2009 Mac Pro v4.1 to 5.1 Graphics Card Help

[rodedwards]

Hi everyone ...

I have a 2009 Mac Pro desktop tower which originally came with v4.1 firmware, but i updated to v5.1. I also had processors upgraded to 2 x Intel Xeon 3.46Mhz and added a Mac Edition Nvidia Geforce GTX 680 graphics card. It's all running on Sierra 10.12.6.

I'm now playing with 5.7k (soon 8k) 360 video and i find my video clips are not showing in FCPX - so think i probably need to upgrade my graphics card ...

I'm viewing on an old Apple 23" Cinema Display using the (i think) DVI output and a USB2 cable. Old screen but funds tight and it stills keeps chugging along. Could this connection be my bottleneck ?

I'm looking at either a preflashed Nvidia GTX 1070 8Gb by MacVidCards at £594 :

https://www.macstoreuk.com/product/nvidia-gtx-1070-8gb-by-macvidcards-copy/

Or a Sapphire Radeon RX580 8Gb Pulse at £276.97 :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-Pulse-Radeon-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B071CQ5LRV

As i understand it, the preflashed MacVidCards GTX 1070 will give the Mac a start up Apple logo and allow easy OS updates ... It'll also be faster. However, i understand that the RX580 is Mac approved for Metal and High Sierra and less than half the price.

Is there much difference between the two cards ? I'd rather go with the cheaper one but not sure if i'll run into other problems like updating OS to High Sierra 10.13.

Any advice is really appreciated ... Thanks in advance !

 

[Pandanl]

Go with the RX580, it will work better with FCPX and has native support in 10.13 and above. You won’t get a boot screen though.

 

[rodedwards]

Thanks for your reply Pandani ... that's what i was wondering !

Is not getting an Apple logo boot screen anything more than a visual problem - what abouyt OS upgrades so i need to switch cards every time i update OS?

I'm also worried that the old monitor DVI USB2 connection will cause display problems, even with a new card. So i could be back to square one if this is the case ...

Any more advice and opinions would be appreciated !

 

[Spacedust]

You can get GTX1070 from MacVidCards Europe for about GBP 500: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MacVidCa...441276?hash=item3fa4a86dfc:g:RHMAAOSw94Ba8E4t

It supports Apple Cinema Displays 23" and it's USB 2.0 hub without any trouble.

Without flashed card you will have to switch to an old Apple card just to continue update. It will also prevent you from updating motherboard EFI which is needed to run macOS High Sierra or later.

 

[tpivette89]

You also wont be able to update the firmware without a Mac edition card. So if you do get a RX580, keep the GTX 680 around for such occasions

 

[Spacedust]

I think unflashed RX580 also works on PCI-Express 1.1 only, while flashed GTX works on 2.0 on both macOS and Windows as well.

 

[TheIguana]

Are you sure this is entirely a graphics card speed issue and not a data throughput problem with your storage devices? What are you currently using to store your clips as you are editing?

 

[rodedwards]

Thanks everyone for your advice and help ... Great to pick so many brains !

I am tempted with both cards for different reasons ... and I must admit it's good to have the boot screen and easy OS upgrade of the flashed 1070. Just wish it was cheaper !

TheIguana ... you're right, I'm NOT 100% sure it's a graphics card problem that's causing my Garmin Virb 360 5.7k mp4 clips to now show up. I may try the OS upgrade to High Sierra first but I wondered if the data wasn't getting from the card to the monitor fast enough due to the limited DVI port. However, I can view 5.7k natively via Garmin Virb editing software - so i think it must be the card. I'm running the video from my Hard Drive SSD - a Samsung Evo 840 ... so it should be fast enough. Not got TRIM enabled yet ... wondered if i should try to do this but again don't understand what i'm doing.

I'm kinda feeling i should go with the Nvidia 1070 but it's not cheap, even off ebay (thanks Spacedust)

Am i likely to run into any problems when i upgrade to High Sierra ?

