderbolt 9D18 controller. Plug the eGPU into the lower left TB3 port (closest to TAB). Download and install Adrenaline 19.2.2 from BootCampDrivers. The official AMD download may work too but I didn't try. Download and install the following: AORUS ENGINE and VGA Tools.
The first Gaming Box was definitely defective somehow. It would cause my computer to crash in both macOS and Windows. My second one was plug and play with macOS. With Windows I had some problems setting it up. WiFi, the trackpad, or the whole system would sometimes crash. But eventually I got everything working well in Windows by using DDU to ensure all previous drivers were uninstalled, then installing the BootCampDrivers.com AMD Adrenaline 19.2.2 drivers and Gigabyte utilities. I've already had a couple instances of the 'boot coup' described, where the rEFInd boot screen doesn't appear when booting up, preventing me from choosing which OS to use.
To fix this, just repeat Steps 4 & 5. I'm using the eGPU USB ports with my keyboard and with my mouse RF receiver.
So far I don't have any connections problems. There also hasn't been any problems with loud PSU fans yet. I'll update if anything else happens.
For the original German review, see. Apple announced an update for the MacBook Pro 15 at this year's WWDC in June. The Skylake processors were still up to date when the previous model launched last autumn, but the competition started shipping models with new and faster Kaby Lake chips soon after that. Apple now reacts with an unusually early update after just 8 months – we originally expected an update this autumn. Besides the new processors, Apple now also ships slightly more powerful GPUs by default.
The entry-level spec is equipped with the, which is the direct (and basically similarly powerful) successor to the old. There is no successor to the Radeon Pro 450, but there is an option for the more powerful. Apple once again uses up to 16 GB of LPDDR3-RAM (2133 MHz), but the maximum SSD storage has been doubled to 2 TB. The following table shows Apple's current line-up for the 15-inch MacBook Pro. Unlike the smaller 13-inch system, the manufacturer still sells the old with the 2015 design. The transfer rates of the MacBook Pro 15 Bar are once again excellent.
However, we can still notice the Wi-Fi problem with 2.4 GHz networks when USB-C devices are attached – similar to the smaller 13-inch model. However, the issue was limited to certain constellations. We noticed connection problems with the Anker Premium USB-C Hub, for example, as well as a maximum configuration with Kensington USB-C Hub, SanDisk 900 USB-C SSD, DisplayPort monitor, USB thumb drive, and other peripherals running Windows (Bootcamp).
However, we could not always reproduce the problem, and both the Kensington hub as well as the USB-C SSD worked without problems. The (Kaby Lake) is not affected. The latter does not support Power Delivery via USB-C though, so this might be the issue. Apple is using second generation Butterfly keys for the MacBook Pro 15 similar to the smaller. However, the from iFixit shows a slightly adjusted underlying construction. There have been reports about problems with keystrokes and our 2016 model in the editorial office also had some problem with the 'S' key for a short while where strokes were not registered at all or they were registered twice. Subjectively, we cannot notice a difference between the two keyboards in a direct comparison.
You still have to get used to the limited travel of the individual buttons, but the advantage is the even and precise pressure point. This is also the case for the average DeltaE-2000 deviations that we determined with the X-Rite i1Pro2 spectrophotometer and the professional CalMAN software. The results for the grayscale (1.6) and the colors (1.9) compared to the P3 reference color space are already within the target range before calibration.
Only the color temperature is a little bit on the cool side at 6834 K. The calibration (via i1Profiler) reduces the ColorChecker value to 0.5 on average and up to 1.34 (DeltaE 2000). Both results are excellent. ≤ 210 cd/m² brightness The display backlight flickers at 119000 Hz (Likely utilizing PWM) Flickering detected at a brightness setting of 80% (210 cd/m²) and below. There should be no flickering or PWM above this brightness setting. The frequency of 119000 Hz is quite high, so most users sensitive to PWM should not notice any flickering. Flickering occurs even at high brightness setting and may have an effect on the user during everyday use.
In comparison: 52% of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 9868 (minimum: 43 - maximum: 142900) Hz was measured. The 2017 entry-level model of the MacBook Pro 15 is – despite the high price – once again equipped with only a 256 GB PCIe SSD.
Apple still charges hefty premiums for bigger drives. The upgrade to 512 GB costs $200, 1 TB $600, and the 2 TB drive is an additional $1400. For comparison: The Samsung SSD 960 Pro with 2 TB (M.2) is available for $1200 in online shops.
The benchmarks put the drive with the designation AP0256 on par with the predecessor as well as the smaller MacBook Pro 13. More benchmarks and comparisons are available in our. The graphics card of the current MacBook Pro carries the designation and is the direct successor to the old. This means that the entry-level SKU has had a speed bump since there is no successor to the slower. The Radeon Pro 555 uses the smaller Polaris 21 chip, which is manufactured in an improved process (14 nm FinFET LPP). However, the technical specifications have not changed: 768 shaders clocked at up to 855 MHz, supported by 2 GB of GDDR5-VRAM.
