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

[Paradiseapple]

I have a Sonnet Card with two SSD´s I use for music software streaming and I could pen one PCI-slot for an additional card. Is a OCW Accelsior S Adapter with a 4TB SSD fast enough? I would spend around 500$ for the freshup. I am waiting for the Mac Pro 7.1 too.



pci1b4b,9182:



Typ: AHCI-Controller

Treiber installiert: Ja

MSI: Ja

Bus: PCI

Steckplatz: Slot-4

Hersteller-ID: 0x1b4b

Geräte-ID: 0x9182

Subsystem-Hersteller-ID: 0x16b8

Subsystem-ID: 0x6a01

Versions-ID: 0x0011

Link-Breite: x2

Link-Geschwindigkeit: 5.0 GT/s



pci1b21,1242:



Typ: USB eXtensible-Host-Controller

Treiber installiert: Ja

MSI: Ja

Bus: PCI

Steckplatz: Slot-3@6,0,0

Hersteller-ID: 0x1b21

Geräte-ID: 0x1242

Subsystem-Hersteller-ID: 0x16b8

Subsystem-ID: 0x7333

Versions-ID: 0x0000

Link-Breite: x2

Link-Geschwindigkeit: 5.0 GT/s



pci1b21,1242:



Typ: USB eXtensible-Host-Controller

Treiber installiert: Ja

MSI: Ja

Bus: PCI

Steckplatz: Slot-3@5,0,0

Hersteller-ID: 0x1b21

Geräte-ID: 0x1242

Subsystem-Hersteller-ID: 0x16b8

Subsystem-ID: 0x7333

Versions-ID: 0x0000

Link-Breite: x2

Link-Geschwindigkeit: 5.0 GT/s



pci1002,aaf0:



Typ: Audiogerät

Treiber installiert: Ja

MSI: Ja

Bus: PCI

Steckplatz: Slot-1

Hersteller-ID: 0x1002

Geräte-ID: 0xaaf0

Subsystem-Hersteller-ID: 0x1da2

Subsystem-ID: 0xaaf0

Versions-ID: 0x0000

Link-Breite: x16

Link-Geschwindigkeit: 5.0 GT/s



PXS2:



Typ: USB eXtensible-Host-Controller

Treiber installiert: Ja

MSI: Ja

Bus: PCI

Steckplatz: Slot-2

Hersteller-ID: 0x1b73

Geräte-ID: 0x1100

Subsystem-Hersteller-ID: 0x1b73

Subsystem-ID: 0x1100

Versions-ID: 0x0001

Link-Breite: x1

Link-Geschwindigkeit: 5.0 GT/s



Radeon RX 580:



Name: ATY,AMD,RadeonFramebuffer

Typ: Monitor-Controller

Treiber installiert: Ja

MSI: Ja

Bus: PCI

Steckplatz: Slot-1

Hersteller-ID: 0x1002

Geräte-ID: 0x67df

Subsystem-Hersteller-ID: 0x1da2

Subsystem-ID: 0xe353

Versions-ID: 0x00e7

Link-Breite: x16

Link-Geschwindigkeit: 5.0 GT/s
[doublepost=1559562588][/doublepost]

Since the good old cMP 5.1 from 2010 was never designed to do 4K editing a whopping Nine years later, there is some work & money involved to kind of get it there. But first things first, tell us your specs...
How manny open, unpopulated PCI slots do you have, what is your Budget to Hotrod your 5.1, and how long do you plan on keeping your current Mac.

I want to invest 600$ and i thought about a 4TB SSD with a OWC PCI card

 

[MisterAndrew]

This is not an SSD thread. Please post SSD related questions in an SSD thread.

 

[Paradiseapple]

This is not an SSD thread. Please post SSD related questions in an SSD thread.

Sorry for that

 

[MisterAndrew]

It looks like the Mac Pro 7,1 can use both standard PCIe GPUs and the special MPX Modules. Apple states [there is] ”Up to 300W auxiliary power via two 8-pin connectors.” So that’s good news for those who want to transfer their existing GPU from their 5,1.

https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/specs/

 

[Thysanoptera]

Looking at what they published performance wise about the 7.1 Vega 2, they seem kind of slow. The old 5.1 with two Vega 64 should be faster than all the possible configs bar the one with 4 GPUs. Only in ProRender the new Vegas seem to have 20% advantage GPU for GPU, other than that they're actually slower.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Looking at what they published performance wise about the 7.1 Vega 2, they seem kind of slow. The old 5.1 with two Vega 64 should be faster than all the possible configs bar the one with 4 GPUs. Only in ProRender the new Vegas seem to have 20% advantage GPU for GPU, other than that they're actually slower.