 

[Spacedust]

GTX1070 works smooth under High Sierra 10.12.4 or higher and will work well when final Mojave is released. These cards are also very silent and energy efficent - just 150W. GTX680 takes 195W.

 

[rodedwards]

Are you sure this is entirely a graphics card speed issue and not a data throughput problem with your storage devices? What are you currently using to store your clips as you are editing?

Interestingly enough TheIguana ... you were thinking along the right track ... My Nvidia GTX 680 Mac card wasn't causing the black 360 5.7k Garmin film clips in FCPX. I have just updated my OS from Sierra 10.12 to High Sierra 10.13 and the clips now show - even on my old 2013 MacBook Pro. I may be able to hold off a few months until i decide to buy the preflashed Nvidia GTX 1070 ... I'll also see how this is supported in Mojave when that OS is released. With any luck the new card will have come down in price too.

Thanks everyone for your input ! I feel more confident what to buy when the time comes.

 

[rsiesta]

Interestingly enough TheIguana ... you were thinking along the right track ... My Nvidia GTX 680 Mac card wasn't causing the black 360 5.7k Garmin film clips in FCPX. I have just updated my OS from Sierra 10.12 to High Sierra 10.13 and the clips now show - even on my old 2013 MacBook Pro. I may be able to hold off a few months until i decide to buy the preflashed Nvidia GTX 1070 ... I'll also see how this is supported in Mojave when that OS is released. With any luck the new card will have come down in price too.

Thanks everyone for your input ! I feel more confident what to buy when the time comes.

My understanding is Mojave will not work with your model, I am in the same boat, a flashed 2009 will get not supported in the Mojave beta, Even though it reports 5.1 it still shows Pro 2009 and Mojave only supports 2010 and newer. I wish I had bought a 2010 and upgraded that as it appears High Sierra is end of line for this model.

 

[Squuiid]

I really don’t understand why anyone would buy a flashed 1070 at this stage.
An utter waste of money and effort.

The RX 580 (with a GT120 or GTX 680 for firmware flashes) is the perfect card for the cMP IMO.

Why have the hassle of dealing with Nvidia drivers. Who knows if they’ll even support Mojave?
Not only that, the new GTX 1170 is probably weeks away at this stage, so prices would drop then anyway.

Apple have now come out and said that the RX 580 is a supported card. Why deviate from that?

 

[bookemdano]

My understanding is Mojave will not work with your model, I am in the same boat, a flashed 2009 will get not supported in the Mojave beta, Even though it reports 5.1 it still shows Pro 2009 and Mojave only supports 2010 and newer. I wish I had bought a 2010 and upgraded that as it appears High Sierra is end of line for this model.

You're wrong. Mojave works fine on a 2009 that was flashed to the 5,1 firmware.

 

[tsialex]

You're wrong. Mojave works fine on a 2009 that was flashed to the 5,1 firmware.

Let's not forget a Metal supported GPU.

 

[h9826790]

My understanding is Mojave will not work with your model, I am in the same boat, a flashed 2009 will get not supported in the Mojave beta, Even though it reports 5.1 it still shows Pro 2009 and Mojave only supports 2010 and newer. I wish I had bought a 2010 and upgraded that as it appears High Sierra is end of line for this model.

10.14 is definitely working on Mac Pro 2009 with proper 5,1 firmware and GPU.

 

[rodedwards]

That's encouraging news about Mojave support guys ... I daren't try beta ... only just updated to High Sierra yesterday !

I really don’t understand why anyone would buy a flashed 1070 at this stage.
An utter waste of money and effort.

The RX 580 (with a GT120 or GTX 680 for firmware flashes) is the perfect card for the cMP IMO.

Why have the hassle of dealing with Nvidia drivers. Who knows if they’ll even support Mojave?
Not only that, the new GTX 1170 is probably weeks away at this stage, so prices would drop then anyway.

Apple have now come out and said that the RX 580 is a supported card. Why deviate from that?

Can i have two cards installed inside the classic 2009 Mac Pro at same time then - so i get the boot screen and easy OS updates with an RX 580? If not, then a flashed 1070 would surely be easier ? Or am i missing something ?

