GPU benchmarking is a great way to see how well your graphics card can cope with a variety of visual effects and graphical demands. For instance, when a brand new game is coming out, you may want to benchmark GPU to be absolutely confident that your Mac won’t have problems with running it well. When it comes to choosing software for GPU. GeForce 200 Series: GeForce GTX 285. GeForce 100 Series: GeForce GT 120. GeForce 8 Series: GeForce 8800 GT. Quadro Series: Quadro K5000 for Mac, Quadro 4000 for Mac. Finding a Safe Mac OS GPU for VMs One of the most common questions we get is: “what gpu should I use for a Mac OS VM,” and it’s frankly a hard one to answer. Nvidia is essentially out of the question at this point, assuming you want to use a new release of their operating system, and new AMD cards don’t work well with UEFI Passthrough. . Cinebench R20 provides improved benchmark accuracy for current and next generation CPUs to test if a machine runs stable on a high CPU load, if the cooling solution of a desktop or notebook is sufficient for longer running tasks to deliver the full potential of the CPU, and if a machine is able to handle demanding real-life 3D tasks.
How to tell that your Mac works at its full? How to find out how fast your solid state drives (SSD) or hard drive really is? How to get a good insight into any possible failures? The answer: Mac benchmark software.
Benchmarking is a way to test out the performance of your Mac’s memory, hard drive, graphics card, among other things. It provides numbers for finding the weak spots within the system, comparison with other machines, and can help you understand whether to upgrade to a new laptop or desktop computer.
For example, if you’re planning to install a new video game, you can benchmark your hardware to see if it’s capable of running that game. Or you might want to test if a new SSD is actually performing as advertised.
There are several benchmarking tools available that can measure how well your Mac works. Here we’ll show you some of the best apps in the Mac world and walk you through the benchmark process. So, let’s get started!
Caution: To gather the proper data, close all running programs during the benchmark tests. To measure the performance, they all require 100% of your resources.
The central processing unit (CPU) is the computer component that’s responsible for executing and interpreting most of the commands of your hardware and software. It’s like your computer’s brain that controls the essential things happening on your Mac.
CPU benchmarks can help you gather information on the main things in your system, including the processor, memory, and more. There are many benchmarking tools designed to measure the general performance of your Mac, but one of the most popular is Geekbench 4.
Geekbench measures your system’s powers and tells how strong your computer is. It uses a number of different tests to model the real-world tasks or applications to define your CPU performance. This simple, yet powerful tool is incredibly easy to use, so you won’t have any problems when benchmarking your Mac with its help.
Download the app, run the test and you’ll define how well your Mac can perform everyday tasks. Be patient, it will take from 2 to 20 minutes to complete the CPU benchmark. When the test is over, you can compare your results with other users’ on the Geekbench Browser. It will give you an idea of how well your Mac performs and whether it can work better.
GPU benchmarking is a great way to see how well your graphics card can cope with a variety of visual effects and graphical demands. For instance, when a brand new game is coming out, you may want to benchmark GPU to be absolutely confident that your Mac won’t have problems with running it well.
When it comes to choosing software for GPU benchmarks, you have a great choice. There are many good tools for graphics card benchmarks, but we advise you to use the Maxon’s Cinebench. It is based on the animation software Cinema 4D, which is used by studios and various production houses around the world for 3D content creation.
Cinebench is a perfect tool for video card benchmarks, and best of all: it’s completely free. Run a test with Cinebench to see if your graphics card is getting the score you hoped for.
When it comes to measuring your hard drive or SSD performance, the best utility to use is Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. It’s a simple tool that allows to quickly test your disk speed for working with high-quality videos and demanding applications.
To start using the app, simply download and open it, choose your drive (if your computer is using more than one), and click Start to run the benchmark test. Very quickly you’ll determine the hard drive read and write speeds and see if they are suitable for high-end video related operations.
Good news: Blackmagic disk speed test is free to download from the App Store. So take advantage of it once you need to know how well your MacBook’s SSD is performing.
Benchmarking won’t speed your computer or increase its performance. It can only show you how well your Mac works and if there are any faults within the various components. But a utility like CleanMyMac X is designed to monitor the health of your Mac and improve its efficiency with a set of optimizing goodies.
If you want to see how your Mac is performing, just go to the CleanMyMac X Menu. All you need is one glance to see your hard drive space, processor load, battery life, and memory usage. And don’t worry, if there’s a problem with your Mac, the app will let you know immediately and help you with the fix.
CleanMyMac has the Maintenance module that gives you direct access to all sorts of optimizing things: repairing disk permissions, running maintenance scripts, reindexing Spotlight, verifying startup disk, and much more. Just run a set of scripts to quickly optimize your system’s performance.
