iM 4,1-14,4 2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

[Ausdauersportler]

Hey all, I'm brand new to this and I hope you don't mind me asking a few (dumb) questions. 1. I have a mid 2011 27" iMac and would like the highest performing GPU upgrade that isn't overly hard to upgrade to. My first thought was the RX5500XT but that seems too experimental for my liking. So now I'm thinking about going with the WX7100 but I'm struggling to find a version 1.1 Is Rev 1.0 the same as Ver 1.0 and vise versa? Also if I can't find a anyrhing stating the version number would the serial number or model number be of any help? I'll attach a picture of one I'm looking at if any of you could help ne identify if it is Ver 1.0 or 1.1 I would be very grateful. Thanks again!

You made our day

Check again the first post about the slot type the iMacs have! It is all about MXM slots and MXM (mostly PC laptop) GPU cards. There have been so many pictures of compatible cards posted here (even on the very first post of this thread from the original author).

 

[Pacific1972]

Technically the situation is more complex than you describe it here.
Each AMD card listed on the first post which is known to POST in the
iMac12,x will run by far better than any NVIDIA card listed,
there is literally no exception.

You get DRM support with most GCN1-3 card, additionally you get
4K HEVC and 4K H.264 support with all GCN4 cards. Finally you have
full Monterey support with all AMD cards. All cards support AirPlay
with Mojave and Catalina without any patching.

The problems come up only if you decide to stop using the iMac
(sleep or shutdown and boot, later). This is funny, isn’t it.
The only disadvantage becomes obvious when you decide to not use
it for some time? Is this the way we judge technical tools, now?

NVIDIA iMac systems lost support with Monterey, do not support any
kind of DRM or VA (video acceleration), lack proper OpenCL support
on (patched) Monterey and the Xcode iOS simulator is broken, too.

If you decide to use the iMac as a tool running macOS to accomplish
a computational task the AMD equipped systems are superior. Apple
started 2013/2014 to build AMD based Macs and adopted macOS to
this AMD support until right now.

You if your intention is to run Windows only get a Pascal or Maxwell
card. If you plan is to run Mojave or Catalina only and need AirPlay
use a Kepler card. These are a different stories.

I agree to your final conclusion. But again, this is a first world view
where we have access to new shiny tools from the next Apple store
in exchange for some printed paper. Consume new electronics
regardless which effect it has to our environment….consume faster!

Dear Ausdauersportler, I've read and wonder !

Maybe on the hardware site most AMD cards work inside a
2011 iMac together "perfect with some disadvantages" 😄

- but if you have a look on european ebay pages NOBODY from
the sellers recommend a patched 3rd party AMD card for use in
an 2011 iMac, except with additional hardware solution...

People who are deep inside have no problems with it, some
cards need modification and for some cards is an EG BIOS
available - look at the questions here, by far the patched AMD
cards are after years of development on this page still no
Plug & Play Solution !

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Dear Ausdauersportler, I've read and wonder !

Maybe on the hardware site most AMD cards work inside a
2011 iMac together "perfect with some disadvantages" 😄

- but if you have a look on european ebay pages NOBODY from
the sellers recommend a patched 3rd party AMD card for use in
an 2011 iMac, except with additional hardware solution...

People who are deep inside have no problems with it, some
cards need modification and for some cards is an EG BIOS
available - look at the questions here, by far the patched AMD
cards are after years of development on this page still no
Plug & Play Solution !

WHO are the sellers on eBay and WHAT do they know about AMD
cards I do not know? When it comes to technical or scientific evaluations
there is no voting of the masses, it is about true and false. Politicians
would like to have it just to avoid unpleasant decisions.

There are not some, all, simply all AMD cards listed have EG2 vBIOS
versions published and you can easily apply the necessary firmware
mods to your firmware. @Nick [D]vB posted this
method years, ago. So there is a technical perfect solution available,
though it may not satisfy the masses. @dfranetic solved the last puzzle
about the backlight and he even provided a technical solution to get
the Saturn and Tonga and RX5500XT cards with a backlight on power on.

Adding an NVIDA card with head sink mods is not exactly plug and play,
needing additional patches for brightness range does not make it better.
Using Catalina and Mojave with the great former patcher was a nightmare,
you possible forgot this when happily updating Monterey using OCLP.
Replacing the card in an iMac has never been a plug and play solution.

