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

[XNorth]

Which 2-slot RX Vega 64s are you referring to? The PowerColor Red Devil is not 2 slot. The 2-slot PowerColor and Sapphire 64s are the reference card which all have the exact same AMD bios. They all came from AMD. The only 2 slot non-reference 64s I know of are the XFX Double Edition and MSI Air Boost, and neither appear to be currently available (and both have the cMP fan issue).

I was referring to the Sapphire and PowerColor 64s, not the Red Devil. So being reference cards like the Vega FE, should I assume the BIOS of these cards can't be flashed per the custom cards? I was hoping that the PowerColor 64 could also be flashed same as the Red Dragon 56, seeing that their website uses the same "Chill" power & temp stats for both cards. I'm desperate for a double slot Vega 64 with no fan issue.

EDIT: Re-read the first post...the PowerColor Red Dragon exhibits no fan issue. Question is still the same for the PowerColor 64, despite it being a reference card.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I was referring to the Sapphire and PowerColor 64s, not the Red Devil. So being reference cards like the Vega FE, should I assume the BIOS of these cards can't be flashed per the custom cards? I was hoping that the PowerColor 64 could also be flashed same as the Red Dragon 56, seeing that their website uses the same "Chill" power & temp stats for both cards. I'm desperate for a double slot Vega 64 with no fan issue.

EDIT: Re-read the first post...the PowerColor Red Dragon exhibits no fan issue. Question is still the same for the PowerColor 64, despite it being a reference card.
View attachment 761670

You can flash a reference RX Vega. thevidness was having issues flashing theirs, but I’m not sure why. You could try the Nitro+ 64 bios on it. Since there’s no gaurantee it would work, I can’t recommend buying a reference to try it. The best thing for you would be to wait for a 2-slot 64 that doesn’t have the fan issue such as a Red Dragon 64.

 

[h9826790]

I was referring to the Sapphire and PowerColor 64s, not the Red Devil. So being reference cards like the Vega FE, should I assume the BIOS of these cards can't be flashed per the custom cards? I was hoping that the PowerColor 64 could also be flashed same as the Red Dragon 56, seeing that their website uses the same "Chill" power & temp stats for both cards. I'm desperate for a double slot Vega 64 with no fan issue.

EDIT: Re-read the first post...the PowerColor Red Dragon exhibits no fan issue. Question is still the same for the PowerColor 64, despite it being a reference card.
View attachment 761670

That Radeon Chill thing should has nothing to do with BIOS compatibility. It’s an AMD thing. All Vega GPU with the proper AMD Windows driver can do that. I bet they are just lazy to create their own chart, so, simply publish the reference chart from AMD. TBH, the card at the background looks like a RX580 but not any Vega.

 

[thevidness]

You can flash a reference RX Vega. thevidness was having issues flashing theirs, but I’m not sure why. You could try the Nitro+ 64 bios on it. Since there’s no gaurantee it would work, I can’t recommend buying a reference to try it. The best thing for you would be to wait for a 2-slot 64 that doesn’t have the fan issue such as a Red Dragon 64.

Today I tried flashing the Sapphire Nitro+ Vega 56 BIOS to my reference Sapphire Vega 56. That had the same effect like trying the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 BIOS earlier. The Mac Pro hangs on boot, repeating its chime.

I think theres nothing wrong with the card or the flashing process, because I reflashed the card with its factory BIOS and now its booting OK again.

I looked for the PowerColor Red Dragon Vega 56 BIOS but couldn‘t find it. Maybe you can provide a link?

 

[MisterAndrew]

Today I tried flashing the Sapphire Nitro+ Vega 56 BIOS to my reference Sapphire Vega 56. That had the same effect like trying the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 BIOS earlier. The Mac Pro hangs on boot, repeating its chime.

I think theres nothing wrong with the card or the flashing process, because I reflashed the card with its factory BIOS and now its booting OK again.

I looked for the PowerColor Red Dragon Vega 56 BIOS but couldn‘t find it. Maybe you can provide a link?