I don't believe so. The Radeon Pro Vega II for the 7,1 appears to be based on the Radeon Instinct™ MI60. It's a step up from the consumer Radeon VII which is based on the Radeon Instinct™ MI50.

 

[Thysanoptera]

I don't believe so. The Radeon Pro Vega II for the 7,1 appears to be based on the Radeon Instinct™ MI60. It's a step up from the consumer Radeon VII which is based on the Radeon Instinct™ MI50.

They could be downclocking them to stay within power limits with those dual GPU cards. If you scale them to single GPU, compared to 64x from iMac Pro the Vega 2 is 20% faster in ProRender, 4% slower in FCPX and but in Cinema 4d performance, whatever that means - it is almost half the performance of the old one.

Edited because initially it didn't cross my mind it could be so much slower in 3d.

 

[MisterAndrew]

macOS 10.15 has 1 new Vega frame-buffer personality. Perhaps it's for one of the new Mac Pro's GPUs. No other obvious changes.

 

[DavideDigitalFilms]

Do you think this will mean better support for The Radeon VII in the cMP via Catelina ?

 

[MisterAndrew]

Do you think this will mean better support for The Radeon VII in the cMP via Catelina ?

No. The cMP does not support Catalina.

Update: Well, not officially anyways. It appears that at least the first beta can be installed on the cMP via a workaround. Link: MP5,1: Catalina works, more or less…

 

[Mac_User 0101]

I'm comparing the specs of the OEM Reference design Radeon RX 480 & RX 580, both 8GB versions. I know that they are essentially the same graphics card using the same GPU. What I'm confused about is the specs on Amazon (which could be wrong) has the GPU clock speed listed as the same (1266 MHz). Is there any advantage in buying the OEM Reference Radeon RX 580 for more money instead of just buying the RX 480? Maybe I'm missing something. My apologies if this has been discussed previously.

FYI: I'm looking at the Reference design because I can't have a graphics card any wider than two slots unless I eventually decide to splurge on one of those Netstor PCIe expansion chassis.

 

[atonaldenim]

Forgive my confusion, I've read the last several pages of this thread and I can't determine the ultimate answer to this question. A couple people seem to have asserted that under 10.14.5 it's possible to run a reference Vega 56 in a Mac Pro 5,1 without any power supply modification or external PSU?

Is this true? Page 1 states that Vega 56 cards have two 8-pin aux power inputs which require additional power beyond what a stock 5,1 PSU will supply from mini 6-pin AUX power and PCIe bus power.

Planning to upgrade my GPU soon and would be great to go beyond RX580, but I'm not looking to modify my PSU.

Thank you!

 

[krakman]

Forgive my confusion, I've read the last several pages of this thread and I can't determine the ultimate answer to this question. A couple people seem to have asserted that under 10.14.5 it's possible to run a reference Vega 56 in a Mac Pro 5,1 without any power supply modification or external PSU?

Is this true? Page 1 states that Vega 56 cards have two 8-pin aux power inputs which require additional power beyond what a stock 5,1 PSU will supply from mini 6-pin AUX power and PCIe bus power.

Planning to upgrade my GPU soon and would be great to go beyond RX580, but I'm not looking to modify my PSU.

Thank you!

yes I'm running a reference rx Vega 56 in a 2009 Mac Pro.

the graphics driver in 10.14.5 allows for proper fan control in the reference card and also sends more power through the PCI slot, previously most of the power was drawn through the mini 6 pin sockets which was not ideal.

I use 2 mini 6pin cables plugged into a EVGA power link ~$20 to smooth out the power draw

the GPU has as a bios switch - one for normal power - one for economy/low power= slightly less performance...... I have it set on the economy mode.

under normal use the card draws very little power.

Some people on the forum are worried about the MAXIMUM power draw of the card, you will only hit the maximum if you are playing games or running benchmarks.

if you want to play games then I cannot advise you

I use it for FCPX and I have enabled the Hardware acceleration hack to speed up h264 encode/decode and it works fine.

 

[DanSilov]

I use it for FCPX and I have enabled the Hardware acceleration hack to speed up h264 encode/decode and it works fine.

Excuse my ignorance, which hack are you referring to? I was under impression, it works out of the box.

