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

MisterAndrew said:
It appears the new Radeon Pro W6800 is supported by macOS 11.4 and later. The device ID is present in the framebuffer driver. It's Navi 21 based like the RX 6800/6900 series. It appears the Navi 23 based Radeon Pro W6600 is not yet supported.
Click to expand...

Nor is the Radeon RX6700XT based on the Navi 22 chip

Lou
 
The Radeon Pro W6800 is available for preorder from several stores.

www.bhphotovideo.com

AMD Radeon PRO W6800 Graphics Card

Buy AMD Radeon PRO W6800 Graphics Card featuring 3840 Stream Processors, 7nm RDNA 2 Architecture, 32GB of GDDR6 VRAM, 256-Bit Memory Interface, Mini DisplayPort 1.4, Blower-Style Fan Cooler, PCIe 4.0 x16 Interface. Review AMD W6800
www.bhphotovideo.com www.bhphotovideo.com
 
Hey guys,

First of all thanks @MisterAndrew for your tremendous work !

Here is what I want to do and I'm sure you guys can help ;) :

- Upgrade my cMP 5,1 GPU so I can update the OS (as most of people I guess)
- Find a recent and powerful GPU (Video editing, VFX, 3D and particles rendering)

My cMP 5,1 specs :

cMP 5,1 specs.png


- As you can see I have a Titan X (it is still a pretty great GPU actually) so no OS update possible.
- I understood all the process so I can upgrade to Catalina (With a native compatible GPU, OpenCore EFI and SIP disabling) I guess will have to buy an Amd Radeon Hd 7950 just to do the update since I don't have any GPU that is compatible with Mojave or Catalina
- I will then try to make it to Big Sur and install an AMD rx 6000 series inside

Questions :

- Is the rx 6700 xt is suppose to work with my specs and Big Sur installed ? (I saw on the list the rx 6800/6900 xt but not the 6700)
- Can't find any rx 5700 xt or VEGA 64x on the market right now (except at crazy prices like 2000€ for the rx 5700 xt)... What would be the best alternative and that I can actually buy ?
- Is considering a second hand GPU could be a solution ? I'm always a bit puzzled when it comes to second hands

I know this questions have already been asked (or similar) in the thread but there is so much posts and infos it can get super confusing.

Thanks in advance for your wise and precise answers.

Have a nice one !

EDIT : maybe I can find a cheaper GPU than the Radeon Hd 7950 to make the move to Mojave or Catalina ?
EDIT 2 : never mind I've found an old GTX 680. Is it ok to update to Big Sur with this one or only Catalina ? According to this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-pro-5-1-with-nvidia-680-mac-edition.2241259/ it should work !
 
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^^^^The RX6700XT is not supported. Sorry! The RX6800 series requires OS11.4 or higher. I know of no Nvidia GPU that will run in a MacOS past High Sierra 10.13.6.

Lou
 
flowrider said:
^^^^The RX6700XT is not supported. Sorry! The RX6800 series requires OS11.4 or higher.
Click to expand...
AMD Series 6000 GPUs are not supported with MacPro5,1, only with 2019 Mac Pro. While you can install and run AMD RX 5000 series GPUs in a Mac Pro 5,1 and run Catalina/BigSur (up to 11.2.3), when you install a 6000 series GPU the MacPro5,1 won't boot.

flowrider said:
I know of no Nvidia GPU that will run in a MacOS past High Sierra 10.13.6.

Lou
Click to expand...
NVIDIA Kepler GPUs are still fully supported with Mojave/Catalina/Big Sur and the first two betas of Monterey.

Several 2014 Macs that have discrete GPUs have GTX 7xx series GPUs and are fully supported with Big Sur and the Apple NVIDIA drivers still support other Kepler GPUs and that's why you can still run a MacPro5,1 with a GTX 680 with Big Sur.
 
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It's great to feel stupid when you don't know something and you learn something new. I love being corrected when I'm wrong. It's scientific. The actually stupid people will never feel bad for being stupid because they've convinced themselves they are always right even when they are obviously not. Their minds aren't open to learning.
 
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Hi folks 👋

I am quite a newbie the Mac Pro community, but have already read through I think half of every (relevant) thread about the 5,1.
As @tsialex mentioned, the RX 6900 XT (in my case by xfx) won’t boot.
However, as I have the card (and paid quite some money for it) I’d like to know if there is a chance of support of the Navi21 XTX cards in near future?

Greetings
kmax
 
kmax3991 said:
However, as I have the card (and paid quite some money for it) I’d like to know if there is a chance of support of the Navi21 XTX cards in near future?
Click to expand...

XFX cards have known issues with macOS in general. Scan this list and see that all XFX are "windows only" and other manufactures are both "mac and windows" compatible for eGPU. This is a good guide for starting with compatibility.

Why are you trying to use a $1750+ GPU on a machine from 2010/2012? Really seems like that money should be invested into newer hardware to take advantage. On MP5,1 there was generally little performance improvement between RX580's and the 5XXX series. The hoops to jump through for MP5,1 to boot latest OS alone make using latest 6XXX generation GPUs even more of a challenge.
 
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kmax3991 said:
Hi folks 👋

I am quite a newbie the Mac Pro community, but have already read through I think half of every (relevant) thread about the 5,1.
As @tsialex mentioned, the RX 6900 XT (in my case by xfx) won’t boot.
However, as I have the card (and paid quite some money for it) I’d like to know if there is a chance of support of the Navi21 XTX cards in near future?