Sure, it’s here: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/200963/200963

 

[XNorth]

I have narrowed my options to replace my Vega FE with the Red Dragon Vega 56 or the WX7100.

The Red Dragon and the WX7100 are different classes of cards. The gaming card is a lot faster than the WX7100, so I wouldn't lose much of the speed of the FE.

On the other hand, the WX7100 is slower, but it's also a high end pro card like the FE. It has lower TDP, comes with a longer warranty and optimized for pro apps, all important for the graphic, video and intensive 4K rendering I do.

I would like to stay with a high end workstation card, but don't want to lose the performance. Other than raw speed, what are some other advantages of a game card? I'm curious if others have used a game card for pro apps and how it's held up long term.

 

[thevidness]

I had success with this BIOS: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/199330/199330

My Reference Sapphire RX Vega 56 accepted it and behaves normally in MacOS from what I can tell until now.

I will follow up with more in-depth observations.

 

[Unklemac]

I would like to stay with a high end workstation card, but don't want to lose the performance

High end workstation, and not loose performance? You need to go to a WX9100. And you will loose raw speed too compared to FE. AND you will have the fan spinning constantly.

WX9100 is comparable to a Reference vega 56 in Pro Apps.

It's your $$$, but I would listen to MisterAndrew and his buying suggestions of cards without "fan issues"

 

[h9826790]

optimized for pro apps, all important for the graphic, video and intensive 4K rendering I do.

AFAIK, only true in Windows, no special optimisation / function available in MacOS

 

[psaintemarie]

Yes, that fan speed is high. Pulse maxes out at 1600 rpm and Red Dragon maxes out at 2000 rpm. What is the max fan speed are you getting under heavy load? Does it go up to 100%?

I tried once to run Valley for 30 mins and the fans went not high than 50% (from that command line) so I'm guessing 2400rpm is indeed ~100% of fan speed ?

 

[MisterAndrew]

I had success with this BIOS: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/199330/199330

My Reference Sapphire RX Vega 56 accepted it and behaves normally in MacOS from what I can tell until now.

I will follow up with more in-depth observations.

That’s awesome! That Nitro+ 56 secondary bios is probably a good match for the reference card since it’s lower power and won’t generate as much heat so it should be fine with the single fan cooler.
[doublepost=1526408051][/doublepost]Is anyone able to test the Nitro+ 64 secondary bios on their reference 64?

It can be downloaded here: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/200284/200284
[doublepost=1526409482][/doublepost]

I have narrowed my options to replace my Vega FE with the Red Dragon Vega 56 or the WX7100.

The Red Dragon and the WX7100 are different classes of cards. The gaming card is a lot faster than the WX7100, so I wouldn't lose much of the speed of the FE.

On the other hand, the WX7100 is slower, but it's also a high end pro card like the FE. It has lower TDP, comes with a longer warranty and optimized for pro apps, all important for the graphic, video and intensive 4K rendering I do.

I would like to stay with a high end workstation card, but don't want to lose the performance. Other than raw speed, what are some other advantages of a game card? I'm curious if others have used a game card for pro apps and how it's held up long term.

I agree with others that you won’t see any additional benefit with the WX 7100 in MacOS. The pro app optimizations and special certified drivers are for Windows. It has the performance of an RX 470 and it also runs fairly hot because of the small cooler and fan, so it’s not worth the extra cost in my opinion especially since RX Vega prices have come done.

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-470-vs-AMD-Radeon--Pro-WX-7100-Graphics/3640vsm265057

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compar...MD-Radeon--Pro-WX-7100-Graphics/3938vsm265057

 

[thevidness]

I had success with this BIOS: https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/199330/199330

My Reference Sapphire RX Vega 56 accepted it and behaves normally in MacOS from what I can tell until now.

I will follow up with more in-depth observations.

That’s awesome! That Nitro+ 56 secondary bios is probably a good match for the reference card since it’s lower power and won’t generate as much heat so it should be fine with the single fan cooler.

