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

[goMac]

I am sure lots of eGPU work, just like my 1080Ti never ever officially supported by Apple. But it works flawlessly in my cMP now.

However, it work doesn’t mean that’s supported. As long as it’s not officially supported by Apple, anything can happen.

Yes, what I'm saying is that it sounds like Vega will become an officially supported eGPU option by Apple soon. At least that's what third party eGPU vendors have been telling people. But I've also heard specifically Apple is not supporting Vega yet for eGPU in the current macOS releases, only in a future macOS release.

In addition, it's likely that Apple blesses eGPU on the third party Nvidia drivers after eGPU is out of beta. Nvidia is already part of Apple's official third party driver program.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Because Vega is the current architecture I think it will probably be one of the first official eGPU options. So the driver should be very good sometime between now and "spring 2018." It's possible the lower cost Vega 11 cards will be out by next spring as well and Polaris may be discontinued by then. So I think Vega cards have the best chance at being well supported.

 

[itdk92]

Are you using 10.13.2 beta? Since these are AMD reference cards they should all have the exact same vendor ID, device ID, subsystem vendor ID, and subsystem ID so MacOS should be treating them the same. I know those all match between the XFX and Sapphire cards. And since they are the same cards you don't have to buy another one. You should be able to flash the Sapphire BIOS onto one of your existing cards.

Vendor ID: 0x1002

Device ID: 0x687f

Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1002

Subsystem ID: 0x6b76

Revision ID: 0x00c3
[doublepost=1510352191][/doublepost]This is the BIOS on my card. I verified that with the GPU-Z app and it said this is it.

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/194718/sapphire-rxvega56-8176-170730
[doublepost=1510352436][/doublepost]It looks like you wouldn't actually have to flash the BIOS because according to Techpowerup, they have the exact same BIOS. Version 016.001.001.000.008766. Therefore, no difference at all between these cards.

Same Bios: AMD RX Vega 56, Gigabyte RX Vega 56, MSI RX Vega 56, Powercolor RX Vega 56, XFX RX Vega 56

There is another BIOS, but I've just verified that is the secondary BIOS. Version 016.001.001.000.008767: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/194756/sapphire-rxvega56-8176-170730-1.

We do buy 2-4 VEGA a month for our Mac Pros, so it's not an issue

Thank you for the input though.
[doublepost=1510833234][/doublepost]Also, interesting enough, a VEGA 56 (in quiet mode!) in 10.13.1 is faster than a VEGA 64 (standard mode) in 10.13.0, both in Geekbench OpenCL and Metal.

 

[krakman]

We do buy 2-4 VEGA a month for our Mac Pros, so it's not an issue

Which brand of Vega 56 are you using in your mac pros? And are you experiencing any problems with sleep and fan noise?

 

[itdk92]

A little bit of everything, beside XFX. We didn't use Sapphire for a while though, because for some reasons they were sold out. No problem for now, and after this thread I am testing one in my own Mac to find out more.

 

[teagls]

A little bit of everything, beside XFX. We didn't use Sapphire for a while though, because for some reasons they were sold out. No problem for now, and after this thread I am testing one in my own Mac to find out more.

Have you done any gaming tests? I tried Vega 64 on 10.13.1 and had complete system locks while gaming.

 

[goMac]

Any updates with beta 4?

 

[MisterAndrew]

The fan speed and sleep issues are still present in beta 4.
[doublepost=1510988719][/doublepost]

Have you done any gaming tests? I tried Vega 64 on 10.13.1 and had complete system locks while gaming.

You probably would not experience that issue with 10.13.2.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Is there an accurate way to measure PCIe bandwidth with the AMD card? The OceanWave benchmark app does not appear to give the correct info and lspci ran from the terminal lists the link speed as unknown. (I opened OceanWave before, during, and after the LuxMark and Valley benchmarks and it shows about the same results.) I ask this because the system profiler shows the link speed as 8.0 GT/s and GPU-Z in Windows says the card is operating in PCIe 3.0 mode. Could the recent firmware update from Apple enabled PCIe 3.0?

 

[owbp]

Could the recent firmware update from Apple enabled PCIe 3.0?

No way, chipset supports PCI-e 2nd Gen as max.

 

[h9826790]

Is there an accurate way to measure PCIe bandwidth with the AMD card? The OceanWave benchmark app does not appear to give the correct info and lspci ran from the terminal lists the link speed as unknown. (I opened OceanWave before, during, and after the LuxMark and Valley benchmarks and it shows about the same results.) I ask this because the system profiler shows the link speed as 8.0 GT/s and GPU-Z in Windows says the card is operating in PCIe 3.0 mode. Could the recent firmware update from Apple enabled PCIe 3.0?

