You may want to check the k4100m Rom page by nikey22. He lists two bios versions under "requirements". Go ahead and test the xxx.08 bios and send him a note if it works..If you are willing!
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iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade
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The RX480 does not POST in the 2011 models - in other words, it does not even start the iMac. (POST = Power On Self Test).
now I don't understand anything, every time I decide to buy a GPU for my imac mid 2011 some problem appears ... I am lost in limbo .... you always tell me "look at post 1 and verify"! reviewed the entire post 1 and in section GPU Performance there are several excels with a GPU performance list, the wx7100 with the highest performance appear on the list and the RX480 are the second GPU with the highest performance and appear installed in imac 2010 ... I think I'm going to give up asking more because I end up with more confusion ... my question is very simple, what AMD GPU do you recommend for Imac mid 2011 intel i7? (Please do not answer that I read post 1, I read it in its entirety and I am not convinced) I need to know which AMD GPU to buy for better performance in Final cut pro x and if it can be in Big sur or catalaina. thanks
You may have read it, but you did not get it. The RX480 is not even mentioned on the first post and there is a single post with a BIOS which clearly states that this card does not run in 2011 iMacs, I cite:
Hardware Requirements:
iMac11,1 (27-inch Late 2009) Mac-F2268DAE
iMac11,3 (27-inch Mid 2010) Mac-F2238BAE
BootROM: 63.0.0.0 or 99.0.0.0. Please use High Sierra to update your BootROM to latest version.
We do not do sales consulting or commenting on eBay offers and we do not to add more cards to the first post, guess why?
First: Guys like you read and understand what the want to understand ignoring all former answers and hints.
Second: Whenever we put a card of the table in post #1 the price on eBay went 100-200% up. For the same old used crappy NVIDIA card. K1100M started with 35 EURO in Europe, now at 150+. K2100M started with 50 EUR, not at 150-200 EUR. K610M started with 9 EUR, now you find UK eBay offers at 130 EUR+. K4100M started with 60 USD, K3100M with 70 EUR for new ones (unused spares).
All the information about the cards performance is given on the first post in the performance section. I already told you that the AMD GPU is superior when used with FCXP.
When reading the first post and reading the answers make yourself notes if all this is so complex for you to get!
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This "my question is very simple" is impertinent, rude, and somewhat simple. too. It suggests that one can expect on every simple question a simple and quick answer.
If you so good at that do me quick favour and answer this: Why all apples fall down to the ground? (I just need to understand the whole gravitation thing! And please do not tell me to read the physics textbooks, again! I already did this several times!)
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Unfortunately, there is no simple easy answer.
No doubt AMD GPUs perform much better than nVidia GPUs in Catalina or Big Sur.
The OpenGL benchmark is not useful since it is demoted in the new System. Only Metal matters.
And only AMD GPUs offer HW video acceleration for encoding and decoding in Catalina or Big Sur.
Final Cut Pro X is optimised for AMD GPUs.
They are also newer than those nVidia cards which are more often old worn in the market with possible defect.
But if you are going to source the expensive WX7100 (>$300), save for the M1 MacMini, especially if you are doing video editing for a living and you can very soon get back your investment. Besides, at best you may get a 50% chance of receiving a working one.
The RX480 unfortunately can't POST in iMac 2011. That option is out.
WX4170 is a rare beast, often without a BIOS chip, and relatively expensive compared to its sibling WX4150.
But the WX4150 has so many versions in the market that it's difficult to predict which one will work in which iMac.
The lowest end WX130 with less variation is more readily available at an acceptable price . The Dell version should work in most cases. It is comparable and even surpasses the high end nVidia cards in the table. Its BIOS has been tuned to be every close to WX4150 in performance. It runs cool with no need of heatsink modification. But lately its price has been driven up also.
If your budget allows, get the M1 MacMini and sell your iMac to recuperate the cost.
If you want to cling on your iMac for a few years, get the cheapest WX4130 in my opinion.
Don't be misled by it's "low end" labelling. It gives decent performance.
Truth on the Mac mini investment.
I spent $70 on my broken imac.
+ new lcd, cables, $200
+ ssd, cables, bracket $100
+ 3 pipe heatsink, gpu, thermal pastes $200
+ 8 gb RAM $25
All in, About a $600 machine.
M1 Mac mini starts at $700.
Worth it? To each their own!
On a related note...
I have a 2tb apple hdd i pulled from the machine, anyone want to purchase it?
I am from France !
I did know this song ! A classic that all guitarist had to listen at least one time in their life , but now I went through more raw genres like rock prog , if you like guitar stuff i suggest you to listen to " Intervals - Belvedere "
talking about GPU I’m giving you a last update ...
i’ve done the welding correctly on the coils we were talking about , reput thermal paste with k4 and k5... I managed to run Minecraft perfectly for the first time, next I did run the valley benchmark and it crashed after a few seconds... the iMac did reboot then Minecraft crashed again after a few second with the same kernel panic report .
after that I took back the ram I added but then same thing happen with just the stock rams..
so yeah nothing changed, I will try again to bake the old amd GPU and put it back to see how it’s going , i’ll hit you up as soon as I can ( today )
If you want to save the GPU try to get the correct R22 coils. This is only an (uneducated) guess.
When it comes to music I am an id.... - or just a consumer. But I will definitively dive into your recommendation. I get caught very fast in a small box of songs I hear regularly unless somebody kicks me to heavily to escape that box. It is a meta stable configuration - each time, again.
We had a similar discussion before about a good GPU and I would recommend to get the smallest AMD GPU @KennyW already mentioned, if you are willing to give it another shot.
I so love to read this thread, and mostly for @Ausdauersportler 's witty responses. Some readers may take them as mean spirited, but after reading many and seeing all that he has contribution, I understand that they are more a mix of humor, and teaching (without just telling).