I agree, that was also my thinking. It really works for the most part. My observations until now follow below.

Fan behaviour:

The fans do shut off completely on idle, as you might have experienced with other cards before. Idle temp is around 35°. It's a little annoying that simple things like scrolling a web page can make the card turn its fan on and then quickly off again. Since it's just one blower, it's quite audible even with low RPM. Still, that's a LOT better than having it spin all the time like mad! Stressing the GPU let's it spin up the fan just as expected. The highest RPM I observed was close to 2500 RPM. Temp was 75° at that point. That brings me to the next point.

Luxmark:

I observed these values close to the end of a Luxmark run-through.

In addition to that I also observed the highest power draw during that test. Power draw on both PCI E Boost connectors was 7,99A. I didn't take a screenshot but it looked very much like being clamped to always stay below 8A. That equals 96W draw on each connector. No problem with that. But there was a problem with...

Unigine Heaven:

Reproducably shuts down the computer at a certain point. :-( I will check again where exactly and under which circumstances (temperature, power draw)

Unigine Valley:



Works. Power draw on both connectors barely crossed 6A (72W) during spikes.

EDIT: The glitches mentioned below are only present with my old 24" Apple LED Cinema Display connected through a mDP to DP adapter. I just discovered that while connected to my main setup consisting of Sharp PN-K321 (needs a little hack to AppleGraphicsControl.kext to work in MST mode) and LG 27MU67 there are NO GLITCHES.
/*
Sadly it's a good example for another major caveat. There are very short full-screen glitches from time to time (see below). They do happen immediately when some visually taxing application is running, so they are not temperature related. Maybe it's limited to OpenGL2, I will have to investigate this further.


*/


CLing:


Also threw that in for good measure.

Setup:

This is how it looks inside right now:



And this is what the system sees:


Last but not least...

Ports:

As there's a mismatch in the port layout (reference 3x DP, 1x HDMI, nitro 2x DP, 2x HDMI) I was curious what would happen here. The two left-most DP work as expected, so does the HDMI port. They can all be used simultaneously. It was even possible to use a DP to HDMI adapter and get a second HDMI signal from the third DP. That unfortunatly produced UI-lag but I managed to take a screenshot.

Taking into account how finnicky the digital connections are nowadays I think it's completely possible that the use-all-four-ports scenario might as well work on another day without UI lag.

Conclusion:

Overall I'm pretty happy with the result. EDIT: the glitches were caused by the connected monitor, not the card /*I can live with the glitches for now. I have some hope that they will improve with 10.13.5 or I'll find a way to mitigate them in my actual use case.*/ Aside from the looming system shutdown in extreme conditions the system seems very solid. I will edit this post with more observations as they happen.

EDIT: Sleep is also working as expected.

I will try next if I can manage to satisfy the cards power draw by tapping into SATA power. If that's no good I might need a Pixla Mod, even for a not-so-power-hungry Vega 56

 

[MisterAndrew]

That looks really good. Thank you for your testing. Perhaps the shutdown issue can be solved with pixlas mod.

 

[XNorth]

I agree with others that you won’t see any additional benefit with the WX 7100 in MacOS. The pro app optimizations and special certified drivers are for Windows.

Thanks for the advice. Everyone. The best option for me seems to be the PowerColor Red Dragon, no fan issue OOTB, double slot, and close enough to the performance of the Vega FE. This should keep my cMP capable for work until Apple reveal the new "modular" Mac Pro, then will decide whether to upgrade or keep using the cMP.

 

[h9826790]

I agree, that was also my thinking. It really works for the most part. My observations until now follow below.

Fan behaviour:

The fans do shut off completely on idle, as you might have experienced with other cards before. Idle temp is around 35°. It's a little annoying that simple things like scrolling a web page can make the card turn its fan on and then quickly off again. Since it's just one blower, it's quite audible even with low RPM. Still, that's a LOT better than having it spin all the time like mad! Stressing the GPU let's it spin up the fan just as expected. The highest RPM I observed was close to 2500 RPM. Temp was 75° at that point. That brings me to the next point.

