2012 Mac Pro + SAPPHIRE Pulse Radeon RX 580

[tsialex]

Rx580 with boot screen is achievable.

I have apple boot screen and boot from Nvme M.2 SSD 1tb SiliconPower also. To get boot screen you have to "Create Install Media"

RX 580 do not have pre-boot support, what you see with your card is only after the GPU drivers are loaded.

A RX 580, or any other AMD cards newer than Mac EFI flashed R9-280x GPUs:

• Do not have support for BootPicker/BootSelector,
• Do not have support for running Single User mode,
• Do not have support for verbose boot,
• Do not have AHT support.

 

[bsbeamer]

RX 580 do not have pre-boot support, what you see with your card is only after the GPU drivers are loaded.

We may need to start noting "non-EFI modified RX 580's do not have pre-boot support". Apparently MVC is going to be selling EFI modified RX580's in the (near?) future and also teased Vega. We'll see when they're actually for sale...

 

[tsialex]

We may need to start noting "non-EFI modified RX 580's do not have pre-boot support". Apparently MVC is going to be selling EFI modified RX580's in the (near?) future and also teased Vega. We'll see when they're actually for sale...

Yep, but for now it's my previous post is correct.

I really hope that MVC achieves what he promised and sell it for a decent price.

 

[MacPro2009]

RX 580 do not have pre-boot support, what you see with your card is only after the GPU drivers are loaded.

A RX 580, or any other AMD cards newer than Mac EFI flashed R9-280x GPUs:

• Do not have support for BootPicker/BootSelector,
• Do not have support for running Single User mode,
• Do not have support for verbose boot,
• Do not have AHT support.

Ive got a boot screen boss. I had to flash the card with Apples technique. I Disable Sip to enter root access before doing the "create install media" of the install os. Please observe i did a fresh install starting from El Capitan. With System integrity disabled i think what happens is when you do the install of the new os it writes it to root level. So the code is embeded at the root. Then i enable Sip after the install of the operating system. This locks the root folders so they can't be tampered with. Then i go to system preferences and select the same hard drive i installed on. This boots the "created install media" at startup and the logo shows up. I followed the commands from apple for the boot rom stuff before they let you do the mojave system install. I did all this with no integrity. Then i re-enabled integrity to lock the folders. I can power down and when i power back up the apple logo and progress bar appear. It just works for some reason. There is indeed a boot logo. I got the card off eBay also. So i don't know maybe it has some flash already ? It works though.

 

[tsialex]

Ive got a boot screen boss. I had to flash the card with Apples technique. I Disable Sip to enter root access before doing the "create install media" of the install os. Please observe i did a fresh install starting from El Capitan. With System integrity disabled i think what happens is when you do the install of the new os it writes it to root level. So the code is embeded at the root. Then i enable Sip after the install of the operating system. This locks the root folders so they can't be tampered with. Then i go to system preferences and select the same hard drive i installed on. This boots the "created install media" at startup and the logo shows up. I followed the commands from apple for the boot rom stuff before they let you do the mojave system install. I did all this with no integrity. Then i re-enabled integrity to lock the folders. I can power down and when i power back up the apple logo and progress bar appear. It just works for some reason. There is indeed a boot logo. I got the card off eBay also. So i don't know maybe it has some flash already ? It works though.

No, you are mistaken, what you got is a macOS loading screen AFTER the GPU drivers are loaded. No RX 580 can be flashed today. Check boot selector, verbose boot, single user mode, AHT. You won't have any working.

What Mojave did was to upgrade the Mac Pro BootROM.

Btw, boot screens is used a lot but it's not the correct term. The correct denomination is pre-boot configuration support. Mac Pro 1,1 to 5,1 supports UGA and a GPU that has UGA pre-boot configuration support has:

• Single user support,
• Verbose boot,
• Startup Manager, the new name for the BootPicker/BootSelector,
• FileVault support (for macOS versions before Mojave),
• EFI shell support,
• AHT support.

Any card that has native macOS drivers has Recovery support, no one has Internet Recovery - only Mac Pro late-2013 has Internet Recovery (MP6,1 has GOP pre-boot configuration support).

Nvidia cards that need web drivers don't have any preboot configuration support, Recovery support or createinstallmedia USB installer support.

AMD cards that have native macOS drivers don't have pre-boot configuration support but have Recovery and createinstallmedia USB installer support and work after the drivers are loaded by Recovery/installer.

 

[MacPro2009]

No, what you got is a macOS loading screen AFTER the GPU drivers are loaded. No RX 580 can be flashed today. What Mojave did was to upgrade the Mac Pro BootROM.

