AMD Radeon R9 Fury X in Mac Pro 5,1

[AndreeOnline]

Yes. The script above.

And no, this script unlocks Compute Units that lie dormant in the RX 480, since the driver provided with Sierra is targeting a polaris chip with fewer units. This also applies to a single card. My scores from above come from a single RX 480.

The RX 480 was always weak in MacOS compared to Windows, since Windows had proper drivers. By unlocking the card and getting to all the CUs we get Windows level performance.

 

[Donar]

Script:

1. Open a Terminal window.
2. Write chmod +x
3. drag the script file from Finder into the Terminal window. This creates a file path automatically.
4. Press Return
5. write sudo
6. drag the script file from Finder into the Terminal window. This creates a file path automatically.
7. write fiji 64
8. Press Return
9. Enter your password when asked
10. write sudo
11. drag the script file from Finder into the Terminal window. This creates a file path automatically.
12. write ellesmere 36
13. press Return
14. enter password when prompted
15. Run kext Utility to repair permissions.
16. Reboot

Hi, it would be sufficient if you run the script one time with either "ellesmere 36" (for RX470/480) or "fiji 64" (for e.g. R9 Fury X).

 

[AndreeOnline]

I know. But running it like this won't break anything and covers more use cases if someone else reads it and tries it on another card.

It's basically the guide already included with the script, but people not used to running these things might find the included guide a bit too short.

 

[666sheep]

Nope, it only indicates that you don't understand what you're doing.
Useless steps which won't hurt are still useless steps.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Useless steps… are still useless steps.

Hard to argue with that.

They work just like useless posts in that regard.

 

[Coyote2006]

Yes. The script above.

And no, this script unlocks Compute Units that lie dormant in the RX 480, since the driver provided with Sierra is targeting a polaris chip with fewer units. This also applies to a single card. My scores from above come from a single RX 480.

The RX 480 was always weak in MacOS compared to Windows, since Windows had proper drivers. By unlocking the card and getting to all the CUs we get Windows level performance.

Thanks a lot

 

[Ivan Ebrahim]

Andree

Thanks so much. I managed to sort out my Sierra update problem with a clean reinstall so all good on that front.

Reinstalled my RX 480 following theitsage's guide (thanks!) and then your own helpful post and it seems to have worked. My luxmark scores are very similar to yours and Premiere is running really nicely. The only thing i noticed is your luxmark reports say your card has 64 Compute Units and mine says 36, is this an indication that i din't do that last part of the process (unlocking CU's) properly?

With regard to installing a second RX 480, i currently have 4 HDDs in a striped RAID config in my HDD bays, so thats blocking the space for a second card. Maybe i should move this HDD setup to an external box and connect via USB3, would there be an performance loss?

Thanks in advance, really appreciate it!

 

[Donar]

The only thing i noticed is your luxmark reports say your card has 64 Compute Units and mine says 36, is this an indication that i din't do that last part of the process (unlocking CU's) properly?

Hi, the RX480 has 36 CU's so everything is fine with your install. I think Andree ran the script with "Fiji 64" first, so the value was set to 64 instead of 36. I have a RX470 that should have 32 CU's i ran the script with "ellesmere 36" and Luxmark is reporting 36 CU's instead of the 32 CU's the card actually has. It's a bit confusing but everything is working fine so far.

 

[AndreeOnline]

Hey,

Yes, it hadn't caught my eye. One or two days after I had tried the script the first time, there was a new beta out and I had to punch in the numbers again. I thought I knew what I was supposed to write and just checked the score afterwards and concluded "it had worked" =)

Too bad we can't just add CUs via script..... =)

 

[davebean]

Just to be clear, the official naming of the PCI slots starts from the bottom (the double width x16) and goes up. Slot 4 is at the top, closest to the hard drive bays.

By not using hard drive bay 2,3 and 4 you can probably fit most cards in PCI slot 4. Then you can have one card in slot 1 and then use 2 and 3 for USB and PCIe SSD expansion.

I though that slots 3 & 4 were not x16 bandwidth, isn't it desirable to have the video cards on Slots 1 & 2 for performance purposes?? What is the effect of performance when an RX480 is put in slot 4 (x4)?

 

[h9826790]

I though that slots 3 & 4 were not x16 bandwidth, isn't it desirable to have the video cards on Slots 1 & 2 for performance purposes?? What is the effect of performance when an RX480 is put in slot 4 (x4)?

Don't know about RX480, but 7950 is about up to 5% performance drop in Benchmarks.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mac-with-2-d700s.1732849/page-5#post-21722712

 

[AndreeOnline]

I though that slots 3 & 4 were not x16 bandwidth, isn't it desirable to have the video cards on Slots 1 & 2 for performance purposes??