One other quick question ... I've never enabled TRIM on the Samsung Evo 840. Is it too late to enable it now without wiping all my drive and reinstalling everything ? Are there any significant advantages in enabling TRIM ?

 

[Squuiid]

I've never enabled TRIM on the Samsung Evo 840. Is it too late to enable it now without wiping all my drive and reinstalling everything ? Are there any significant advantages in enabling TRIM ?

The first thing to do with that car crash of an SSD is to ensure that you are running the latest firmware on it. The 840 EVO had horrible performance problems which are only fixed by the latest firmware. This will do far more for your system than enabling TRIM.
As for your question, yes, just use sudo trimforce enable in terminal and reboot. Data will remain intact and it is definitely worth doing.

 

[h9826790]

That's encouraging news about Mojave support guys ... I daren't try beta ... only just updated to High Sierra yesterday !



Can i have two cards installed inside the classic 2009 Mac Pro at same time then - so i get the boot screen and easy OS updates with an RX 580? If not, then a flashed 1070 would surely be easier ? Or am i missing something ?

One other quick question ... I've never enabled TRIM on the Samsung Evo 840. Is it too late to enable it now without wiping all my drive and reinstalling everything ? Are there any significant advantages in enabling TRIM ?

You don’t need any other card, just the RX580 is good enough for OS update / installation.

After Enable TRIM, you should manually TRIM the SSD once, otherwise, those “dirty” cell will still mark as dirty.

 

[rodedwards]

The first thing to do with that car crash of an SSD is to ensure that you are running the latest firmware on it. The 840 EVO had horrible performance problems which are only fixed by the latest firmware. This will do far more for your system than enabling TRIM.
As for your question, yes, just use sudo trimforce enable in terminal and reboot. Data will remain intact and it is definitely worth doing.

Ahhh ... thanks for the heads up ... I thought the vo 840 SSD was a goodie ! I've emailed Samsung Support and asked how i can install the latest firmware as it seems to be PC based but i'm really no expert and feel like i'm playing with fire. If they don't help, i'll let you know and perhaps you can give me some pointers ... Thanks

You don’t need any other card, just the RX580 is good enough for OS update / installation.

After Enable TRIM, you should manually TRIM the SSD once, otherwise, those “dirty” cell will still mark as dirty.

So the RX 580 will allow me to update OS without changing back to an older Mac flashed card ? But it won't show the Mac Apple at start up ? Is that right ?

And i'm afraid i'm a little lost with your advice to manually TRIM the SSD once after enabling TRIM. Is this the right procedure :

• Open the Terminal application (Use spotlight and type ‘Terminal’)
• Enter this text in to terminal – sudo trimforce enable – and hit enter
• Enter your administrator password
• follow the on screen steps and your Mac will restart
• TRIM is no active on your Mac

Sounds simple enough ?! Famous last words ...

Thanks again to you all for your help !

 

[Squuiid]

Ahhh ... thanks for the heads up ... I thought the evo 840 SSD was a goodie ! I've emailed Samsung Support and asked how i can install the latest firmware as it seems to be PC based but i'm really no expert and feel like i'm playing with fire.

Here's the Mac firmware update:
https://s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/global.semi.static/Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_EXT0DB6Q_Mac.iso
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

 

[rodedwards]

Here's the Mac firmware update:
https://s3.ap-northeast-2.amazonaws.com/global.semi.static/Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_EXT0DB6Q_Mac.iso
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

You star ! Fabulous ... But it's an .iso file (Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_EXT0DB6Q_Mac.iso) ... what do i do with the contents ?!

 

[tsialex]

You star ! Fabulous ... But it's an .iso file (Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_EXT0DB6Q_Mac.iso) ... what do i do with the contents ?!

First, make a backup of your files. Then burn a CD, right click on the ISO file and select Burn. Next you boot from the CD to upgrade the firmware.

