Wolfe enclosure wants to give Macs real gaming power

Gaming on Macs has never been quite as easy as it has been on Windows systems. Part of that is a software issue, but it's also always been harder to get yourself a powerful graphics card at a decent price with Apple hardware. The Wolfe is looking to change that, by bringing external GPUs to the Mac and Macbooks everywhere.

Although gaming on Macs has received a bit more of a push in recent years, along with other alternative operating systems, it's still far from a powerhouse with a much smaller library of supporting games than its Windows counterparts. That sort of chicken and egg issue is why it's hard to get decent gaming power on a Mac or Macbook.

With The Wolfe, gamers with a Thunderbolt equipped Apple system will be able to plug in the external GPU enclosure, adding either a GTX 950 or 970 for added performance. We've reached out to the developers to ask if it will also offer Pascal GPUs, since the 900 series is now out of date.

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The plan is to sell them starting at $400 (£300) on Kickstarter later today, 23rd August. Marketing material suggests that they can provide up to 10 times the gaming performance of an average Macbook – even enough perhaps to play with an Oculus Rift.

However what the promo material fails to mention, is that the Rift isn't supported in OS X. In order to use it on your Mac or Macbook, you'd need to dual boot Windows first, which feels like it's starting to defeat the point. For only a few hundred pounds more, you could build a much more powerful and contemporary gaming machine, without the need for an external enclosure.

The Wolfe is also marketed as being portable. While it isn't large, it's hardly small either and requires a dedicated power source, so you won't be able to use it easily while out and about.

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KitGuru Says: It's an interesting little product, but it really does feel like it will have a niche audience. Most Mac gamers who want more power would probably be better off building a desktop PC instead – especially if the GPU in the Wolfe cannot be upgraded.

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