Check boot selector, verbose boot, single user mode, AHT. You won't have any working.

Sorry Boss, I think your right with how its loading the drivers. Load drivers after startup sounds correct to me. But hey, i got a startup logo now. I don't know how to check that other stuff.
[doublepost=1561739038][/doublepost]

No, you are mistaken, what you got is a macOS loading screen AFTER the GPU drivers are loaded. No RX 580 can be flashed today. Check boot selector, verbose boot, single user mode, AHT. You won't have any working.

What Mojave did was to upgrade the Mac Pro BootROM.

Btw, boot screens is used a lot but it's not the correct term. The correct denomination is pre-boot configuration support. Mac Pro 1,1 to 5,1 supports UGA and a GPU that has UGA pre-boot configuration support has:

• Single user support,
• Verbose boot,
• Startup Manager, the new name for the BootPicker/BootSelector,
• FileVault support (for macOS versions before Mojave),
• EFI shell support,
• AHT support.

Any card that has native macOS drivers has Recovery support, no one has Internet Recovery - only Mac Pro late-2013 has Internet Recovery (MP6,1 has GOP pre-boot configuration support).

Nvidia cards that need web drivers don't have any preboot configuration support, Recovery support or createinstallmedia USB installer support.

AMD cards that have native macOS drivers don't have pre-boot configuration support but have Recovery and createinstallmedia USB installer support and work after the drivers are loaded by Recovery/installer.

I understand sorta what you're saying. A bit deeper than my current understanding. Thanks tsialex.

 

[h9826790]

Rx580 with boot screen is achievable.

I have apple boot screen and boot from Nvme M.2 SSD 1tb SiliconPower also. To get boot screen you have to "Create Install Media"

It's a command applied with terminal to give you a bootable installer. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372 .

After playing with a few setups i will tell you this. installing only one 6 pin power to the RX580 will allow you to use the card, however, the card will only run on "low power mode". The 6 pin connector senses when pin two is missing and throws the Rx580 into a safe power mode. The card knows, not to overdraw power, from the connector it's connected to. Its a fail safe connection that was designed into the Power connector itself. Having the 6 pin will "Not" allow you to put the operating system to sleep.

6 pin = no sleep

8 pin = No problems

Hdmi out vs DisplayPort output.


I have a 49" Spectre Ultra High Definition Display. Wall Mart Special.

I have achieved 5k Retina quality with the 4k Display. Want to know how ?


You have to use the Hdmi output on the Rx580 in order to get the 60hz function to activate in display preferences.

If you plug into the DisplayPort output you will be locked out from 60hz from within the operating system.


The display port pinouts and the software work together to allow the system to properly handle the data.

The software knows when a displayport cable is connected and adjusts the settings within the operating system.


View attachment 845458 Hdmi = 60hz output @ 5k (HiPDI)

Displayport = 30hz output @ 5k (HiDPI)


Under system preferences >Displays>hover mouse pointer over the "scale" button and press "option"

This will give you HiDPI options to choose from. This is a configuration that links your hardware with your software. It has to be manually set for your own preference. A Hdmi 2.0 cable is needed to activate 60hz function. The HDMI 2.0 cable must be in the Rx580's Hdmi port also.

I choose 1920x1080 HiDPI. Not 1080p or 1080i. This gives me a 16:9 resolution @ 5k. I only notice one application that has a latency lag with the mouse pointer.

Propelerhead Reason. Also Note: You won't see the HiDPI lettering in Mojave to let you know it's a HiDPI option. But it is, trust me. When I use Propellerhead Reason i go back to 1920x1080p @60hz. This Lower resolution allows me to handle (click and grab with the mouse pointer) at incredible speed. 5k@60hz there is a noticeable delay when i try to drag and resize windows, but only with Reason.

Here is my system currently:

Mojave:

10.14.5 (18F132)

Mac Pro (Early 2009) (5.1 firmware flash)

2 x 3.46 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon (12 core w/ multicore hyper threading)

48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 (slots 4 & 8 empty. Enables Triple Channel Architecture)

Radeon RX 580 8 GB Saphire Pulse

Radeon RX 580:

Name: ATY,AMD,RadeonFramebuffer

Type: Display Controller

Driver Installed: Yes

MSI: Yes

Bus: PCI

Slot: Slot-1

Vendor ID: 0x1002

Device ID: 0x67df

Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1da2

Subsystem ID: 0xe387

Revision ID: 0x00e7

Link Width: x16

Link Speed: 5.0 GT/s

The 1Tb Silicon Power Nvme on slot 4 is reading and writing at about 1400/1400 speeds. The Nvme is rated 3500/3500 speeds but is bottlenecked without a Pcie switch adapter card. Pcie link speed on the Nvme is 5.0Gts.

