MP 1,1-5,1 April 2020 alternatives to RX 560?

[fhturner]

Ugh! So, I go to see about purchasing that Biostar RX 560 at NewEgg, and now it's out of stock. The same seller has the Biostar RX 550 for sale at a lesser cost, which would actually work fine for me...if it works. This one has 640 stream processors. Can y'all please take a look and see if you think this is a likely candidate for success? ?

Biostar Gaming Radeon RX 550 4GB GDDR5 128-Bit DirectX 12 PCI Express 3.0 DVI-D Dual Link, HDMI, DisplayPort - Newegg.com

Buy Biostar Gaming Radeon RX 550 4GB GDDR5 128-Bit DirectX 12 PCI Express 3.0 DVI-D Dual Link, HDMI, DisplayPort with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

EDIT 2021.11.03: Year-and-a-half-later ugh. Beware this link now directs to a version of the RX 550 w/ 512 stream processors and it does not work. Just had a client of mine order this, and the bait-and-switch results in a card that isn't compatible. ?

 

[Ludacrisvp]

If you have a way to recover you might be able to get a crossflashed vbios of a Card with the right ID to work on it. (similar idea to those flashing Vega 56 with 64)

 

[padams35]

The Secret Sauce seems to be using a GPU with Baffin architecture/drivers. By that standard the Biostar RX 550 (640SP) card should work. However there are so many different 550 that do and don't work that if I was the one using a random untested baffin card off newegg I think I might take a chance on either the ASUS or ASRock RX 560.

 

[fhturner]

Hey Everybody—

Just wanted to follow back up on this, for those who might be looking to do the same thing (and for all you participants in the thread to know the outcome!): the Biostar RX 550 4GB linked above*** (w/ 640 stream processors) did indeed work for me! It displays video right out of the box, and it works w/ OpenCore to yield the OC boot screen, as well as Martin's AMD H.264 and HEVC hardware acceleration for decoding and encoding. I haven't done any benchmarks or direct comparisons to my RX 580s thus far, but the RX 550 is working great as a Metal-capable, Mojave-compatible, slot-powered, inexpensive GPU. And the fact that it'll do the HEVC/H.264 acceleration for smooth media playback makes it even better.

Thanks for the help, y'all! If I think of anything else noteworthy or have further observations, I'll post back. Thanks again!
Fred

EDIT 2021.11.03: Year-and-a-half-later ugh. Beware this link now directs to a version of the RX 550 w/ 512 stream processors and it does not work. Just had a client of mine order this, and the bait-and-switch results in a card that isn't compatible. ?

 

[MisterAndrew]

I'm glad that worked out. What is "Martin's AMD H.264 and HEVC hardware acceleration for decoding and encoding?"

 

[tsialex]

What is "Martin's AMD H.264 and HEVC hardware acceleration for decoding and encoding?"

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

[For existing OpenCore users, you can always download my latest OpenCore package at post #1314 for update] Full HWAccel achieved now! Everything is covered in the OpenCore thread. The step by step tutorial to enable AMD hardware acceleration is now at here, but I strongly recommend you go...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[MisterAndrew]

Activate AMD hardware acceleration

[For existing OpenCore users, you can always download my latest OpenCore package at post #1314 for update] Full HWAccel achieved now! Everything is covered in the OpenCore thread. The step by step tutorial to enable AMD hardware acceleration is now at here, but I strongly recommend you go...

forums.macrumors.com

Thanks. Will that work on a 6,1 for a Polaris eGPU?

 

[tsialex]

Thanks. Will that work on a 6,1 for a Polaris eGPU?

If I remember correctly, someone on eGPU forum got it working, but it's a very different config than for MP5,1. It's better to take a look there.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Hmm, I'm not sure where to look. I found this thread someone made, but they say they haven't got it working.

No h265 / hevc hardware accel. on Macbook Pro early 15 TB2 w...

PROBLEM: h.264 hardware acceleration works like charm but no hevc/h.265 HARDWARE ACCEL decoding/ encoding at all: Very annoying folks. I already t...

egpu.io

 

[tsialex]

Hmm, I'm not sure where to look. I found this thread someone made, but they say they haven't got it working.

No h265 / hevc hardware accel. on Macbook Pro early 15 TB2 w...

PROBLEM: h.264 hardware acceleration works like charm but no hevc/h.265 HARDWARE ACCEL decoding/ encoding at all: Very annoying folks. I already t...

egpu.io

It's better to ask on the AMD Hardware Acceleration thread, someone there will know.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

What a ****** GPU situation Mac users are in.

 

[caxias_Brazil]

Hey Everybody—

Just wanted to follow back up on this, for those who might be looking to do the same thing (and for all you participants in the thread to know the outcome!): the Biostar RX 550 4GB linked above (w/ 640 stream processors) did indeed work for me! It displays video right out of the box, and it works w/ OpenCore to yield the OC boot screen, as well as Martin's AMD H.264 and HEVC hardware acceleration for decoding and encoding. I haven't done any benchmarks or direct comparisons to my RX 580s thus far, but the RX 550 is working great as a Metal-capable, Mojave-compatible, slot-powered, inexpensive GPU. And the fact that it'll do the HEVC/H.264 acceleration for smooth media playback makes it even better.

Thanks for the help, y'all! If I think of anything else noteworthy or have further observations, I'll post back. Thanks again!
Fred

I bought the same graphics card here in Brazil and I hope it works on my cMP 5.1.

 

[fhturner]

I bought the same graphics card here in Brazil and I hope it works on my cMP 5.1.

From your signature, looks like you ultimately went w/ an RX 560 instead? Perhaps when you ordered via my link 9 months later, it had already been swapped out to the 512-stream-processor version like I see now...man, that's aggravating. Which RX 560 did you get to work? Is it the 896- or 1024-stream-processor one (or something else)?

 

[tsialex]

@fhturner I don't know exactly when or why the Brazilian market become flooded with Baffin GPUs.

There are two local manufacturers making real RX 560 GPUs right now, PC Eyes and Afox. Both manufacturers are selling the cards with 4GB and dual fan heatsinks for around R$ 1250 (a little less than US$ 225 today) for the cheaper models. Both cards can be bought at distributors wholesale, so, it's not just a fluke.

Maybe AMD restarted the production or found some considerable quantity of lost dies and sold it all to PCEyes/Afox, I can't image why, but right now we can buy real Baffin RX 560's and 4GB VRAM normally here and on a very good price.

Just this ML buy-it-now sold 1053 cards already - this is the cheaper model with 896SP limited to 75W from the PCIe slot/without the additional 6-pin PCIe power connector (AFRX560D-4096D5H4-V2):

There are more powerful and expensive models, 1024SP and 6-pin PCIe power connector for around R$ 1600 (around US$ 287).