The simple WX4130 or WX4150 were the superior solution for three
years now, although the masses looking for more VRAM without exactly
knowing why decided differently. I was their choice, we had to clean
the mess with crappy cards from China and greedy eBay sellers during
the last three years here.

Where have been these expert eBay sellers when another user posted his
problems with his plug & play NVIDA card?

Schuster, bleib bei Deinem Leisten!

 

[trulylibra]

Hi!

Thanks for the offer!
If you like you can upload it here. There are some developer here interested new all date they can get.
Use the Linux flash utility to get the vBIOS from your iMac.

Have a nice day

Well I de-soldered the chip but my stupid programmer wont read it (I might have killed it trying). If someone wants to try read the chip ill send it if they pay for postage.

Was hoping for some guidance on how to make 4670m work in early 2009 imac, 4850 vbios would be useful.

Here is some other vbios crap:
Early 2009 20 9400M vbios (K50)
Early 2009 24 9400M vbios (K51)
Late 2009 21.5 9400M vbios (K22)

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Well I de-soldered the chip but my stupid programmer wont read it (I might have killed it trying). If someone wants to try read the chip ill send it if they pay for postage.

Was hoping for some guidance on how to make 4670m work in early 2009 imac, 4850 vbios would be useful.

Here is some other vbios crap:
Early 2009 20 9400M vbios (K50)
Early 2009 24 9400M vbios (K51)
Late 2009 21.5 9400M vbios (K22)

Both the 2009 iMac10,1 21.5 and the 2010 iMac11,2 21.5 use the same ATI 4670 with two different vBIOS versions.
Same applies to the 2009 iMac9,1 24" and Late 2009 iMac11,1 27 - they use the same ATI 4850 with two different vBIOS versions.

All four versions have been already posted here...although this is somehow off topic

 

[trulylibra]

Both the 2009 iMac10,1 21.5 and the 2010 iMac11,2 21.5 use the same ATI 4670 with two different vBIOS versions.
Same applies to the 2009 iMac9,1 24" and Late 2009 iMac11,1 27 - they use the same ATI 4850 with two different vBIOS versions.

All four versions have been already posted here...although this is somehow off topic

The vbios linked to techpowerup is for 27", any idea which of the 799 pages has the 24"?

 

[Chiguire]

Hi everyone,

I have a Mac mid 2011 27". Its GPU was damaged and someone just fixed it by putting a "Quadro K1100M by Nick[D]vB 2048 MB", so far I can use my mac almost as usual. But it does not have brightness control (making it difficult to work for long hours because my eyes hurt T_T) and also I've noticed that the games that I played before now run on low fps when theoretically they should run with better graphics... right? Because the new GPU is better, right? So... I was reading almost everything I could find in this mega thread (especially the first post) and I decided to try flash vbios following the instructions from xanderon and the_croupier. I think I did everything well, but there is no change in brightness control... I'm not sure if I did something wrong, or I'm missing a step..? Could someone help me please?

PS: English is not my first language hehe.

 

[AgntRndy]

Hello. I'm a complete noob with Macs. I am trying to repurpose a 2011 27 inch iMac with a failed GPU.The HDD has been removed by the previous owner. I would like to run a linux distro on it, not macOS.
1) Will the iMac display at all if I remove the MXM GPU?
2) Does a replacement MXM GPU need to be vbios flashed to satisfy compatiblity with macOS, or is it a hardware requirement?
Ideally I would like to put in a same sized MXM GPU and have Linux find a driver to use with it, but I'm not sure if the iMac hardware can work that way.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Hello. I'm a complete noob with Macs. I am trying to repurpose a 2011 27 inch iMac with a failed GPU.The HDD has been removed by the previous owner. I would like to run a linux distro on it, not macOS.
1) Will the iMac display at all if I remove the MXM GPU?
2) Does a replacement MXM GPU need to be vbios flashed to satisfy compatiblity with macOS, or is it a hardware requirement?
Ideally I would like to put in a same sized MXM GPU and have Linux find a driver to use with it, but I'm not sure if the iMac hardware can work that way.

