5 Things to Know About eGPUs and Apple Silicon Macs

eGPUs do not work with Apple Silicon Macs Apple dropped external GPU support when it moved from Intel to M1, and M2 and M3 are the same.

The hardware is physically incompatible Apple Silicon’s Thunderbolt controller cannot communicate with an external GPU, so macOS will not recognize it.

No driver, workaround, or hack exists There is no practical way to make an eGPU work with Apple Silicon, despite a few niche virtualization setups that are not useful for real tasks.

Your only option for more graphics power is a built-in GPU Choose a MacBook Pro with a discrete GPU like the M3 Max or M4 Pro, or a Mac Mini or Mac Studio.

The M1/M2/M3 Air is not for heavy GPU work It is fine for most tasks, but not for demanding graphics applications.