Luxmark:

I observed these values close to the end of a Luxmark run-through.
View attachment 761825
In addition to that I also observed the highest power draw during that test. Power draw on both PCI E Boost connectors was 7,99A. I didn't take a screenshot but it looked very much like being clamped to always stay below 8A. That equals 96W draw on each connector. No problem with that. But there was a problem with...

Unigine Heaven:

Reproducably shuts down the computer at a certain point. :-( I will check again where exactly and under which circumstances (temperature, power draw)

Unigine Valley:

View attachment 761827

Works. Power draw on both connectors barely crossed 6A (72W) during spikes. Sadly it's a good example for another major caveat. There are very short full-screen glitches from time to time (see below). They do happen immediately when some visually taxing application is running, so they are not temperature related. Maybe it's limited to OpenGL2, I will have to investigate this further.

View attachment 761828

CLing:

View attachment 761829
Also threw that in for good measure.

Setup:

This is how it looks inside right now:

View attachment 761830

And this is what the system sees:

View attachment 761831 View attachment 761832
Last but not least...

Ports:

As there's a mismatch in the port layout (reference 3x DP, 1x HDMI, nitro 2x DP, 2x HDMI) I was curious what would happen here. The two left-most DP work as expected, so does the HDMI port. They can all be used simultaneously. It was even possible to use a DP to HDMI adapter and get a second HDMI signal from the third DP. That unfortunatly produced UI-lag but I managed to take a screenshot.
View attachment 761833
Taking into account how finnicky the digital connections are nowadays I think it's completely possible that the use-all-four-ports scenario might as well work on another day without UI lag.

Conclusion:

Overall I'm pretty happy with the result. I can live with the glitches for now. I have some hope that they will improve with 10.13.5 or I'll find a way to mitigate them in my actual use case. Aside from the glitches and the looming system shutdown in extreme conditions the system seems very solid. I will edit this post with more observations as they happen.

Thanks for the detailed report.

For your info, that 7.99A is a display limit. Any card draw more than 7.99A will display 7.99A only, but when reach the real pre-determined limit (about 10A), the Mac will shut itself down. Therefore, I believe it's not the sensor's limit, but more like a display limit.

I understand that scrolling -> fan noise is very annoying. My HD7950 Mac Edition card has the same problem. When scrolling in a browser, the GPU will jump from low power state to high power state momentarily, which is good enough to spin up the fan (in 7950, that's low RPM to high RPM), the fan noise is not huge, but very attention catching. End up I solved the problem by manually create a fan profile for the card (by editing the VBIOS). However, AFAIK, this trick won't work for Vega because the ROM is signed, and cannot be edited.

 

[thevidness]

For your info, that 7.99A is a display limit. Any card draw more than 7.99A will display 7.99A only, but when reach the real pre-determined limit (about 10A), the Mac will shut itself down. Therefore, I believe it's not the sensor's limit, but more like a display limit.

hey thanks for the hint. and that 7.99A limit also applies to the graphs you posted here? https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-sierra-support.2083168/page-18#post-26001181
which program is that by the way?

I understand that scrolling -> fan noise is very annoying. My HD7950 Mac Edition card has the same problem. When scrolling in a browser, the GPU will jump from low power state to high power state momentarily...

i also have an original white sapphire 7950 mac edition. i know what you mean. but it’s still a great card, i think.

 

[h9826790]

hey thanks for the hint. and that 7.99A limit also applies to the graphs you posted here? https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-sierra-support.2083168/page-18#post-26001181
which program is that by the way?

i also have an original white sapphire 7950 mac edition. i know what you mean. but it’s still a great card, i think.

And this power tests also shows cap at 7.99A

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...or-approaching-silence.1982499/#post-23120938

The software is Hardware Monitor

https://www.bresink.com/osx/HardwareMonitor.html

 

[psaintemarie]

So just FYI, and I'm not sure if anyone done that before.

