MP All Models AMD Polaris, Vega, & Navi GPU macOS Support

[MisterAndrew]

Odd thing here - the final release has completely resolved fan issues on my Vega Frontier!

Fans no longer spin up when idle, the card is properly recognised, and I can have different displays on different GPUs with no lag taking apps between them! They've finally sorted the FE drivers.

Do you have the card installed inside a cMP or an eGPU enclosure?

Edit: Okay, I found your previous post where you state your FE is installed in an eGPU enclosure connected to a TB3 iMac. Yes, the fan issue has been resolved for eGPU over TB3 which is awesome, but it’s not relevant to our discussion about compatibility with the Mac Pro. Since TB3 eGPUs are officially supported any issues you are having with them can be reported to Apple using Feedback Assistant.

 

[chrissomos]

Odd thing here - the final release has completely resolved fan issues on my Vega Frontier!

Fans no longer spin up when idle, the card is properly recognised, and I can have different displays on different GPUs with no lag taking apps between them! They've finally sorted the FE drivers.

It’s perhaps a bit early to say they are sorted. The performance is still pretty poor compared to what you get in a Windows machine. Some people are still having fan issues. The card runs at pcie 1.0 speed Im a cMP as far as I can tell. Not ofically supported at all in nMP. Are you running in a cMP? Have you tried running furmark?

 

[MisterAndrew]

I received my Pulse 56 today. The fans are very quiet at idle! Thanks to PowerMac84 for testing this card! If you want Vega in your classic Mac Pro this is the card to get. Of course the downside is that you lose access to PCIe slot 2. There might be enough room to install a riser cable for something like an SSD. My other slots were unoccupied so I just moved my SSD to slot 3.

 

[chrissomos]

I received my Pulse 56 today. The fans are very quiet at idle! Thanks to PowerMac84 for testing this card! If you want Vega in your classic Mac Pro this is the card to get. Of course the downside is that you lose access to PCIe slot 2. There might be enough room to install a riser cable for something like an SSD. My other slots were unoccupied so I just moved my SSD to slot 3.

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pCIE link speed?

 

[MisterAndrew]

pCIE link speed?

1.1 according to OceanWave. I think all of these cards are going to be 1.1. It's not that big of a deal.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I've verified this is the primary BIOS for the Pulse 56 using GPU-Z: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/199585/199585

And this is the secondary BIOS: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/200514/200514

A nice surprise is that is has Samsung memory. If anyone's feeling adventurous you could try them on your reference 56 or 64 to see if it resolves the high fan speed issue. It looks like to bypass the subsystem ID mismatch you'd need to use these flags: atiflash -p 0 -f bios.rom

 

[chrissomos]

1.0 according to OceanWave. I think all of these cards are going to be 1.0. It's not that big of a deal.

Obviously not directly comparable but on PC some cards do really benefit from the greater link speed. See the following:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=pcie-gpu-123&num=3

What I find so curious is that the stock XFX RX480 8GB I was using previously was achieving PCIE 2.0 link speeds in my cMP 5,1. I just find it strange that the newer Vega cards not be able to do the same.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Obviously not directly comparable but on PC some cards do really benefit from the greater link speed. See the following:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=pcie-gpu-123&num=3

What I find so curious is that the stock XFX RX480 8GB I was using previously was achieving PCIE 2.0 link speeds in my cMP 5,1. I just find it strange that the newer Vega cards not be able to do the same.

How did you verify the link speed?

 

[chrissomos]

How did you verify the link speed?

I am basing this on oceanwave.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I am basing this on oceanwave.

Can you share your 2.0 speed results with us? Is everyone else's Polaris card operating at 2.0 as well?
[doublepost=1522992452][/doublepost]A nice thing I've noticed about the Pulse 56 card in Windows is that the fans don't spin at all at idle and light usage. The GPU temp is averaging 28 °C and HBM2 at 30 °C. The cooler is quite impressive.

 

[chrissomos]

Can you share your 2.0 speed results with us? Is everyone else's Polaris card operating at 2.0 as well?
[doublepost=1522992452][/doublepost]A nice thing I've noticed about the Pulse 56 card in Windows is that the fans don't spin at all at idle and light usage. The GPU temp is averaging 28 °C and HBM2 at 30 °C. The cooler is quite impressive.

I no longer have the card sadly but I would think someone else with a similar card can post it.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I no longer have the card sadly but I would think someone else with a similar card can post it.

Well, since Polaris cards are grouped under the same driver, I would think they should all have the same link speed.

