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All the Flashable GPUs for MAC Pro (Update Jan 2018)

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rastaman3d

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 12, 2008
9
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I'm trying to find which are all the flashable GPUs Cards (vendors and models) actually tested and working with MacPro 4.1/5.1
Anyone can help me to make a list of them?

AMD 4870
AMD 4890
AMD R9 280
NVIDIA GTX 680
....
 
AMD
HD4870
HD4890
HD5770
HD5870
HD6850
HD6870
HD7950
HD7970
R9 280X

Nvidia
8800GT
GT120
GT630
GT640
GTX470
GTX480
GTX570
GTX580
GTX630
GTX640
GTX650
GTX670
GTX680
GTX750ti
GTX760
GTX770
GTX780
GTX960
GTX980
GTX980ti
GTX1070
GTX1080
GTX1080ti
Titan
Titan Black
Titan X Maxwell
Titan X Pascal

I'm probably missing a lot. I probably also have a few wrong. But this is my "5 minute effort".
 
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rastaman3d said:
I'm trying to find which are all the flashable GPUs Cards (vendors and models) actually tested and working with MacPro 4.1/5.1
Anyone can help me to make a list of them?

AMD 4870
AMD 4890
AMD R9 280
NVIDIA GTX 680
....
Click to expand...


This isn't the answer you are looking for but with 10.13.4 beta it seems all recent AMD RX 4xx and 5xx series cards work without needing to be flashed. Only drawback is no boot selector screen.

The AMD Vega cards also work but Fans spin at high speed.

The fan issue may be fixed in a future beta. The inability to display boot screen probably can't/won't be fixed.
 
krakman said:
This isn't the answer you are looking for but with 10.13.4 beta it seems all recent AMD RX 4xx and 5xx series cards work without needing to be flashed. Only drawback is no boot selector screen.

The AMD Vega cards also work but Fans spin at high speed.

The fan issue may be fixed in a future beta. The inability to display boot screen probably can't/won't be fixed.
Click to expand...

My thread was intended to focus on the flashable (then with native boot screen) cards that don't need any hardware soldering tweak, just software. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
I've found this old post that seems to be very exhaustive, but not updated

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,2187.0.html
 
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The benefit of flash is different depending on brand, model and generation.

Most if not all nVidia PC cards will work in a Mac Pro w/o the need for an EFI ROM once the nVidia web drivers are loaded. The issue is that you have no boot screen, and no functional display after each macOS update (because the nVidia web drivers are tied to specific macOS versions). That's why I kept the orginial GT120 next to a GTX970 in my Mac Pro - it was just a matter of swapping the display cable once in a while. No big deal really.

My understanding is that the recent nVidia cards (post GTX680) need some h/w tweaking before being able to be flashed with an EFI ROM anyway so I'm not really sure it is worth the hassle.

On the AMD front, the recent RX4xx and RX5xx work out of the box with Apple's drivers (in recent versions of macOS). They still don't display the boot screen (as they lack an EFI ROM) but at least OS updates do not break support as the drivers are built-in. I am not sure an EFI ROM exists that can be flashed, the ROM hack that exists is purely to change the card id and make it appear as identical to the one Apple sells in the e-GPU developer kit - mostly a cosmetic thing, and possibly irrelevant once 10.13.4 is released (the beta seems to properly recognise different AMD PC cards).

Things are different with older R9 280x and 79xx cards which can be flashed with the ROM of the latest official Mac ATI/AMD card, and be fully supported included boot screen.
 
Has anyone been able to raise MacVidCards on email, PM, phone...? I've sent emails in December and January requesting a card flash and heard nothing...
 
i think only the GTX680 and some of the ATI cards have public rom's for self flashing, think most the roms on ActionableMango list may be hard to find.

good thing is that a few of the RX5/4xx ATI cards will work without messing around a lot
 
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Hello!

I´m looking at the list of "flashable" cards for Mac Pro. I got a (MSI) GeForce GTX 1060 3G on my desk and got a issue regarding my AMD Radeon HD 7950 Mac edition (flickering, unstable High Sierra, very unstable). Turned back to my roots and reinstalled ATI Radeon and the HS got stable again. So..

Q: Anybody know if this my MSI GeForce GTX 1060 3G is flashable? (Like to get it EFI)

Best regards

/Per
 
expede said:
Hello!

I´m looking at the list of "flashable" cards for Mac Pro. I got a (MSI) GeForce GTX 1060 3G on my desk and got a issue regarding my AMD Radeon HD 7950 Mac edition (flickering, unstable High Sierra, very unstable). Turned back to my roots and reinstalled ATI Radeon and the HS got stable again. So..

Q: Anybody know if this my MSI GeForce GTX 1060 3G is flashable? (Like to get it EFI)

Best regards

/Per
Click to expand...

AFAIK, it's possible. HOWEVER, 1060 may have output issues after flashing. Therefore, even MVC doesn't provide this card's flashing service (yet).

So, practically, the answer is NO at this moment.

Also, for your info, the 7950's flickering issue can be avoided by locking the VRAM clock speed (native setting is 1250MHz). You can do it by editing the VBIOS.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...7950-mac-edition.1603588/page-2#post-20513990

Or plug in a second monitor (or even connect the same monitor twice to the graphic card, and then choose mirror mode). or use some virtual monitor HDMI dongle (which make the graphic card believe it's connected to a monitor)

Any method that effectively lock the VRAM clock speed can completely fix the flickering.
 
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Hi, and thanks for the fast reply!

I have read your tutorial, which is great and very understandable, but I can not get hold off the HexMiner. It is absent at App Store in Sweden. And I can't seem to get it on the Net either. So I downloaded iHex and payed 5 dollars. But it does not look as the fine image you provided. I am a Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon with a great interest in computers but this leaves me with a big uncertainty, when the screen does not correspond. I do read and can follow instructions. Sorry!! This might not be for me. And by the way. I read that the file should be 128K (which it is in Windows 10) but when I drag it over to the Mac it turns out to be 131K.
But still, thanks h9826790!

Best regards

/Per
 
expede said:
Hi, and thanks for the fast reply!

I have read your tutorial, which is great and very understandable, but I can not get hold off the HexMiner. It is absent at App Store in Sweden. And I can't seem to get it on the Net either. So I downloaded iHex and payed 5 dollars. But it does not look as the fine image you provided. I am a Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon with a great interest in computers but this leaves me with a big uncertainty, when the screen does not correspond. I do read and can follow instructions. Sorry!! This might not be for me. And by the way. I read that the file should be 128K (which it is in Windows 10) but when I drag it over to the Mac it turns out to be 131K.
But still, thanks h9826790!

Best regards

/Per
Click to expand...

HexMiner is not on AppStore anymore, but it should still available as 3rd party apps somewhere on the net.

https://en.freedownloadmanager.org/Mac-OS/HexMiner-FREE.html

Anyway, 128 vs 131, that's normal, because in Windows, 1k = 1024, but in MacOS, 1k = 1000.
 
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I believe the best single slot card you can flash is a W7000, which is an AMD FirePro, basically a 4gb 7870.
 
@719c6 a GT630 will work on native osx driver or with the nvidia driver (wont matter), you wont have boot display aka the bar moving from left to right when you turn on your computer.
but once the bar is done you will get display and desktop so you wont need to flash the card yourself.
i have had no boot display for 3-4+ years now? with no problem so far with a gtx660 then a gtx770.

all the cards on ActionableMango list will work without a lot of work
 
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