Thanks for your time.

1) No, it will not.
2) No, some MXM GPUs don't need vBIOS flashed, if you run some certain (old) Mac OS. Some other GPUs do require vBIOS flashed.
You are right, the iMac hardware can't work that way.

 

[AgntRndy]

You are right, the iMac hardware can't work that way.

Thanks for your help. I might try to install a flashed MXM and hope it works. Could you recommend a card that might have success? I was thinking a AMD FirePro M4000 but really just taking a guess.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Experimental AMD Radeon Pro 5500XT 8GB support

This card has been (likely) produced in more than a single variant, currently I have only tested one version as shown and described below. Rumors told me approx. 5000 cards have been produced in China for crypto mining, only.
There will be no such new cards available. Most cards hit the Chinese market last year after a few years of use, most of them were reused by commercial buyers to build or rebuild PCI desktop cards - what a waste if this story is real.

So you have to face the fact this special type of card had a stressful first life in crypto farms. Do not expect a long life time, as attractive as the features of this card seem to be, you cannot bet on a long lasting life, even not compared to the crappy original AMD HD 6970 card.

Currently I believe you cannot cross flash a the vBIOS coming with this card to other models. We would have to walk the development path described below with each version, again.

Type	ident	device-id	working
Green PCB	SH149V-0 E248799	7340	yes

It is a big MXM-B card fitting into 27 inch iMac models, only! Card comes with a modern UEFI2 compliant GOP vBIOS. It has been configured to provide 5 DP output channels, OpenCore and WhateverGreen enable the internal screen on macOS login screen with apdpmod=pikera added to boot-args in the config.plist.

With the help of some friends we were able to enable the EFI boot picker using the MacPro7,1 firmware graphics drivers (many thanks to @Nick [D]vB for providing those drivers).

One cannot flash any modified legacy vBIOS back onto the BIOS chip. We managed to inject the first 64K of a modded vBIOS using OpenCore and the ATY,bin_image property. It is important to fix the checksum of the modded vBIOS although is will be only used via OpenCore. To enable native brightness control you need to add applbkl=3 to the boot-args entry, too.

After some trial and error we thought this approach failed - but on the next morning after a night and a system sleep brightness control suddenly and finally worked - heureka! So you need to send the iMac after booting at least one time into sleep mode. After reloading the macOS drivers brightness control works.

This is an OpenCore based software solution, it works even with OCLP patched Ventura and later, but it does not work with any other OS you plan to use. You will need a hardware PWM signal generator to modify the brightness.

Finally I documented the method how to modify and construct the 64K bytes to inject via OpenCore on GitHub (link on the bottom of the page).

Known issues:
- no native brightness control with Apple EG2 vBIOS (injection of modded vBIOS failed, but should work?)
- does not enable backlight and therefore the EFI picker on boot without wire-mod or this PCB
- the wire-mod provides a full illumination of the internal LCD and therefore backlight control will not work
- OCLP support until 0.6.8 - version 1.0.0 broke RX5500XT detection, version 2.0.0 and later work, again
- technically there is no WINDOWS brightness control possible (would need BIOS patching and flashing), OCLP injection does not work with Windows! Use hardware PWM generator.
- still no official Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia OCLP patching support (works in lab, only)

Known features:
- supports two external displays using both TB2 ports of an iMac12,2
- sleep/wake is working
- boot screen with OpenCore (GOP) or natively (EG2) or EnableGop
- brightness control working (only GOP and EnableGop after first system sleep)
- needs Catalina 10.15.6 or better (AMD support)
- 4K HEVC and 4K H.265 hardware support
- 5K (external) display support when using dual miniDP connection

System Support:
- tested in iMac11,1 and iMac11,3 and iMac12,2

macOS Support:
- Catalina 10.15.6, Big Sur, Monterey (no OCLP support on Ventura for NAVI dGPU)

Performance:
- GeekBench Metal: > 40.000
- GeekBench OpenCL: > 40.000
- Valley: > 65 FPS, > 2729 (is more limited by GPU core and CPU frequency, not so much by resolution)
(resolution 2560x1440, quality low: 2716, medium 2703, high 2429, ultra 2157)
(resolution 1920x1080, quality low: 2729, medium 2729, high 2442, ultra 2396).
- MetalBench: 230 MRays/s
- PowerDraw: 19W idle - 95W max (observed by HWMonitor app)