You're correct about the speed layout.

But from what I've read the penalty in real life scenarios is pretty negligible. In the end, that's for everyone to decide for themselves.

In my case, I'd look at it much more as a 95% win (by adding a second card) than a 5% loss (compared to max expected performance).

 

[SurfNorway]

I've pretty much settled on the R9 Fury as the best upgrade option for my Mac Pro 5,1 12 Core machine (still running an old NVIDIA GeForce GT 120).

The links and articles I've read indicate it's supported in El Cap directly (with a kext mod needed), but I don't know if:

1. I can leave the original card in the machine in a secondary slot for when I need to see the boot screen (seldom)

2. the card needs any extra power from the logic board or elsewhere.

I'm looking at the non-X version, I don't need the last drop of performance squeezed out, but the Fury seems like a very good, modern and fast card that should keep the machine current for at least a few more years. The price/performance ratio seems pretty good too, well ahead of most other cards, including the latest Polaris cards from AMD.

Is there anything else I should consider, or know before getting the card and dropping it in?

 

[theitsage]

@SurfNorway R9 Fury is currently the best bang for the buck GPU. The Sapphire R9 Fury Nitro is right around $200 in the US. I've tried it with both my Mac Pro and eGPU setup. It works very well in macOS after the kext edits.

You can leave the GT 120 in Slot 2 for boot screen when needed. Additional power can be drawn from SATA ports in the drive bays or Pixlas mod. Here's a couple of benchmark numbers I got from the eGPU setup. It should be slightly faster in the Mac Pro.

 

[SurfNorway]

Awesome Mr. Sage, that was exactly what I wanted to know. Yes, the cards have come down substantially in price, seem like a great deal at the moment.

Looks like I can go ahead with my plan and pick one up.

Will let you know how it goes!

Surph

 

[pwdiesel]

Anyone know how to get drivers to work for bootcamp windows 7 ??

 

[SurfNorway]

@SurfNorway R9 Fury is currently the best bang for the buck GPU. The Sapphire R9 Fury Nitro is right around $200 in the US. I've tried it with both my Mac Pro and eGPU setup. It works very well in macOS after the kext edits.

You can leave the GT 120 in Slot 2 for boot screen when needed. Additional power can be drawn from SATA ports in the drive bays or Pixlas mod. Here's a couple of benchmark numbers I got from the eGPU setup. It should be slightly faster in the Mac Pro.

View attachment 691983 View attachment 691984

Hmm, ok, it wasn't as straightforward as I had thought. I got an R9 Fury card, but have a few more questions.

1. The card needs "external" power, i.e. aside from the PCIe bus slot itself? I see that my logic board has two "PCIE AUX" plugs, A and B, that look like they have either 4 or 6 pin plugs. Can I use one or both of those and connect them to one (or both of) the Fury 8 pin power sockets? Alternately I suppose I could just jumper a power cable from one of the two Superdrive's to the graphics card, as the drive's are rarely in use.

I Googled "pixlas mod" but came up with a whole bunch of different things. I don't want to solder new power cables into my PSU . I've already done the firmware upgrade (4,1 - 5,1), upgraded CPUs and RAM, the GPU is the last bit remaining to be done.

I'm only adding one GPU here, no need for multiple cards (aside from the old 120GT I'll leave in for when I need a boot screen, but it doesn't require additional power).

2. The tutorial for setting up an AMD card and making the .kext mod references the RX480 (Polaris 10 based), but I don't see what values need to be used for the R9 Fury. Since it uses a different core (Fiji), I expect it needs a different ID entered somewhere? If I understand correctly, I need to modify both the AMDRadeonX4000.kext as well as the AMD9000Controller.kext with 0x73001002 for the R9 Fury? What about the AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver.bundle, does that need to be modified as well?

All the references I've found so far use Sierra as host OS, I'm still on El Capitan, but could upgrade if it would make things easier. From another post I found, it seems Apple has been trying to prevent people running these cards in the last few builds of Sierra, so maybe I should just leave things as they are.

Thanks in advance. Almost there!

Surph

 

[SurfNorway]

The AMD Sapphire R9 Fury is installed and running in my 5,1 Mac Pro! Yes! I ran 2 mini 6 pin to 8 pin power cables from the logic board to the card, and so far it seems to be working.

It's currently running one screen, while the GEForce GT120 runs the other one. It seems a bit slow, which I expect is because the acceleration hasn't been enabled. Can it be, under El Capitan? If so, how?