My system is Apple native. Everything works from Apple.

49" Sceptre (UHD)/ 5k hack @ 60hz. Rx580 on Hdmi2.0 with Mojave.

Not bad for a tv screen. Wonder if the 580 will drive another screen ?

I also have the ability for monitor rotation under display preferences.

The software rescales the resolution to 1920x1080 HiDPI (5k).

Also: My tv has the ability to upscale automatically. Its a chip in the tv and has firmware that calculates frames and stuff.

There are 3 different Saphire Pulse 8gb models to choose from. The batch numbers (serial) have some slight differences, Clock speeds.

I have the 1st release serial number RX 580 Saphire Pulse 8gb.

I also disabled trim via terminal on the Nvme ssd. This speeds the system up as the system does not have to execute trim commands anylonger. (Reading/Writing)

I allow garbage collection to do all system garbage work. Ive been doing this since El Capitan on ssd drives and i can notice the difference in performance in the system. Ive never had a drive fail either. There is noticeable lag when a drive reaches its capacity however. The trick is to keep your boot drive empty as possible.

System info with this setup recognizes everything properly in Overview.

Hope this helps,

Appreciate your effort to share, however, quite a few wrong info.

1) Apparently you now know that you don't have the boot screen. And can't have that until MVC flash it.

2) Your GPU is NOT transmitting any 5k 60Hz signal to the monitor. Just 4K 60Hz (1080P HiDPI).

3) DP 1.2 or above can transmit 4K 60Hz, in fact, DP 1.4 can do way more than that. My card is now rendering at 7680x2160 @144Hz. And I am connecting my monitor with Display Port cable.

4) Keep the SSD "as empty as possible" at OS level is meaningless if without TRIM. GC can do nothing. TRIM is the function allow the OS to tell the SSD controller which cell contain the OS level deleted data, and allow GC to empty those cells. Without TRIM, even you deleted the file in OS (and empty trash), the SSD still have no idea the associated cell can be clear. And after some time, even the OS shows you that the SSD has lots of "space available", but in the SSD controller's point of view, your SSD is still full. And only can used the pre-allocated over provisioning space for GC. Super ineffective, and burn the SSD's life span much faster (due to GB must keep moving all deleted data, which means do much more "write" during house keeping).

The theory about why may be better to turn OFF TRIM now is because that's already a part of APFS. However, only very limited info so far. It's still very unclear that if using APFS really means TRIM is automatically enabled (despite system info may still says TRIM is deactivated). But lots of case reported that APFS + TRIM (enabled by using trimforce command) will cause very slow boot. So, obviously "something wrong". And if TRIM is already included in APFS, manually turn on TRIM again (double TRIM) may cause more problem than benefit. But again, there is no solid evidence if this is really true (apart from that slow boot).

 

[danielcbit]

No, you are mistaken, what you got is a macOS loading screen AFTER the GPU drivers are loaded. No RX 580 can be flashed today. Check boot selector, verbose boot, single user mode, AHT. You won't have any working.

What Mojave did was to upgrade the Mac Pro BootROM.

Btw, boot screens is used a lot but it's not the correct term. The correct denomination is pre-boot configuration support. Mac Pro 1,1 to 5,1 supports UGA and a GPU that has UGA pre-boot configuration support has:

• Single user support,
• Verbose boot,
• Startup Manager, the new name for the BootPicker/BootSelector,
• FileVault support (for macOS versions before Mojave),
• EFI shell support,
• AHT support.

Any card that has native macOS drivers has Recovery support, no one has Internet Recovery - only Mac Pro late-2013 has Internet Recovery (MP6,1 has GOP pre-boot configuration support).

Nvidia cards that need web drivers don't have any preboot configuration support, Recovery support or createinstallmedia USB installer support.

AMD cards that have native macOS drivers don't have pre-boot configuration support but have Recovery and createinstallmedia USB installer support and work after the drivers are loaded by Recovery/installer.

It seems that there is now a RX 580 with modified bios and support for Pre-Boot and UGA. Hopefully a dump of the bios will be out soon.