Notes:
- this card needs a big MXM-B heat sink of the Mid 2011 models and more grinding (check picture for details)
- no Apple X-clamp is fitting, a 3D printed special 1mm bed to avoid contact with small components would be great
(using a Dremel grinding away big parts the big X-clamp from the 2011 HD6970 works, too)
- move the ODD temp sensor to the heat sink!
- adjust CPU fan according to PSU Primary using Macs Fan Control, avoids an over heating PSU
- use copper plate 0,5mm width and 20mm x 20mm size to bridge a gap between GPU and heat sink and avoid deeper grinding

Credits:
- @vmbl for trying the Sonnet card
- @Rainy1989 for helping!
- @lyf314512 for his initial RX5500XT post
- kingo132 for implementing RX5500XT backlight control support into OpenCore
- @Nick [D]vB and @internetzel
- last but not least: @Bmju for helping getting EFI boot screen support

Technical information:
- please check out this page

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Thanks for your help. I might try to install a flashed MXM and hope it works. Could you recommend a card that might have success? I was thinking a AMD FirePro M4000 but really just taking a guess.

For Linux and Windows, discuss here.

iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade

This is a Wiki post with information collected from the entire thread. Before you post, please read this first. This thread is for supporting Maxwell and Pascal cards on the 2009-2011 iMac. Maxwell and Pascal cards will not work with acceleration on MacOS beyond High Sierra due to lack of...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[streak8047]

K1100M successfully flashed and working fine with Opencore brightness control also fine ,one problem on catalina
cannot achieve HD3000 graphics acceleration ,am follow the instruction on threads cannot achieve H.264 acceleration. Catalina patcher was used together with opencore 0.4.1 ,cannot identify what was the mistake ,Highseira OS HD3000 was fine ,Kindly advice what was the issue.

 

[ChrizLoud]

K1100M successfully flashed and working fine with Opencore brightness control also fine ,one problem on catalina
cannot achieve HD3000 graphics acceleration ,am follow the instruction on threads cannot achieve H.264 acceleration. Catalina patcher was used together with opencore 0.4.1 ,cannot identify what was the mistake ,Highseira OS HD3000 was fine ,Kindly advice what was the issue.

OCLP disables the HD3000

 

[streak8047]

OCLP disables the HD3000

Dosdude Catalina patcher also HD3000 Graphics acceleration not working

 

[rthpjm]

Hello, do you have information on working on imac 12.2?

Hello Soyer,

I will refer you back to Post #1, the section “3 Working AMD Cards”, and the sub-section “AMD GCN v1-3 GPU (2012-2015)”, sub-section “Known Issues”…

I believe I am the first contributor to work on the W6150M, therefore, nobody else has tried this card in an iMac12,x.
If you would like to try, please do. I am sure the forum would benefit from your results. Please report back if you do try…

 

[curioussurfer]

Thanks for your help. I might try to install a flashed MXM and hope it works. Could you recommend a card that might have success? I was thinking a AMD FirePro M4000 but really just taking a guess.

For 2011 iMacs I use only Polaris cards (WX4130 and WX4150). Your iMac has full sleep capabilities with those cards, something you will not get with Nvidia or GCN 1-3 Cards. I have one 2011 running perfectly Linux Mint.

 

[Stefanox2410]

hi all doctors, i upgraded nvidia k2100m on imac 27 2011, in the benchmarks it jerks at certain points, the fps are high but it jerks, could it be because i used a 2009 heat sink? is there anything to configure? I don't understand, I used to see it like this with native defective cards, but here only in certain points it's always the same but the fps remains high

 

[FlorisVN]

K1100M successfully flashed and working fine with Opencore brightness control also fine ,one problem on catalina
cannot achieve HD3000 graphics acceleration ,am follow the instruction on threads cannot achieve H.264 acceleration. Catalina patcher was used together with opencore 0.4.1 ,cannot identify what was the mistake ,Highseira OS HD3000 was fine ,Kindly advice what was the issue.

Try this awesome patch made by Ausdauersportler !
https://github.com/Ausdauersportler/iMac-2011-Catalina

This info can also be found within the first wiki page of this thread..