 

[krakman]

I'm comparing the specs of the OEM Reference design Radeon RX 480 & RX 580, both 8GB versions. I know that they are essentially the same graphics card using the same GPU. What I'm confused about is the specs on Amazon (which could be wrong) has the GPU clock speed listed as the same (1266 MHz). Is there any advantage in buying the OEM Reference Radeon RX 580 for more money instead of just buying the RX 480? Maybe I'm missing something. My apologies if this has been discussed previously.

FYI: I'm looking at the Reference design because I can't have a graphics card any wider than two slots unless I eventually decide to splurge on one of those Netstor PCIe expansion chassis.

I have the reference rx480 running in a couple of Macs in my office. it works fine and only needs one 6pin power cable.

I mainly use it for FCPX and don't have any problems with it.
[doublepost=1559679961][/doublepost]

Excuse my ignorance, which hack are you referring to? I was under impression, it works out of the box.

search this forum for hardware acceleration h264 and HVEC.

edit: Activate AMD hardware acceleration

the card will work out of the box but the hack makes Mac OS think it is an iMac Pro and enables extra functionality in the card. without the hack the CPU does the h264 encode and decode, which is not ideal, its much better for the GPU to do this work.

The benefits are mainly in FCPX and watching 4K video on youtube

 

[DanSilov]

edit: Activate AMD hardware acceleration

the card will work out of the box but the hack makes Mac OS think it is an iMac Pro and enables extra functionality in the card. without the hack the CPU does the h264 encode and decode, which is not ideal, its much better for the GPU to do this work.

The benefits are mainly in FCPX and watching 4K video on youtube

Great, thanks! I use MacPro almost exclusively for FCPX, so this is great!

 

[atonaldenim]

yes I'm running a reference rx Vega 56 in a 2009 Mac Pro.

the graphics driver in 10.14.5 allows for proper fan control in the reference card and also sends more power through the PCI slot, previously most of the power was drawn through the mini 6 pin sockets which was not ideal.

I use 2 mini 6pin cables plugged into a EVGA power link ~$20 to smooth out the power draw

the GPU has as a bios switch - one for normal power - one for economy/low power= slightly less performance...... I have it set on the economy mode.

under normal use the card draws very little power.

Some people on the forum are worried about the MAXIMUM power draw of the card, you will only hit the maximum if you are playing games or running benchmarks.

if you want to play games then I cannot advise you

I use it for FCPX and I have enabled the Hardware acceleration hack to speed up h264 encode/decode and it works fine.

Thanks for your reply, krakman! Very interesting. I'd be using it for video editing and rendering. Would be nervous about the potential for hitting a spike during a long render session, transcoding a bunch of footage etc.

Curious about your overall power load, may I ask what CPU(s) you're using with the Vega 56?

And so I understand how you're feeding the EVGA Power Link, which I believe has two 8-pin power inputs. Is it two Mini 6-pin to 6-pin cables, plugged in a certain way to the 8-pin inputs? Or a dual Mini 6-pin to one 8-pin cable? And leave the Power Link's other 8-pin input empty?

Would it work to augment the AUX power connectors by adding something like SATA power into the mix for the Power Link's inputs? Or would it not be advisable to draw an equal amount of power from disparate sources like that...

 

[h9826790]

I'm comparing the specs of the OEM Reference design Radeon RX 480 & RX 580, both 8GB versions. I know that they are essentially the same graphics card using the same GPU. What I'm confused about is the specs on Amazon (which could be wrong) has the GPU clock speed listed as the same (1266 MHz). Is there any advantage in buying the OEM Reference Radeon RX 580 for more money instead of just buying the RX 480? Maybe I'm missing something. My apologies if this has been discussed previously.

FYI: I'm looking at the Reference design because I can't have a graphics card any wider than two slots unless I eventually decide to splurge on one of those Netstor PCIe expansion chassis.

Should be no difference but purely renaming in this case. (If you are asking about that RX580 OEM single 6pin reference card)

 

[superparati]

Hello,
Running Mojave with a Vega 56, I would like to know if like you since the latest macOS update 10.14.5 you saw your OpenCL score on Geekbench going down from a lot. It won't change my life I'm just curious.
As far as I remember on 10.14.4 I was doing a score of ~175000 and now with the same software I'm oscillating between 132000 and sometime 137000.