 

[donluca]

The theory about why may be better to turn OFF TRIM now is because that's already a part of APFS. However, only very limited info so far. It's still very unclear that if using APFS really means TRIM is automatically enabled (despite system info may still says TRIM is deactivated). But lots of case reported that APFS + TRIM (enabled by using trimforce command) will cause very slow boot. So, obviously "something wrong". And if TRIM is already included in APFS, manually turn on TRIM again (double TRIM) may cause more problem than benefit. But again, there is no solid evidence if this is really true (apart from that slow boot).

This is really interesting, is there a place where I can read more about this?

I have TRIM automatically enabled on my PCI-E NVMe and the drive is using APFS. It takes a lot of time for my Mac Pro 4,1>5,1 to find the boot drive and was wondering if there’s anything wrong with it.

I must say that as soon as the Apple shows up along with the loading bar, it takes few second to get me to the desktop, so the issue is just at the beginning. I’m curious to try and see if disabling TRIM would improve this, but I’m a bit scared to go through this process.

 

[MarkC426]

From what I have read in other threads, nvme drives take longer to boot than sata ssd’s.

 

[h9826790]

This is really interesting, is there a place where I can read more about this?

I have TRIM automatically enabled on my PCI-E NVMe and the drive is using APFS. It takes a lot of time for my Mac Pro 4,1>5,1 to find the boot drive and was wondering if there’s anything wrong with it.

I must say that as soon as the Apple shows up along with the loading bar, it takes few second to get me to the desktop, so the issue is just at the beginning. I’m curious to try and see if disabling TRIM would improve this, but I’m a bit scared to go through this process.

NVMe should shows TRIM enabled with APFS. I doubt if anyway to turn it OFF.

This issue is more for SATA SSD. APFS won’t shows TRIM enabled automatically for SATA SSD. And the lack of Apple’s documentation make us really hard to know if APFS will TRIM the SATA SSD by default.

So far, apart from normal daily use, I also tried benchmark the MX500 (APFS + trimforce disabled), after 50GB of writing, write speed still stay at 430MB/s (same speed as TRIM enabled). No sign of speed drop / fluctuations. This has been done after TB of data wrote to the SSD after trimforce disabled. So, should be no more free cells (apart from the over provisions) for fast write in.

If anyone has spare low capacity SATA SSD laying around. May able to help this test. My test drive is a 2TB SSD, the over provisions may be large enough to keep fast write in. I really don’t know.

For 120GB SSD. The speed difference (if any) of benchmarking 50GB write in (between trimforce ON / OFF in APFS) should be easier to spot.

 

[flowrider]

From what I have read in other threads, nvme drives take longer to boot than sata ssd’s.

The comparison should really not be with SATA SSDs, but with PCIe AHCI SSDs. I have all three. PCIe NVMe takes longer to boot than PCIe AHCI.

It seems that there is now a RX 580 with modified bios and support for Pre-Boot and UGA. Hopefully a dump of the bios will be out soon.

Geez, I hope not. IMHO, private developers should be fairly compensated for their work.

See this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mvc-efi-bios-for-amd-580.2186170/

Lou

 

[crjackson2134]

Regarding RX580
It’s likely that I will have my RX580 flashed by MVC. I don’t really need it, but I want it. Since we are at the EOL days for the cMP, I want it to be fully pre-boot enabled just like it was when purchased.

People need to realize that Premium prices for a premium service is fair. If you don’t like the price, don’t purchase. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to copy, and pass around someone else’s hard work without permission. I fully understand the impulse, but don’t do it. It discourages anyone from putting in hard work to help others.

Regarding TRIM:
This is just my own observations on my system, so don’t take this as authoritative information.

I’ve owned several SSDs / NVMe’s of different brands and different controllers and installed in all possible ways... PCIe-SATA boards, Native SATA ports, PCI’e ACHI Blades, PCIe NVMe blades...

On a clean virgin install of macOS (any version), TRIM is OFF by default unless 2 conditions exist on MY cMP...

1 - The SSD in question is an Apple SSD device
2 - Trim was forcibly enabled at some point during the life of the macOS install.

I found that once Trim was forcibly enabled, it is consistently applied to all SSD devices system wide. This remains true for me, even after a full reinstall (over top of current install) of macOS. Thus giving the impression that it was enabled by default.

I have done this with macOS installed on legacy rotational drives, and no SSD in the system. Then system profiler doesn’t show any Trim enabled. As soon as an SSD of any type is installed, it was “Automatically” enabled, presumably from having be enabled at some earlier install.

If I have no other macOS drives installed and I install macOS to a fresh on a raw drive (cleanly, no clones). It always results in Trim being disabled on anything except an Apple SSD.

Just my 2¢