Credits go to :

• Fix/Patch: dosdude1, highvoltage12v
• Tester: chris1111, highvoltage12v, Ausdauersportler
• Packager: Ausdauersportler

 

[JDuncan569]

I'm at my wits end and I'm hoping one of you can point me to a different BIOS image to use. I have a WX4130 2GB (109-C98581-00_02 V343 VER 1.1 green PCB w/Samsung RAM) I am trying to get fully working in an iMac 21.5 Mid 2010 (A1311 EMC2389) and I had success in the installation in that I have video on the intended screen at the intended resolution. However, I have had no luck in getting the OS (Monterey via OpenCore) to recognize the card or its memory configuration. I am attaching the original BIOS that was pulled when I first flashed the card with the BIOS provided in the first post. Unfortunately, I failed to capture the info off of the video RAM, other than noting that they were Samsung chips. I'm excited to be this close, but could really use some assistance getting it the last bit so that the OS sees it as having more than 7MB of VRAM and actually turns on the acceleration making the card worth the effort. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[dfranetic]

I'm at my wits end and I'm hoping one of you can point me to a different BIOS image to use. I have a WX4130 2GB (109-C98581-00_02 V343 VER 1.1 green PCB w/Samsung RAM) I am trying to get fully working in an iMac 21.5 Mid 2010 (A1311 EMC2389) and I had success in the installation in that I have video on the intended screen at the intended resolution. However, I have had no luck in getting the OS (Monterey via OpenCore) to recognize the card or its memory configuration. I am attaching the original BIOS that was pulled when I first flashed the card with the BIOS provided in the first post. Unfortunately, I failed to capture the info off of the video RAM, other than noting that they were Samsung chips. I'm excited to be this close, but could really use some assistance getting it the last bit so that the OS sees it as having more than 7MB of VRAM and actually turns on the acceleration making the card worth the effort. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

My guess: You are using OCLP built with the original card in place? Rebuild and reinstall OCLP, possibly revert post-install patches...

 

[JDuncan569]

My guess: You are using OCLP built with the original card in place? Rebuild and reinstall OCLP, possibly revert post-install patches...

OCLP was built with the original card in place and I did rebuild and reinstall following the install a few times trying different options regarding the GPU specifically . I have not reverted any patches though, so I will look into what that looks like and attempt that next. Thanks for the advice.

Update: I reverted the post-install patches and rebooted and then went through new rebuild processes and made no change in the issue. Open for more suggestions.

 

[dfranetic]

OCLP was built with the original card in place and I did rebuild and reinstall following the install a few times trying different options regarding the GPU specifically . I have not reverted any patches though, so I will look into what that looks like and attempt that next. Thanks for the advice.

Update: I reverted the post-install patches and rebooted and then went through new rebuild processes and made no change in the issue. Open for more suggestions.

View attachment 2131293

Well, it most certainly is a problem with installation/patches. The VBIOS you had on the card is exactly the same as the one I originally had on one of my WX4130s. So (if you flashed the appropriate VBIOS from post 1) it should work as expected. Try a clean install (on an external drive if you need to preserve what you have on internal drive)...

 

[JDuncan569]

Well, it most certainly is a problem with installation/patches. The VBIOS you had on the card is exactly the same as the one I originally had on one of my WX4130s. So (if you flashed the appropriate VBIOS from post 1) it should work as expected. Try a clean install (on an external drive if you need to preserve what you have on internal drive)...

I'm not married to the drive contents. I'll build fresh install media and start from scratch. T


Update - A clean install did fix my issue. Thanks again for the guidance! It is truly appreciated.

 

[phamvu01019]

For Linux and Windows, discuss here.

iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade

This is a Wiki post with information collected from the entire thread. Before you post, please read this first. This thread is for supporting Maxwell and Pascal cards on the 2009-2011 iMac. Maxwell and Pascal cards will not work with acceleration on MacOS beyond High Sierra due to lack of...

forums.macrumors.com

Hi, I have an imac 2011 and want to upgrade the video card because the old card is broken. I'm also Vietnamese and I leave in Sai Gon, can you give me information so that I can contact you to exchange for convenience.