LOL, you're telling me. I'm the one that spent months buying different cards to see what works in the 2011 iMac's. I'm the one that figured out the wx4130 00D cards work best. A 00D Dell RX560M card exists (where the VBIOS came from) that doesn't work at all in the 2011 iMac's and on my 21.5" 2010 iMac make the SMC go crazy and give null results when attempting to benchmark. Even though the PCB layout is mostly identical (I even removed components to match the WX-4130) the card still doesn't function properly. More time needs to be invested into this topic, which currently I don't have.
The WX cards have an EEPROM that is now too short to clip, so an HP elitedesk with MXM slot and Windows 10 is a must, I recommend the HP 800 G1 as one DisplayPort output is always iGPU so you can fix bricked cards. They are about $80 USD used.
On the 2011 iMacs since they have thunderbolt, I use a Thunderbolt Dock meant for Macbooks, this gives me a few advantages such as another audio output, USB 3.0 a 2nd HDMI output so I can use 3 displays with AMD cards. Working Ethernet for when Big Sur breaks it. Yes Big Sur will work on the 2010 iMac's but Volume sealing is a nightmare. Apple "fixed" volume sealing with the last Dev Beta so it's guaranteed to always work. It's a nightmare OS like IOS is, I truly hate it.
Well since your on a 21.5" model you're limited to the k1100m/k2100m/k610m. (wx4130 which I don't recommend due to the lack of real Bootscreen)Hi all!
I own an iMac 2011 21,5" with an AMD HD6770M graphics card, 16GB and an i5 CPU.
Since it doesn't support Catalina or Mojave, I'd like to upgrade the graphics card.
Can anybody recommend the best suitable graphics card?
I already searched AliExpress for some DELL K1100M and DELL K2100M.
Checking UserBenchmark.com against my 6770M - both should be a bit faster.
The K1100M is around 50 euros, the K2100M is around 75 euros.
Or are there other better cards?
I don't need that much more graphicspower, only Mojave/Catalina compatibility
PS: I don't want to change or "hack" the heatsink and if the screen is always at 100% brightness it doesn't bother me.
Thanks!
Andreas
They work, they have no Backlight control with OpenCore. So we don't talk about them anymore. I have a k2000m. It's an okay card, I just don't use it anymore due to lack of Brightness control. If an updated ROM was created for the 765m/770m/k1000m/k2000m they would be recommend again.
Did you install the patched AppleGrahicsControl.kexts on Page 1. This is needed on the AMD cards as well. Not sure why you only have Display output on the External display and not the internal Display. Usually that's a hardware issue. Is the internal Display detected in System Profiler? Or show up in System Preferences/Displays?
Btw I didn't even know you were one of the collaborators on this topic, obviously you've done alot more work and thanks for that cause otherwise we weren't here talking, I just though you were a regular user trying to install an HP card and I tried to help from what I read on the begining lol sorry about the misundertandig
I actually broke the lcd cable and waiting for a replacement, I hope this was the issue since the locks on the ends were broken alot before but was still working, about the .kexts yes I did install them on the openCore flashDrive, I just have finger crossed this is all about the lcd cable, btw I was having perfect graphic acceleration on Sierra but on catalina it was extremely slow, I was told to reset the PRAM but Ill do it as soon I get home just with the external monitor
So withe the MXM-B cards they are all based on the older @Nick [D]vB VBIOS which has a delay on boot that doesn't line up with the faster EFI instant on time of the iMac's. Because of this, the boot screen will only show up if the ALT/Option key is pressed, or OpenCore is set as your Primary boot loader. It's still extremely nice to have AppleBootPicker/TargetDiskMode as you'll soon find out with Big Sur.
AppleGraphicsControl is a system kext and cannot go in the /kexts folder of OpenCore, it needs to be installed by the following sequence
sudo mount -uw /
Killall FinderI need to get ahold of a 2010 27" iMac, it has a track record of working with any WX7100 card installed in it. It all comes down to whether the SMC likes what it sees in the MXM slot. I think the 2010 27" iMac just doesn't care what card is installed. It's an interesting phenomenon. Again 3 iMacs I tried, the 2010 21.5" had the most success, but it still crashes the SMC (all fans at 100% cpu throttled down to 800MHz) once a Benchmark is started.
Where did you find this information on the first post on the first page? I will fix it, just in case.
This was (not only) me talking specifically about the AMD WX4170 card.