More information about the Radeon Pro 555 is available in our; more information about the Polaris architecture is available in our. It is not surprising that the Radeon Pro 555 is on par with the old Radeon Pro 455 as well as the old in the synthetic benchmarks.
The current on the other hand, is much faster. The suitable rival based on the Pascal architecture is the brand-new (laptop version of the GT 1030). You can also utilize the full GPU performance on battery power. We did not notice any throttling in “ The Witcher 3” (Bootcamp) or the Unigine Valley benchmark (macOS). The frame rates were steady, even after prolong periods.
Besides the pure performance, the efficiency is another important aspect, especially for slim devices. We check it with the game “ The Witcher 3” (ultra) running on an external monitor to eliminate the integrated panel as a consumer. The results are very interesting. Our first comparison device is the smaller MacBook Pro 13 Touch Bar. Its integrated graphics card is – for an iGPU – very powerful, but it is not particularly efficient in this performance range. The performance is much lower compared to the Radeon Pro 555, but both systems basically consume the same amount of power. This is also the case for the new GeForce MX150 in the MSI PL62 (also i7-7700HQ), where both the performance and the power consumption are on par.
On the other hand, the Asus FX553 (i7-7700HQ) with the more powerful GeForce GTX 1050 consumes almost twice as much power and obviously creates more heat as well. The gaming performance is roughly on par with the old Radeon Pro 455 in the 2016 MacBook Pro 15. Similar to the synthetic tests, the direct rival from Nvidia is the new GeForce MX150 (Pascal). This means that you can play some games with the MBP 15, but you are limited to low/medium details in demanding titles. However, some modern games like “ Prey” or “ Dirt 4” also run smoothly at high settings.
We recommend our for more benchmarks. As well as the results for the new Radeon Pro 555, you can also check the frame rates for the previous Radeon Pro 455. As per usual for Apple, the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Kaby Lake is conveniently quiet. Subjectively, the fan behavior does not differ from the old model. Both fans are still running continuously, but you can only hear them a few centimeters from the device in very quiet environments.
The MacBook stays quiet for a long time under load – especially under macOS. Apple prefers CPU temperatures above 90 °C (194 °F) in favor of loud fans. We can only assume the long-term effects, but you benefit from quiet fans and you can usually not hear them in practice. When you hear the fans, the noise is quite pleasant and there are no annoying frequencies.
Apple has also improved the fan control for Windows over time. While the system noise running Windows (Bootcamp) was often noticeably higher, the current MacBook Pro 15 is conveniently quiet during normal workloads and there is no difference between the two operating systems. The MacBook Pro hardly warms up while idling, despite the quiet fans. Apple uses the aluminum chassis to dissipate the heat under load. We can measure up to 44 °C (111 °F) above the keyboard, but this is a spot you rarely touch.
The palm rests and the individual keys stay conveniently cool. We stress the two components with the tools Prime95 and FurMark (Windows Bootcamp). The processor quickly reaches temperatures of above 90 °C (194 °F) and reduces its clock. We can see fluctuations between 2.2 and 2.4 GHz over the course of the test. The graphics card also runs at a slightly lower clock (693 MHz), but the GPU is cooler at 78 °C (172 °F). The very demanding 3DMark Time Spy stress test was passed, so there should not be any limitations in practice, even when you are running Windows. (±) The average temperature for the upper side under maximal load is 36.7 °C / 98 F, compared to the average of 30.9 °C / 88 F for the devices in the class Multimedia.
(±) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 44 °C / 111 F, compared to the average of 36.5 °C / 98 F, ranging from 21.1 to 71 °C for the class Multimedia. (±) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 41 °C / 106 F, compared to the average of 38.8 °C / 102 F (+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 22.8 °C / 73 F, compared to the device average of 30.9 °C / 88 F. (±) Playing The Witcher 3, the average temperature for the upper side is 36.6 °C / 98 F, compared to the device average of 30.9 °C / 88 F. (+) The palmrests and touchpad are cooler than skin temperature with a maximum of 30 °C / 86 F and are therefore cool to the touch. (±) The average temperature of the palmrest area of similar devices was 29.1 °C / 84.4 F (-0.9 °C / -1.6 F). Apple MacBook Pro 15 2017 (2.8 GHz, 555) audio analysis (+) speakers can play relatively loud (87 dB) Bass 100 - 315 Hz (±) reduced bass - on average 7.8% lower than median (±) linearity of bass is average (11.3% delta to prev.