View attachment 737355

100% sure you won’t get 8GT/s in cMP.

And 99.99% sure it is actually running at 2.5GT/s

 

[MisterAndrew]

My Vega 56 is a little faster with the Vega 64 bios.

 

[h9826790]

My Vega 56 is a little faster with the Vega 64 bios.

View attachment 737809 View attachment 737810

It looks like more than "little bit"

The performance increase should be coming from higher clock speed. But it shouldn't be that much. May be the Vega 64 driver is better than Vega 56 in MacOS.

Also, do you have the power draw comparison before and after the flash?

 

[MisterAndrew]

Yeah, pretty good huh? It was easy too. I don't have iStat installed anymore, so I don't have a comparison on power draw. It's a little faster still under Windows 10.


[doublepost=1511434287][/doublepost]It turns out I flashed the secondary Vega 64 bios to it. So I flashed the primary bios to it and ran a couple more benchmarks under MacOS. Luxball scene was a little higher, but the mic scene was actually a tiny bit slower. So there doesn't appear to be a performance difference in MacOS between the primary and secondary Vega 64 bios.

 

[goMac]

Reference Vega 56 cards starting to dry up. Non reference cards have been announced so looks like they’re starting to clear channel.

 

[MisterAndrew]

No change with the fan issue in beta 5 (build 17C83a). The driver might be a tad better though. It benchmarked a little higher than build 17C60c.

 

[goMac]

No change with the fan issue in beta 5 (build 17C83a). The driver might be a tad better though. It benchmarked a little higher than build 17C60c.

View attachment 739189

Assuming sleep is still broken. I can deal with the fan issue, but sleep is a problem.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Hmm, yeah sleep is still broken.

 

[h9826790]

Assuming sleep is still broken. I can deal with the fan issue, but sleep is a problem.

May I know why? Sleep should not be an essential function. In fact, the Mac can boot within a minute, not much difference than wake up from sleep (unless you will sleep your machine at the middle of the job, and let it resume when wake up, but this doesn't sound right to me.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Has anyone tried one of the other Vega GPUs (not RX Vega) such as the Frontier Edition or WX 9100 with 10.13.2 yet?

Edit: Just found this thread for the FE.
[doublepost=1512011460][/doublepost]Here's an OpenCL Geekbench 4 result with the latest beta with the stock 56 bios. I'll have to try it with the 64 bios. 170798 up from 152085 in 10.13.1.

 

[goMac]

No changes in beta 6 for sleep or fan.

 

[anticipate]

Is there any benefit to flashing to the 64 BIOS - or harm if it's in a Sonnet 550 box? Can the FW be reverted if there's an issue?

 

[h9826790]

Is there any benefit to flashing to the 64 BIOS - or harm if it's in a Sonnet 550 box? Can the FW be reverted if there's an issue?

Almost all report shows that a Vega 56 will run faster with the Vega 64 VBIOS. It's hard to tell if it will harm anything, but it seems lots of success case.

The firmware should be 100% revertible, because the Vega 56 has dual ROM design. As long as you keep the 2nd ROM untouched, that should be always available for you to boot the card, and re-flash the original ROM back in.

 

[MisterAndrew]

The 64 bios increases the performance of the 56 within a percentage or two of the 64 and it should be safe. The cards use the same memory so I don’t think you need to worry about harming the HBM2. I read that you should try to keep the core under 80 degrees Celsius so just keep an eye on temps. The 56 bios will allow lower temps and of course lower power consumption so potentially better longevity, so I would use the 56 bios more often. You can flash the 64 bios to it when you need the extra power. It’s totally reversible. You can download the bioses from the TechPowerUp collection. You can also run the 56 bios on a 64 and it’ll retain the 64 CUs. There are 2 versions of the primary 56 bios. One is slightly newer. I put that one on my card (it came with the older bios), but I haven’t noticed any difference.

 

[anticipate]

The 64 bios increases the performance of the 56 within a percentage or two of the 64 and it should be safe. The cards use the same memory so I don’t think you need to worry about harming the HBM2. I read that you should try to keep the core under 80 degrees Celsius so just keep an eye on temps. The 56 bios will allow lower temps and of course lower power consumption so potentially better longevity, so I would use the 56 bios more often. You can flash the 64 bios to it when you need the extra power. It’s totally reversible. You can download the bioses from the TechPowerUp collection. You can also run the 56 bios on a 64 and it’ll retain the 64 CUs. There are 2 versions of the primary 56 bios. One is slightly newer. I put that one on my card (it came with the older bios), but I haven’t noticed any difference.

Thanks for the detailed info! Appreciated

PS: BIOS flash just on windows?