Greetings
kmax
Click to expand...
MacPro5,1 don't even complete POST with a NAVI2x GPU installed. We still don't know if it's a PCIe, chipset, CPU or Mac Pro firmware issue at this point.

I have a hunch from what I've read with hackintoshes that is more than the MacPro firmware, but also CPU requirements and a NAVI2x GPU could never work with MacPro5,1. At this moment, I don't have any hopes with MacPro5,1 and NAVI2x GPUs.
 
bsbeamer said:
XFX cards have known issues with macOS in general. Scan this list and see that all XFX are "windows only" and other manufactures are both "mac and windows" compatible for eGPU. This is a good guide for starting with compatibility.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I must have overseen that specific part of the list, thanks 👍

bsbeamer said:
Why are you trying to use a $1750+ GPU on a machine from 2010/2012? Really seems like that money should be invested into newer hardware to take advantage. On MP5,1 there was generally little performance improvement between RX580's and the 5XXX series. The hoops to jump through for MP5,1 to boot latest OS alone make using latest 6XXX generation GPUs even more of a challenge.
Click to expand...
That sounds slightly like a downer. Well, why? Because I can? Apparently I don't, however. I had this card around 'cause of another project and wanted to try. So you say the best card to get is the RX580? How about the Pro VII? Or the Vega 64? Now I have done the Pixlas Mod I don't want it to be wasted. Right now it runs on a Frontier Edition and running well, although I have some issues with the OC boot screen. But I'm working on it.

tsialex said:
MacPro5,1 don't even complete POST with a NAVI2x GPU installed. We still don't know if it's a PCIe, chipset, CPU or Mac Pro firmware issue at this point.
Click to expand...
Yes, I realized that after some troublesome fault finding when I thougt I broke the card. But I could verify it is not.

tsialex said:
I have a hunch from what I've read with hackintoshes that is more than the MacPro firmware, but also CPU requirements and a NAVI2x GPU could never work with MacPro5,1. At this moment, I don't have any hopes with MacPro5,1 and NAVI2x GPUs.
Click to expand...
Thats quite sad. I already have upgraded my 5,1 to the max of RAM and CPU and wanted just the best for "my baby" (don't take me to seriously there 😜).
But I won't give up my hopes. I'll have a try with the next updates 💪
 
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kmax3991 said:
Thats quite sad. I already have upgraded my 5,1 to the max of RAM and CPU and wanted just the best for "my baby" (don't take me to seriously there 😜).
But I won't give up my hopes. I'll have a try with the next updates 💪
Click to expand...
Ahn?!?!?! What any macOS update will do to make it past POST?

Seem you didn't understood the issue yet. You can't boot anything (nor macOS, nor Linux, nor Windows) with a Navi2x card installed in a MacPro5,1.
 
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I did understand that.
The funny thing is: when I put the xfx in the pcie slot #2 and an external PSU on it, I get the POST sound and some reaction by the monitor. So I am not quite sure what‘s happening there, maybe someone has an explanation to that.

Well, I‘ll stick to the VEGA FE right now. If someday a VII flies into the house I‘ll have a go then.

Thanks for the answers and greetings
kmax
 
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The Pro VII, the newer Workstation GPU, not the older gaming version, should be the most powerful GPU you can put in a 5,1. It should be supported in Mojave, but I don't know if anyone has actually tried it yet.
 
MisterAndrew said:
The Pro VII, the newer Workstation GPU, not the older gaming version, should be the most powerful GPU you can put in a 5,1. It should be supported in Mojave, but I don't know if anyone has actually tried it yet.
Click to expand...
I will make your day with this one.. :) Curious about your opinion Andrew..

Since we talk about Pro cards, I'd have an anecdotal question for you. Back in 2017, AMD started the development for dual GPU cards for the Pro level. One of the early Pro versions has been based on Polaris architecture. Which, in part has driver support for OSX. Very unfortunately, that card was too long to fit into a 5.1, so not many tried the card by removing the grey PCI fan cage in the GPU/PCIE slot compartment of the 4.1/5.2. For some reason AMD still has the card on its webpage despite its high age from 17'

www.amd.com

AMD Radeon™ Pro Duo Graphics Card

AMD Radeon™ Pro Duo Polaris is world’s first dual GPU graphics card designed for professionals, the ideal solution for creative content makers! Learn More!
www.amd.com www.amd.com


I see this as the grandpa Duo card for todays Apple 6800 Duo card without the infinity fabric of course. I guess it should be fine from a power point of view for those of us that have the pixlas mod cable. Most likely there would be a driver issue. Now, in all those years, did you come across someone here on the forum that actually tried that Frankenstein Pro card? I was just curious about it.
On top of this, Polaris is getting more interesting again because of this 5 day old spot here down below:


A dual AMD 490 ?? How cool would be that in a MP 5.1 ??? :):)
 
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I don't know if anyone has tested the Polaris Pro Duo GPU with 10.14.5 or later. I'm pretty sure dual GPU cards were not supported before that. You could stick in two single slot WX 7100s and have the same thing that is confirmed working.
 
It seems the liquid cool 6900XT has a different device ID which doesn't supported in macOS.

May be you can double check this info, and add to post #1 accordingly.
 
h9826790 said:
It seems the liquid cool 6900XT has a different device ID which doesn't supported in macOS.

May be you can double check this info, and add to post #1 accordingly.
Click to expand...
That's interesting. I added the info to the first post. It appears that is only the version from AMD that is available to system builders only. The PowerColor version is supported.
 
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