MacBook Pro & eGPU for iRacing?

Jiiim · Nov 21, 2019

Hi folks,

I have a 2016 15" MacBook Pro (2.7 GHz i7, 16GB RAM) and I'd like to start iRacing.

I'll probably start with a single monitor and work my way up to triples. I have the LG UltraFine 5k 27" and 4k 24" available, although I could buy another 144 Hz one if need be.

Would this be workable with an eGPU? If so, what graphics card should I be looking at? Vega 64? 5700 XT?

It's all very new, and quite a minefield!

Miguel Batista · Nov 21, 2019

From team red a 5700 or 5700xt. The others are not worth considering unless they are like super cheap.

BrunoBæ · Nov 25, 2019

iRacing has a very low impact on puter resources.
2 years ago I was running iRacing on a i7-920 + HD7950.
No problems - hehe at least conserning computer resources.

jpindustrie · Nov 30, 2019

It is 'low impact' relatively but it will still give your single core threads a workout at least ...

Ultimately I wouldn't recommend a laptop for any sustained (read: heat) activity like gaming or rendering , better to save up for the desktop IMO. It is possible though.

BrunoBæ · Dec 2, 2019

To qualify my answer a bit more then its implied that you can forget everything about using some integrated "g-card" like a eGPU.
That was the reason I refered to my old but rather capable HD7950.

dud · Dec 4, 2019

It also doesn't play well with the CPU's turbo mode.

Laptop CPUs typically have a very high turbo when using a single core, but drop dramatically with more threads (not even counting turbo restrictions from heat). A comparable desktop CPU holds on to a higher turbo with more cores. And you can cool it better.

This aspect obviously depends on the game. If a game is mostly single-threaded anyway then a modern laptop can do well. Massive parallel processing is still better in the hands of a typical higher end desktop CPU.