Frequency) Mids 400 - 2000 Hz (+) balanced mids - only 3.1% away from median (±) linearity of mids is average (7.7% delta to prev. Frequency) Highs 2 - 16 kHz (+) balanced highs - only 1.8% away from median (+) highs are linear (5.1% delta to prev.
Frequency) Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz (+) overall sound is linear (7.3% difference to median) Compared to same class » 3% of all tested devices in this class were better, 1% similar, 96% worse » The best had a delta of 3%, average was 18%, worst was 41% Compared to all devices tested » 1% of all tested devices were better, 0% similar, 99% worse » The best had a delta of 3%, average was 21%, worst was 53%. Apple MacBook Pro 13 2017 Touchbar i5 audio analysis (+) speakers can play relatively loud (86.2 dB) Bass 100 - 315 Hz (±) reduced bass - on average 10.3% lower than median (±) linearity of bass is average (11% delta to prev.
Frequency) Mids 400 - 2000 Hz (±) higher mids - on average 6.3% higher than median (+) mids are linear (6.5% delta to prev. Frequency) Highs 2 - 16 kHz (+) balanced highs - only 2.1% away from median (+) highs are linear (5.8% delta to prev.
Frequency) Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz (+) overall sound is linear (11.8% difference to median) Compared to same class » 7% of all tested devices in this class were better, 4% similar, 89% worse » The best had a delta of 8%, average was 20%, worst was 50% Compared to all devices tested » 6% of all tested devices were better, 2% similar, 93% worse » The best had a delta of 3%, average was 21%, worst was 53%. Dell XPS 15 9560 (i7-7700HQ, UHD) audio analysis (-) not very loud speakers (70.93 dB) Bass 100 - 315 Hz (±) reduced bass - on average 12.9% lower than median (±) linearity of bass is average (14.3% delta to prev. Frequency) Mids 400 - 2000 Hz (+) balanced mids - only 3.5% away from median (±) linearity of mids is average (8.9% delta to prev. Frequency) Highs 2 - 16 kHz (+) balanced highs - only 2.3% away from median (±) linearity of highs is average (7.3% delta to prev. Frequency) Overall 100 - 16.000 Hz (+) overall sound is linear (13.8% difference to median) Compared to same class » 20% of all tested devices in this class were better, 4% similar, 76% worse » The best had a delta of 3%, average was 18%, worst was 41% Compared to all devices tested » 11% of all tested devices were better, 3% similar, 85% worse » The best had a delta of 3%, average was 21%, worst was 53%. The power consumption of our test model is higher than that of the 2016 models in some scenarios, which is interesting.
We measure 3.4 watts at the lowest luminance, while the 2016 models consume between 2.9 and 4 watts – so the 2017 model is average. However, the new 2017 MacBook consumes 3 watts more on average while idling compared to the 2016 systems. One aspect is the increased maximum luminance of the display, so the additional consumption is justified. We cannot see a big difference under load though. The 3DMark 06 value is on par with the old high-end model, but this is once again a result of the bright display. All tested models are similar under maximum load at 88 to 91 watts.
The battery capacity of 76 Wh has not changed. Unlike the smaller MacBook Pro 13 however, we can determine slightly longer battery runtimes compared to the previous models.
The battery lasts for one hour under load, but the realistic Wi-Fi test (luminance 150 nits) runs for almost 11 hours, so the advertised runtime from Apple (10 hours) is slightly exceeded. A 1080p video loop (H.264, no Wi-Fi, 150 nits) stopped at around 8:30 hours – once again comparable to the 2016 model with the Radeon Pro 455. Our new game test “ The Witcher 3” (Bootcamp) revealed a slightly longer runtime of almost 1:30 hours. You can utilize the full performance, so the short runtime is no surprise. We once again check the Wi-Fi runtime in combination with Windows, where the Radeon Pro 555 is always running. The battery dropped to 5% after 5:20 hours and Windows 10 shut down (default setting, the battery capacity drops further on macOS).
This is a significant difference to macOS. Apple's multimedia notebook MacBook Pro 15 is back on par with the rivals in terms of processor performance thanks to the Kaby Lake update. The new models are therefore more attractive, especially for power users in need of as much CPU performance as possible.
Apple also ships the new entry-level model with a slightly more powerful GPU. Its strength is definitely the efficiency and the low heat development. However, it is hard to find any other reasons that would justify an upgrade. The construction of the keyboard has been slightly reworked, but we cannot evaluate the long-term effects at this point. The screen is still excellent, just like the case and the emissions.
The two biggest issues are once again the port selection as well as the price and the hefty premiums for hardware options. Four Thunderbolt 3 ports usually require adapters or hubs, but there can still be issues with 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks. As with the previous model, we deduct two percent from the final rating. The entry-level price tag is still high, but the SSD upgrades extremely expensive.
However, this does not change the fact that the Apple MacBook Pro 15 is still one of the best multimedia laptops.