The tutorial for setting up an AMD card and making the .kext mod references the RX480 (Polaris 10 based) under OS X Sierra, but I don't see the "Baffin" entry on El Capitan where I can add the proper ID. The R9 Fury is Fiji based, under AMDRadeonX4000.kext I have:

AMD Bonaire
AMD Hawaii
AMD Pitcairn
AMD Tahiti
AMD Tonga
AMD Verde

as far as GraphicsAccelerators go. No Baffin. Will any of the other's work just as well?

So where should I make the mod, and can it be done under El Capitan? I was under the impression that it would work.

All the references I've found so far use Sierra as host OS. I'm still on El Capitan, but could upgrade to the current Sierra build if it would make things easier. From another post I found, it seems Apple has been trying to prevent people running these cards in the last few builds of Sierra, so I'd prefer to just get everything working under El Cap if possible.

Suggestions?

Surf[/QUOTE]

 

[theitsage]

@SurfNorway I have not seen Fiji cards work without macOS Sierra. The good news is it has screen output so it may work if you borrow another personality other than Baffin. If I was to try it, I would add 0x7300x1002 under AMD Hawaii.

 

[SurfNorway]

@SurfNorway I have not seen Fiji cards work without macOS Sierra. The good news is it has screen output so it may work if you borrow another personality other than Baffin. If I was to try it, I would add 0x7300x1002 under AMD Hawaii.

Hmm. Ok, I've put:
0x73001002

under:

</dict>
<key>IOPCIMatch</key>

as well as under:

<key>AMDHawaiiGraphicsAccelerator</key>
<key>IOPCIMatch</key>

I also tried the same under Tonga, based on another poster's suggestion.

Under Tonga, the Mac booted, showed a pair of white screens (active, turned on, but no graphics), and stayed that way.

Under Hawaii the Mac booted, but the monitors never woke up or came on, both remained black, even though I could access files and see that the machine was running.

So I guess this means Sierra or bust, huh? At least now we know.

How would I do this properly to avoid being locked out on 10.12.4, due to the changes in kexts in the latest release? I'm currently on El Capitan. Can I upgrade between major releases from the cli?

Thanks,
Surf

 

[theitsage]

If you use the GT 120 alongside the R9 Fury, there's no worry with macOS Sierra updates. Alternatively, you can update through Terminal [sudo softwareupdate -i -a], make the kext edits, then restart.

 

[SurfNorway]

Hmm, my Mac won't boot now. :-/

After editing the kexts for the AMD, even when I connect the dual monitors to only the GT120, it shows the boot progress bar halfway, then stops. The machine actually boots as far as I can tell, I can access shared folders and drives from my laptop, and ssh into it, but the displays are not working at all now. One shows the halfway finished progress bar, the other doesn't even wake from sleep.

How did modding an AMD kext mess up a NVIDIA GPU that was working up until now? Makes no sense. Maybe OS X is trying to restore some previously running state (at one point I had one monitor controlled by each card individually)?

Is there any way to use kext Utility to install the original kexts remotely (i.e. from my laptop, via ssh, or booting the MP in Target Disk Mode, or similar), or am I going to have to pull the R9 Fury, get everything working again, upgrade to Sierra, mod the new kexts, then install the new card?

Thanks a bunch for the help and suggestions. At least now we know that the R9 Fury won't work with any acceleration under El Capitan ;-).

Surf

 

[SurfNorway]

Booted single user, replaced the broken kexts with the backup versions I had thankfully prepared ahead of time, and am up and running again.

Will upgrade to Sierra as soon as I'm done with a project and can get access to the computer.

 

[SurfNorway]

And it works! Yesssss!!!

Running benchmarks now (Geekbench 4, Cinebench 15, Heaven 1/Valley 4 - should they be run at max quality, or does it matter?)

Only things I notice is that the color balance is slightly different than with the GeForce GT 120, and the mouse is jerky moving across the screen. Not annoyingly so, but it's noticeably worse than with the NVIDIA card.

Lot's of screenshots follow. Note that I've not yet tried the CU unlock, I'm not sure how many are active at present. I also notice that the kext's signatures are marked "unknown". Maybe my chmod or chown was incorrectly typed, or is this typical after editing them?



Do the numbers look about right?

Big thanks to IT sage, Flor!an and everyone else who provided help and support!

Surf

 

[theitsage]

Glad to see it's working in Sierra. You don't need to touch AMD9510Controller for the R9 Fury. 0X73001002 is already in AMD9000Controller. All you need to do for Fiji card is adding 0X73001002 to AMDRadeonX4100.

Once you do the CU unlock, the OpenCL performance will be much better. It's running at 16 now rather than 64. The pair of X5690s really let your R9 Fury fly.