 

[Squuiid]

First, make a backup of your files. Then burn a CD, right click on the ISO file and select Burn. Next you boot from the CD to upgrade the firmware.

Insert the CD, reboot the Mac while holding down OPTION key. Then choose CD boot and follow the instructions.
As @tsialex mentioned, do make sure you have a backup of your data/disk before the update.

While in some cases I may say you could get away without doing the firmware upgrade, in the case of the 840 EVO it is very much crucial that you do the update, unless you're happy with 'far slower than a spinning hard disk' speeds.

Test your disk speeds before and after the update using AJA System Test:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/aja-system-test-lite/id1092006274?mt=12

 

[h9826790]

You star ! Fabulous ... But it's an .iso file (Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_EXT0DB6Q_Mac.iso) ... what do i do with the contents ?!

Use the FreeDOS way to update the firmware. Be careful that can take hours (the bug was about the old data will suffer from very slow read, therefore, during this firmware update fix, all data will be re-written once under the "fixed" environment, which can takes a long time).

Also, make sure the SSD is connected to one of the native SATA port, not on any PCIe card.

Ahhh ... thanks for the heads up ... I thought the vo 840 SSD was a goodie ! I've emailed Samsung Support and asked how i can install the latest firmware as it seems to be PC based but i'm really no expert and feel like i'm playing with fire. If they don't help, i'll let you know and perhaps you can give me some pointers ... Thanks



So the RX 580 will allow me to update OS without changing back to an older Mac flashed card ? But it won't show the Mac Apple at start up ? Is that right ?

And i'm afraid i'm a little lost with your advice to manually TRIM the SSD once after enabling TRIM. Is this the right procedure :

• Open the Terminal application (Use spotlight and type ‘Terminal’)
• Enter this text in to terminal – sudo trimforce enable – and hit enter
• Enter your administrator password
• follow the on screen steps and your Mac will restart
• TRIM is no active on your Mac

Sounds simple enough ?! Famous last words ...

Thanks again to you all for your help !

You don't need the boot screen for OS installation / update. That boot screen is really nothing more than the Apple logo in this case. The card will show you all the screen required during installation / update, just not that apple logo.

The easiest way to manually TRIM the SSD is

1) boot into Recovery Partition
2) run Disk Utility
3) select SSD
4) run First Aid

That terminal command will enable TRIM, but won't manually TRIM the SSD. Once TRIM is enabled and manually TRIMed the first time, everything will be automatic, no user action required.
[doublepost=1531996921][/doublepost]

Insert the CD, reboot the Mac while holding down OPTION key. Then choose CD boot and follow the instructions.
As @tsialex mentioned, do make sure you have a backup of your data/disk before the update.

While in some cases I may say you could get away without doing the firmware upgrade, in the case of the 840 EVO it is very much crucial that you do the update, unless you're happy with 'far slower than a spinning hard disk' speeds.

Test your disk speeds before and after the update using AJA System Test:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/aja-system-test-lite/id1092006274?mt=12

The speed test may able to show the slow write speed due to no TRIM. But won't able to show the slow read speed due to the firmware bug. Because the slow read bug only affect the old data (e.g. 3 months old), but when you run the speed test, the software will write some new data onto the disk and read it, so, won't be affected.

 

[Squuiid]

The easiest way to manually TRIM the SSD is

1) boot into Recovery Partition
2) run Disk Utility
3) select SSD
4) run First Aid

That terminal will enable TRIM, but won't manually TRIM the SSD. Once TRIM is enabled and manually TRIMed the first time, everything will be automatic, no user action required.
[doublepost=1531996921][/doublepost]

The speed test may able to show the slow write speed due to no TRIM. But won't able to show the slow read speed due to the firmware bug. Because the slow read bug only affect the old data (e.g. 3 months old), but when you run the speed test, the software will write some new data onto the disc and read it, so, won't be affected.

@h9826790 I learnt something new there regarding first aid and TRIM, thanks for that. I did not know that.

As for AJA not showing the read bug on the Evo, very good point! The test will write new data and consequently not encounter the bug.