eGPU worth it with 2012 mac mini running CS6?

[Arty Greg]

Hey guys, Have been searching all over the place trying to find an answer to this... does anyone know if an external GPU would improve Adobe Illustrator CS6's performance on an older mac with one of those less than great built in graphics situations... seems all the rage with newer (non-pro) macs but from what I can tell Adobe CC now has selectable preferences for which GPU to use but in CS6 I can't see anything obvious...

My issue being I use AI daily for my freelance work and I get nervous taking on larger projects as when vector shapes get to a certain complexity and/or a number of blurs or textures are added to this mix I end up sitting waiting any time I even slightly move a section of artwork.

Something else I'm wondering about is I have about 41GB free on the SSD ... as the mini uses HD as virtual RAM could this potentially be my problem and simply getting a bigger SSD would help? Although I did open activity monitor and watch ram usage etc while dealing with the long redraw/load issue and nothing seemed overloaded or at it's limit ... everything was showing as well within capabilities

Well... any help appreciated!

Current system specs:

Mac mini (Late 2012) / 2.3 GHz Intel Quad Core i7 / 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 / Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB / Samsung 850Pro SSD 256GB

 

[Arty Greg]

Hmm been mulling over this more and am thinking I may be getting myself confused with what deals with what ... while yes I do experience pretty severe lag moving complex images about my screen, my main issue is how long I have to wait for illustrator to process an edit on complex files. I'm guessing this is more down to CPU and / or RAM rather than GPU...?

 

[Alex Glawion]

Hey Greg, While Adobe Software generally makes good use of nvidia gpus, I am not entirely sure if an eGPU would make a huge difference. You Intel HD integrated graphics is not great at all (which might be the problem) but with an eGPU you'll be severely throttling the potential of that gpu. eGPU are only as fast as the connection allows and on a 2012 Mac Mini I fear that connection might be a crazy bottleneck.

Processing / Redrawing Files in AI is mainly dependent on the cpu. If you don't change anything but just move your image around, that's mainly dependent on the gpu. Saving and loading of course will mainly be ssd/Hdd. Looks like you might be ripe for an updated system altogether?

 

[Arty Greg]

Hey Alex, yep! I decided why not give it a go and purchased an external GPU ... decent card etc... it was interesting in that it made absolutely zero noticeable difference in adobe CS6 AI + PS despite new card showing as the card my system was using giving me 8GB vram compared to the 1.5 'vram' on the integrated setup (my understanding the HD4000 is allotted a percentage of the RAM you install to use as VRAM?)

I have to say on my Sierra setup on SSD Adobe CS6 runs really very well most of the time ... like I said no noticeable difference at all until I ran a benchmark test - yep despite the thunderbolt 1 bottleneck the eGPU made my mini MUCH faster at demanding 3D stuff... the fact I almost exclusively deal with 2D art, design and illustration seems I can get away with modest GPU ... but as you say it's CPU and RAM along with a fast SSD that will make the difference.

I am pretty sure I was on this forum a number of years ago asking about the old trashcan Mac Pro and you gave me a few guiding points ... still a tempting option to get an old 'pro' machine but I'm now wondering if a top end 2018 mini with an SSD and maxed ram would be a more affordable and also future proof machine.

• £2,016
• Mac Pro (6.1) 2013+
• CPU - 3.7GHz Intel Xeon E5 Quad Core (Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz)
• RAM - 64GB 1866MHz DDR3 ECC
• Graphics - D300 4GB (2x2GB) ... D500 6GB (2x3GB) +£360 ... D700 12GB (2x6GB) + £840
• Storage - 512GB SSD
• Operating System (Mac OS) - Mojave 10.14

• £1,782
• Mac mini 2018
• CPU - 3.2GHz i7 6-Core (Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz)
• RAM - 64GB 2666MHz DDR4 SO-DIMM
• Graphics - Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536MB
• Storage - 512GB SSD
• Operating System (Mac OS) - Mojave 10.14

 

[Alex Glawion]

Those two Macs would probably perform slightly better than what you have now, yes. The thing is though, those components are still not very good for the workloads you are running. Integrated graphics again, or a xeon which is not what you want for active workloads. For the same price you could get a top of the line PC which would perform worlds better than what you can with the options you listed.

That said, if mac is the way to go for you (which is fine ) I'd lean towards the Mac Pro systems, as that one have a dedicated GPU with more VRAM than the mac mini.