All of of a sudden I'm hungry for an apple from the ground. Keep up the good work.
Hello! After Black screen problems on my imac 27 2010 i7, I have changed the backlight and the problem continues so I am going to change the GPU. I have looked at this post and I also want to upgrade it. I use high sierra, I don't need catalina or anything, but I want to keep TDM (Target Display Mode). Seeing the list it says that it is only possible with GPU +(only Quadro?, the ++ does not support it? my preference was a 780m or an 880m .... but I'm not sure if they support TDM.
Sorry to ask a very simple question but I haven't found an answer. If I upgrade my A1311 mid-2011 21.5" iMac with the Quadro K2100M card, I have to flash the BIOS. After I do that, will I still be able to run Mojave from an EXTERNAL drive and High Sierra from the original internal drive? IOW, what does "flashing the BIOS" do to the computer's ability to run different systems? Any issue here??
Thanks! LOVELY to have all you folks contributing and making Apple's built-in obsolescence less of a problem for some of us.
Thanks! LOVELY to have all you folks contributing and making Apple's built-in obsolescence less of a problem for some of us.
No, flashing does not change any part related to the drives and the macOS versions installed on it. If you plan to install a new GPU think about installing an SSD, too. You can have both macOS versions installed on one disks on separate partitions/containers and you will experience a by far better performance.
Sometimes the K2100M in the 21.5 2011 is difficult to handle - performance anomalies have been observed.
Thanks! If the K2100M is "difficult to handle", can you elaborate? Difficult to install? Difficult to get to work? Difficult to flash? It seems the best bet from the options listed on Post #1 for my 21.5" machine with the smaller power supply. Everything else seems to have "issues". K1100M instead? Who makes an SSD replacement for this OLD machine? OWC?
Thanks a lot mate! Sehr schön!!!!!! Im thrilled to find out, if my wx4130 ive bought from alienatedxpress will work aswell. Will post a pic the following days. For now it is inside the 2010 21,5 unflashed but i like to progree things to the 27 wich i bought with a broken 6970 gpu for 115€. Hope it all works out well and makes me finally happy executing my desired two monitor setup with the imac and another screen.Hi, see my post here
Best wishes!
Here's one place to read about SSD upgrades for 2011 iMac.
2011 27" iMac SSD upgrade + fan speed - Whats the current consensus?
Hi all, hope you're all getting through these mad times we're in! I've got a Mid 2011 iMac 27" which is going to waste on account of its horribly slow mechanical hard drive. I'm going to upgrade it to a Sandisk SSD Plus 240GB that I have laying around but am concerned about how this will impact...
forums.macrumors.com
In addition to my previous post. I bought this card.
It was labeled as a Dell one but who knows ha??? Actually it looks like i got the same card as you (same model number). Still it was clearly labeled as wx4130 2GB.
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I has sometimes performance problems difficult to analyse and patch - there have been a few report and I owned myself such a combination. Not enough evidence to make general warning (which would be ignored anyway).Here's one place to read about SSD upgrades for 2011 iMac.
2011 27" iMac SSD upgrade + fan speed - Whats the current consensus?
Hi all, hope you're all getting through these mad times we're in! I've got a Mid 2011 iMac 27" which is going to waste on account of its horribly slow mechanical hard drive. I'm going to upgrade it to a Sandisk SSD Plus 240GB that I have laying around but am concerned about how this will impact...
But honestly speaking:
There is a search button on top of this page and everybody can use it to search through 500 pages and 10.000 posts, e.g. for "K2100M iMac 2011 21.5 problem" limiting the results to this thread - sometimes the big search engine limiting the results to forums.macrumors.com works even more precise. We have 10-15 active posters and 10.000 posts. Nobody here is a walking encyclopedia - for that reason the net and searching has been invented, too.
Another small question. Could you run a Direct3d11 Benchmark under those settings?Hello,
after changing, in november 2020, the graphics card on my 27 inch iMac mid 2011 , here is the description of a second change following the purchase of a broken 27 inch iMac mid 2011 (only HS graphics card of course, everything else is OK) for around 150 € (i5 3.1 GHz, 12 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD having run only 216 hours)
The card this time is a Dell WX4150 (it was a WX4130 on the previous one) card bought on Ebay:
View attachment 1728377
View attachment 1728378
The card is indeed a Dell :
View attachment 1728379
Flashing the vBIOS of the card with the boot method on a USB key in Linux then connection by ssh from another Mac / PC / iPad, etc. :
View attachment 1728380
Installation of Catalina with the Dosdude1 patcher, the new card is indeed "metal" compatible:
View attachment 1728381
To avoid disassembling the main board, we made 2 small holes on the back of the iMac (it is my test iMac
View attachment 1728382
View attachment 1728383
Here is benchmark (under Big Sur):
View attachment 1728385
For around 240 €, I have an iMac that can be used without any problem.
Thank to @Ausdauersportler and others peoples of this thread 👍
In light of making good use of the search functions of the internet, I googled that symbol on your card, the "10" with the two arrows forming a circle. It means that dangerous chemicals will leak out of your card after 10 years.
I guess we all being exposed. Be careful!!!
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Hey youve mentioned smth. interesting. The biosflash enhances the performance of the wx4130? Does it also unlock shaders?
Best wishes!
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USD 279.99 (six left; I bought 1/7 (listed as 'Open box', but factory sealed))
Regards, splifingate
Confirm yourself under Windows for the no. of active shaders and top-up frequency
I would say that the heat pads on the VRAM are too thick.
That would make the contact of GPU core to the heat sink too far away and inefficient, risk burning the chip.
But M1 Mac mini doesn’t have a 27 inch 2k screen...
I have two 27 mid 2011 iMac working, both very good machines for work from home and home studying...