Oh, we almost forgot to tell you — CleanMyMac is incredibly easy to use and completely free to download. With its help, you’ll keep your computer optimized and speed it up at a moment’s notice. Give it a try and maintaining your Mac will become a whole lot easier.
As you see, there are many ways to test and measure your Mac performance. See how your Mac works over time and make sure to keep it in shape for years.
An eGPU can give your Mac additional graphics performance for professional apps, 3D gaming, VR content creation, and more.
eGPUs are supported by any Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac1 running macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later. Learn how to update the software on your Mac.
An eGPU lets you do all this on your Mac:
eGPU support in macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later is designed to accelerate Metal, OpenGL, and OpenCL apps that benefit from a powerful eGPU. Not all apps support eGPU acceleration; check with the app's developer to learn more.3
In general, an eGPU can accelerate performance in these types of apps:
You can configure applications to use an eGPU with one of the following methods.
Starting with macOS Mojave 10.14, you can turn on Prefer External GPU in a specific app's Get Info panel in the Finder. This option lets the eGPU accelerate apps on any display connected to the Mac—including displays built in to iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro:
You won't see this option if an eGPU isn't connected, if your Mac isn't running macOS Mojave or later, or if the app self-manages its GPU selection. Some apps, such as Final Cut Pro, directly choose which graphics processors are used and will ignore the Prefer External GPU checkbox.
If you have an external display connected to your eGPU, you can choose it as the primary display for all apps. Since apps default to the GPU associated with the primary display, this option works with a variety of apps:
If you disconnect the eGPU, your Mac defaults back to the internal graphics processors that drives the built-in display. When the eGPU is re-attached, it automatically sets the external display as the primary display.
Mac hardware and GPU software drivers have always been deeply integrated into the system. This design fuels the visually rich and graphical macOS experience as well as many deeper platform compute and graphics features. These include accelerating the user interface, providing support for advanced display features, rendering 3D graphics for pro software and games, processing photos and videos, driving powerful GPU compute features, and accelerating machine learning tasks. This deep integration also enables optimal battery life while providing for greater system performance and stability.
Apple develops, integrates, and supports macOS GPU drivers to ensure there are consistent GPU capabilities across all Mac products, including rich APIs like Metal, Core Animation, Core Image, and Core ML. In order to deliver the best possible customer experience, GPU drivers need to be engineered, integrated, tested, and delivered with each version of macOS. Aftermarket GPU drivers delivered by third parties are not compatible with macOS.
The GPU drivers delivered with macOS are also designed to enable a high quality, high performance experience when using an eGPU, as described in the list of recommended eGPU chassis and graphics card configurations below. Because of this deep system integration, only graphics cards that use the same GPU architecture as those built into Mac products are supported in macOS.
It's important to use an eGPU with a recommended graphics card and Thunderbolt 3 chassis. If you use an eGPU to also charge your MacBook Pro, the eGPU's chassis needs to provide enough power to run the graphics card and charge the computer. Check with the manufacturer of the chassis to find out if it provides enough power for your MacBook Pro.
Recommended graphics cards, along with chassis that can power them sufficiently, are listed below.
These products contain a powerful built-in GPU and supply sufficient power to charge your MacBook Pro.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 all-in-one eGPUs:
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Polaris architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Pulse series and the AMD WX series.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Vega 56 architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Vega 56.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
These graphics cards are based on the AMD Vega 64 architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the Sapphire Vega 64, AMD Frontier Edition air-cooled, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
If you've installed macOS Catalina 10.15.1 or later, you can use these graphics cards that are based on the AMD Navi RDNA architecture. Recommended graphics cards include the AMD Radeon RX 5700, AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary.
Recommended Thunderbolt 3 chassis for these graphics cards:
1. If you have a Mac mini (2018) with FileVault turned on, make sure to connect your primary display directly to Mac mini during startup. After you log in and see the macOS Desktop, you can unplug the display from Mac mini and connect it to your eGPU.
2. If you're using a 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2016 or 2017, always plug eGPUs and other high-performance devices into the left-hand ports for maximum data throughput.
3. macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later don't support eGPUs in Windows using Boot Camp or when your Mac is in macOS Recovery or installing system updates.
4. These chassis provide at least 85 watts of charging power, making them ideal for use with 15-inch MacBook Pro models.
5. Playback of HDCP-protected content from iTunes and some streaming services is not supported on displays attached to Radeon 560-based eGPUs. You can play this content on the built-in display on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and iMac.
6. If you use Akitio Node with a Mac notebook, you might need to connect your Mac to its power adapter to ensure proper charging.