Then I did a test using LuxMark running luxball scene and doesn't seems to have a difference vs previous macOS update my score is about 27000 KSamples/sec
Hotel scene: 4200 KSamples/sec

Does my Geekbench score seems normal vs yours?


Thanks!

 

[alchemistics]

Hello,
Running Mojave with a Vega 56, I would like to know if like you since the latest macOS update 10.14.5 you saw your OpenCL score on Geekbench going down from a lot. It won't change my life I'm just curious.
As far as I remember on 10.14.4 I was doing a score of ~175000 and now with the same software I'm oscillating between 132000 and sometime 137000.

Then I did a test using LuxMark running luxball scene and doesn't seems to have a difference vs previous macOS update my score is about 27000 KSamples/sec
Hotel scene: 4200 KSamples/sec

Does my Geekbench score seems normal vs yours?


Thanks!

I did mention this with a reproduceable procedure over a month ago:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...u-macos-support.2083168/page-51#post-27276182

Do you experience noticeable difference in realtime usage i.e. Fcpx exports etc.

I have the reference rx480 running in a couple of Macs in my office. it works fine and only needs one 6pin power cable.

I mainly use it for FCPX and don't have any problems with it.
[doublepost=1559679961][/doublepost]

search this forum for hardware acceleration h264 and HVEC.

edit: Activate AMD hardware acceleration

the card will work out of the box but the hack makes Mac OS think it is an iMac Pro and enables extra functionality in the card. without the hack the CPU does the h264 encode and decode, which is not ideal, its much better for the GPU to do this work.

The benefits are mainly in FCPX and watching 4K video on youtube

Will definitely try this out and see if it at least matches timeline performance similar to an accelerated machine i.e. Newer MBPs.. could keep the cMP alive, specially while the 2019 MacPro would shine in this regard. Looking forward to test it!

 

[superparati]

I did mention this with a reproduceable procedure over a month ago:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...u-macos-support.2083168/page-51#post-27276182

Do you experience noticeable difference in realtime usage i.e. Fcpx exports etc.



Will definitely try this out and see if it at least matches timeline performance similar to an accelerated machine i.e. Newer MBPs.. could keep the cMP alive, specially while the 2019 MacPro would shine in this regard. Looking forward to test it!

Well I don't have a lot of comparison has I switched to Mojave with the Vega 56 with 10.14.4 when for holidays and then installed 10.14.5
I would say it won't change the game too much; This machine is a nice piece of solid hardware solid like a rock. Time showed us the limit but if I can push the purchase of a new Mac or Hackintosh for later I would be happy
Numbers are speaking for themselves between 14.4 and 14.5.
I mainly use my MP for Lightroom and I was hopping a nice and soft jump from an Nvidia 980ti to Vega 56 with Mojave.

Apple improved the fan issue but at the same time limited the horsepower.

 

[Mac_User 0101]

No mention of the [R58081- Msi Rx 580 8G V1] on page one. It looks like a true 2 slot card, similar to the OEM reference design with a slight different fan/cooler and power requirement. Has anyone tried this card in a cMP with Mojave?

Does anyone think that when the new MP is released that the Pro 580X & Pro Vega II will now allow for the reverse engineering of the EFI/BIOS and the retail equivalents will finally be flashable? Maybe that's just wishful thinking but it doesn't seem too far beyond the realm of possibility.

 

[tsialex]

Does anyone think that when the new MP is released that the Pro 580X & Pro Vega II will now allow for the reverse engineering of the EFI and the retail equivalents will finally be flashable? Maybe that's just wishful thinking but it doesn't seem too far beyond the realm of possibility.

Any Mac released after mid-2012 has a UEFI firmware with GOP pre-boot configuration support. MP5,1 still uses UGA pre-boot configuration support and is a EFI Mac. So, the answer is no, GOP firmware from a Mac that has a AMD Pro 580X is useless for making a RX 580 to have boot screens on a MP5,1.

No AMD GPU released after R9 280X can be flashed with a UGA pre-boot configuration support.

 

[Mac_User 0101]

Any Mac released after mid-2012 has a UEFI firmware with GOP pre-boot configuration support. MP5,1 still uses UGA pre-boot configuration support and is a EFI Mac. So, the answer is no, GOP firmware from a Mac that has a AMD Pro 580X is useless for making a RX 580 to have boot screens on a MP5,1.

No AMD GPU released after R9 280X can be flashed with a UGA pre-boot configuration support.

Thank you Alex, that makes sense.

 

[aclarubicin]

Any change in supported GPUs on Catalina?