I don't get why you're focused on it though. GPU performance difference between PCIe 1.1 x16 and 2.0 & 3.0 is very minor. Here's an old, but still relevant test: https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html. TechPowerUp says, "Our testing confirms that modern graphics cards work just fine at slower bus speed, yet performance degrades the slower the bus speed is. Everything down to x16 1.1 and its equivalents (x8 2.0, x4 3.0) provides sufficient gaming performance even with the latest graphics hardware, losing only 5% average in worst-case." And the benchmarks we run in our Mac Pros show the GPUs are operating on par with those installed in newer PCIe 3.0 systems.

 

[h9826790]

How did you verify the link speed?

This appstore apps can verify the link speed.

https://itunes.apple.com/hk/app/cl-ing/id1244392031?l=en&mt=12

Just open it and go to performance tab, then you should see the memory bandwidth (auto update every few seconds)

[doublepost=1523008361][/doublepost]

I received my Pulse 56 today. The fans are very quiet at idle! Thanks to PowerMac84 for testing this card! If you want Vega in your classic Mac Pro this is the card to get. Of course the downside is that you lose access to PCIe slot 2. There might be enough room to install a riser cable for something like an SSD. My other slots were unoccupied so I just moved my SSD to slot 3.

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Thanks for the sharing. I think most of the cards are quiet at idle, but not necessary when under stress (or you mean this card is not suffer from the full fan speed bug?)

 

[MisterAndrew]

Thanks for the sharing. I think most of the cards are quiet at idle, but not necessary when under stress (or you mean this card is not suffer from the full fan speed bug?)

Not the Vegas. So far this one appears to be the only one tested that doesn't have the full fan speed bug.
[doublepost=1523038371][/doublepost]Here's my link speed result.

 

[chrissomos]

I got pretty much the same thing.

 

[itdk92]

I have been scouring the internet looking for another way to verify the link speed. The system profiler says PCIE 3.0 speed which isn't possible, Oceanwave says 1.0 link speed. Does anyone have another way to verify?

Also, I run a Vega FE in my 5,1 connected to an external PSU. When running furmark the GPU shuts off while the computer is still running. Has anyone else had this happen?

Wouldn’t really run Furmark with that GPUs.

Pcie speeds are definitely Pcie 1.0 unfortunately.

The real question is how to get them to Pcie 2 speeds.
[doublepost=1523077452][/doublepost]

Odd thing here - the final release has completely resolved fan issues on my Vega Frontier!

Fans no longer spin up when idle, the card is properly recognised, and I can have different displays on different GPUs with no lag taking apps between them! They've finally sorted the FE drivers.

Really??

 

[MisterAndrew]

[doublepost=1523077452][/doublepost]
Really??

They have that configured as an eGPU connected to a TB3 iMac.

 

[ilikewhey]

can i not get a sapphire pulse? these 580 are next to impossible to find for decent price.

 

[itdk92]

I've verified this is the primary BIOS for the Pulse 56 using GPU-Z: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/199585/199585

And this is the secondary BIOS: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/200514/200514

A nice surprise is that is has Samsung memory. If anyone's feeling adventurous you could try them on your reference 56 or 64 to see if it resolves the high fan speed issue. It looks like to bypass the subsystem ID mismatch you'd need to use these flags: atiflash -p 0 -f bios.rom

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Will try on the 12th.
[doublepost=1523093552][/doublepost]

They have that configured as an eGPU connected to a TB3 iMac.

Haha huge bummer!

Thanks for the clarification

 

[chrissomos]

Wouldn’t really run Furmark with that GPUs.

Pcie speeds are definitely Pcie 1.0 unfortunately.

The real question is how to get them to Pcie 2 speeds.
[doublepost=1523077452][/doublepost]

Really??

Establishing that the link speed is in fact 1.0 is the first step towards figuring out how to change that. I personally think that the speed is somewhat bandwidth-limited with these new cards.

Why wouldn't you run furmark with a vega GPU? The whole point is to stress the crap out of the card.

 

[MisterAndrew]

can i not get a sapphire pulse? these 580 are next to impossible to find for decent price.

You can thank the mining gold rush for that. The good news is that mining is becoming much less profitable and an asic miner has been developed for ethereum now so miner’s demand for GPUs has sharply declined. We should see prices continue to go down. If you don’t mind a used card I’ve seen Pulse RX 580 8gb for under $300 on eBay within the last week.

 

[ilikewhey]

kinda late just bought a 580 used off ebay, would it still work even though its not the pulse edition?

 

[Unklemac]

...

Why wouldn't you run furmark with a vega GPU? The whole point is to stress the crap out of the card.

I am taking a wild guess, that furmark in the case of vega will show unrealistic usage, in the case of insanely (unhealthy) high power draw.

 

[h9826790]

kinda late just bought a 580 used off ebay, would it still work even though its not the pulse edition?

It should work, but no guarantee.

 

[MisterAndrew]

kinda late just bought a 580 used off ebay, would it still work even though its not the pulse edition?

What kind did you get?