Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scope of the New Driver

  • Driver enables Nvidia (and some AMD) GPUs over Thunderbolt/USB4 on Apple Silicon Macs, but only for compute.
  • No CUDA, Vulkan, nvidia-smi, or graphics/AAA gaming support; it’s tied to tinygrad’s stack.
  • Some consider the headline “misleading” because “eGPU” implies graphics; others say compute is what many care about (e.g., local LLMs).
  • Implementation appears to be a userspace driver plus tooling, with Docker used mainly to get Linux-side toolchains for Nvidia.

Performance, Bandwidth, and Hardware Constraints

  • Thunderbolt/USB4 exposes only PCIe x4, far below a typical x16 slot; TB4 ≈ 4–5 GB/s, TB5 ≈ 8 GB/s effective.
  • This is a serious bottleneck for some workloads, especially large-model streaming or graphics, but less so for many LLM inference tasks.
  • External enclosures are another cost/complexity point (PSU, cages, cables, dust, reliability).

Use Cases and Practicality

  • Enthusiasm from people with spare high-end GPUs who want local LLM inference or scientific compute on Macs.
  • Skeptics argue it’s “90% useless”: limited bandwidth, fragile support, no CUDA/Vulkan/PyTorch integration, and risk of breakage in future macOS updates.
  • Alternatives raised: just buy a cheap PC for the GPU, rent cloud GPUs, or use LAN-based “remote GPU” solutions.

Apple, Nvidia, and Platform Control

  • Debate over Apple’s historic refusal to sign Nvidia drivers and the opportunity cost (e.g., for servers or pro Macs).
  • Disagreement on whether this should trigger antitrust scrutiny; some say Apple lacks market monopoly, others argue monopolies can be defined narrowly (e.g., App Store on iOS).
  • Broader concerns about driver signing, “walled garden” policies, and whether users should be able to run any drivers/software on their hardware.

eGPU and UX Experiences

  • Mixed reports on eGPUs: some long-term stable setups, others plagued by sleep/power/connection issues.
  • Many feel traditional internal PCIe slots on Macs are effectively gone, making high-bandwidth GPU use on macOS an ongoing pain point.