Cards showing Screen Output on 2016 MBP (Non Touch Bar) in OS X

[Rominator]

So far the only cards I have been able to get screen output from are Nvidia Kepler.

They work beautifully, run at PCIE 3.0 x4 and are nice and stable in benchmarks.

Nvidia Maxwell cause crash on boot.

AMD Rx 460 and 480 show up but don't have screen output. Not really working.

Seems Apple has another block in place.

They REALLY don't want their computer being used for Hi Performance stuff.

Anyone have different results?

[theitsage]

Are we talking strictly Thunderbolt 3 enclosures in macOS?

My Sapphire RX 470 with AKiTiO Thunder2 is able to produce screen output to an external monitor. With Thunder3, it worked once with the external monitor and crashes every time after that.

[Rominator]

That is interesting that you got screen output from 470.

I was able to get screen output from a 7970 but it was very weird. The 7970 was connected to the display but when I ran Valley it scored 4fps and in system profiler the 7970 wasn't there.

On reboot the 7970 showed up but screen was still very laggy and still got 4fps in Valley and showed as running on Iris iGPU. Almost like a reverse eGPU, the internal card was drawing on external screen.

When you run the 470 does it do as well as it should in OpenGl?

I have both 460 and 480 but no 470. I have had no luck getting screen out put from them or Fury. Will try again with TB2.

There is definitely some odd "stopper" or block present to keep eGPUs from running on 2016 MBP. Will be more fun when we find it but for now Kepler cards are the key. (And maybe 470 if it runs OK)

[theitsage]

My RX 470 behaves the exact same way as your 7970. There's video output to external display but the iGPU is the one driving everything. RX 470 shows up in profiler and Thunderbolt 3 at full 40 Gb/s x1. Yet it's clearly was not providing the boost. This behavior is only through a direct Thunderbolt 3 connection. I'm able to use my 2016 MBP with a TB3 <->TB2 adapter and Thunderbolt 2 eGPU in macOS.

[Rominator]

I have since gotten better luck with Nvidia cards after re-running the 10.12.1 update.

Haven't tried AMD cards, hopefully this weekend.

After the 13th I will have more time. (final paper due for class I was taking)