I filed a bug with Apple on latest 10.13.5 about fan issues and well their answer is "don't support bla bla third party bla bla MacPro5,1". They are not completely answering the question and the "bug" but yeah, they just won't fix it.

 

[MisterAndrew]

So just FYI, and I'm not sure if anyone done that before.

I filed a bug with Apple on latest 10.13.5 about fan issues and well their answer is "don't support bla bla third party bla bla MacPro5,1". They are not completely answering the question and the "bug" but yeah, they just won't fix it.

Yeah, they won’t support a non-Apple GPU for the cMP. At least you got a response though. I’ve never received one for the bug reports I’ve filed for Vega. They’ve probably been receiving so many that they have a response now. “Don’t send us anymore about this.”

One thing to consider though is that the next Mac Pro will have Vega graphics and if it’s standard PCIe there will be an Apple Vega card that would also work in the cMP.

 

[h9826790]

Yeah, they won’t support a non-Apple GPU for the cMP. At least you got a response though. I’ve never received one for the bug reports I’ve filed for Vega. They’ve probably been receiving so many that they have a response now. “Don’t send us anymore about this.”

One thing to consider though is that the next Mac Pro will have Vega graphics and if it’s standard PCIe there will be an Apple Vega card that would also work in the cMP.

I don't think Apple will still use the same Mac EFI standard on the 7,1. Even it has a PCIe slot, and use standard form factor PCIe graphic card. The firmware on the graphic card may still unable to provide boot screen on cMP. Or even worse, unable to boot on cMP.

 

[Squuiid]

https://wccftech.com/powercolor-radeon-rx-vega-56-nano-edition-to-launch-at-computex/

 

[h9826790]

https://wccftech.com/powercolor-radeon-rx-vega-56-nano-edition-to-launch-at-computex/

Hopefully the heatsink is really strong enough to handle this space heater.

 

[MisterAndrew]

If they down-clocked the Nano Edition to reduce heat and therefore also power consumption then it may be a good choice for cMP users who don't want to do the pixlas mod (or use separate PS). With a single fan it will probably still be more noisy than a Red Dragon or Pulse though.

 

[psaintemarie]

So, I've played a bit with the modifications that can be done in the kext and I managed to get my Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX VEGA 64 8G Gaming to work fine with correct fan speeds.

When in idle mode, the fans run at 700 rpm:

If I run a graphic test, luxmark, Valley, Heaven, I can see the fans speed going up starting 57°C (that's one of the settings set in the modified kext) and I've seen them going up to +3000 rpm, and also I get pretty good results (probably not as good as when not doing the modification though):

PROS: fan speed tunning is working fine
CONS: you need to disable SIP (or at least kext signing and filesystem modifications), the modification sets clock speed for the core lower than what my card can do, so I may try to modify that again.

I'm quite happy with that, I know I'll have to modify the kext if it gets updated over the following macOS updates but that's ok.

 

[teagls]

So, I've played a bit with the modifications that can be done in the kext and I managed to get my Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX VEGA 64 8G Gaming to work fine with correct fan speeds.

When in idle mode, the fans run at 700 rpm:

If I run a graphic test, luxmark, Valley, Heaven, I can see the fans speed going up starting 57°C (that's one of the settings set in the modified kext) and I've seen them going up to +3000 rpm, and also I get pretty good results (probably not as good as when not doing the modification though):

PROS: fan speed tunning is working fine
CONS: you need to disable SIP (or at least kext signing and filesystem modifications), the modification sets clock speed for the core lower than what my card can do, so I may try to modify that again.

I'm quite happy with that, I know I'll have to modify the kext if it gets updated over the following macOS updates but that's ok.

Did you use the kext modification that I linked earlier? If so thats good news it works on cMP. As you mentioned, even tho you will have to update the kext every time you update it's just the plist and that is very easy to back up and swap in whenever you need.