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undergroundcub

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 29, 2013
5
17
UK
I'll just leave this here for you to all digest.
Video to follow outlining method. Never thought the day would come...

6r2hki.jpg
 
All this effort for TB in Mojave and using a non-Metal GT120 for GPU?

Lets not rip it to pieces yet, its a test rig, the GT120 will give native boot screens without messing about on newer cards, this is a test rig then I'l move to a newer metal supported card
 
I have no need at all for TB, but I'm glad to see it working if only to say Na na na Na-na, to all the nay sayers.
 
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I'll just leave this here for you to all digest.
Video to follow outlining method. Never thought the day would come...

6r2hki.jpg

This is great news. I love my mac pro even though I don't use it much anymore. I would love more upgrades to keep it relevant. My mac pro feels like a classic American muscle car. It's outdated but still a classic...
 
This is great news. I love my mac pro even though I don't use it much anymore. I would love more upgrades to keep it relevant. My mac pro feels like a classic American muscle car. It's outdated but still a classic...
Had one of these in high school:

8-great-ford-mustang-boss-302-colors[1].jpg

5 litre 290 HP engine (just under 1 HP per cubic inch). Gas mileage sucked, and the rear tires went bald very quickly.

Now driving a new Escape with a 2 litre 240 HP turbocharged engine (just under 2 HP per cubic inch). Highway mileage is 30+ miles per gallon (7.5 Liters per 100 km).

Seems to be roughly as fast as the Boss 302, but spends much less time in the gas stations.

Yes, the cheese grater is like a classic American muscle car. ;)
 
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Had one of these in high school:


5 litre 290 HP engine (just under 1 HP per cubic inch). Gas mileage sucked, and the rear tires went bald very quickly.

Now driving a new Escape with a 2 litre 240 HP turbocharged engine (just under 2 HP per cubic inch). Highway mileage is 30+ miles per gallon (7.5 Liters per 100 km).

Seems to be roughly as fast as the Boss 302, but spends much less time in the gas stations.

Yes, the cheese grater is like a classic American muscle car. ;)
Except the muscle cars have skyrocketed in value while the cMP has tanked. Maybe one day...
 
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Except the muscle cars have skyrocketed in value while the cMP has tanked. Maybe one day...

"Tanked" is a bit of a stretch. A good condition 2012 Mac Pro can start around $1200 these days. Add in SSDs and a modern GPU and you're well past new iMac or mini pricing... Not bad for a 7.5-year-old-computer!

Let's hope the 2019 MP does it's legacy justice!
 
Had one of these in high school:


5 litre 290 HP engine (just under 1 HP per cubic inch). Gas mileage sucked, and the rear tires went bald very quickly.

Now driving a new Escape with a 2 litre 240 HP turbocharged engine (just under 2 HP per cubic inch). Highway mileage is 30+ miles per gallon (7.5 Liters per 100 km).

Seems to be roughly as fast as the Boss 302, but spends much less time in the gas stations.

Yes, the cheese grater is like a classic American muscle car. ;)

I'm jealous, you must have been one of the cool kids in school. Me and my friends was bumming around in a broken down VW Bug...
 
To take advantage of the full bandwidth of TB3 you would need the host card in the x16 slot but also need an m2 SSD in the other x16 slot. Otherwise you are limited to the shared x4 PCIE 2.0 lanes of slot 3 and 4.
 
TB3 is 4x PCIe 3.0. Potentially, undergroundcub's method could convert 16x PCIe 2.0 to 2 TB3 ports. You could attach an NVMe SSD to one of the TB3 ports, getting the full 3000MB/s+ it's capable of, as well as connect the second port to a raid array, capture card etc.
 
TB3 is 4x PCIe 3.0. Potentially, undergroundcub's method could convert 16x PCIe 2.0 to 2 TB3 ports. You could attach an NVMe SSD to one of the TB3 ports, getting the full 3000MB/s+ it's capable of, as well as connect the second port to a raid array, capture card etc.

At best it’s about 2800MB/s after CPU overhead on that 16x slot, only when copying very large files from m2 drive to m2 drive.

Most apps won’t read data at that speed anyway. For example, RED 6K footage is recorded at around 250 MB/s (No typo) on SATA2 mags and will be loaded into RAM at the same speed.

Regardless of any of the above, the ageing CPU will struggle to handle modern video data and macOS GPU drivers for AMD and Nvidia cards don’t have HEVC decode/encode (depending on OS and driver build).
 
At best it’s about 2800MB/s after CPU overhead on that 16x slot, only when copying very large files from m2 drive to m2 drive.

PCIe 2.0 x16 is supposed to be 8GB/s. Obviously, overheads reduce that a bit. The 3000MB/s I mentioned was for the SSD - the TB3 port should give about 4GB/s, minus overheads.

Sure, this is a bit academic, and only applies to specific types of transfers etc. In practice, the MP’s 4x slots would still be useful for many things, though - essentially acting as TB2 ports.
 
PCIe 2.0 x16 is supposed to be 8GB/s. Obviously, overheads reduce that a bit. The 3000MB/s I mentioned was for the SSD - the TB3 port should give about 4GB/s, minus overheads.

Sure, this is a bit academic, and only applies to specific types of transfers etc. In practice, the MP’s 4x slots would still be useful for many things, though - essentially acting as TB2 ports.

Ignore theoretical maximum of the 2.0 x16 interface. The host Thunderbolt card negotiates a x4 connection regardless of 2.0 or 3.0, if you can even get it to work in the first place.
 
This topic has been discussed in great length in this thread: testing TB3 AIC with MP 5,1.

Unless OP has come up with a revolutionary new method...this is just more of the same.

perhaps someone will be nice enough to share their accomplishments in an organized fashion. that thread is hard to follow to say the least on what functions are working and what mods, etc, were required or optional. anyone familiar with this forum is familiar with the many WIKI posts and detailed guides. No one has done that for Thunderbolt yet so myself and I am sure many others are looking forward to something that is more organized and has a logical sequence rather than 7 pages of scattered info
 
perhaps someone will be nice enough to share their accomplishments in an organized fashion. that thread is hard to follow to say the least on what functions are working and what mods, etc, were required or optional. anyone familiar with this forum is familiar with the many WIKI posts and detailed guides. No one has done that for Thunderbolt yet so myself and I am sure many others are looking forward to something that is more organized and has a logical sequence rather than 7 pages of scattered info

For anyone daring enough to try:

Install card:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GC-TITAN-RIDGE-rev-10#kf

Boot to Windows, install supplied app/driver (if not already installed). Reboot to MacOS (warm, not hard shutoff). In the app, you can allow the TB device to connect (one time).

MacOS Mojave+ then should work with thunderbolt.

My point, there's really not much to it. In theory, any device should work as long as it can work with MacOS. I've had no issues with my OWC Thunderbay 4 and LG Ultrafine 5k with cMP. As we may see here, audio interfaces will work too.
 
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Soooo there is no required workaround due to the lack of the Thunderbolt header on the cMP logic board? You simply just don't use that cable at all? I saw the posts about making a jumper connection, That specifically is one of the things I haven't wrapped my head around yet.

I am not even as concerned about it working in macOS. I could run my audio software and hardware on Windows also. The only thing I would be interested in using thunderbolt for is for connecting an audio interface. I don't have a need for 4k+ screens and the other features this card has. I just didn't understand how this card works with the lack of a thunderbolt header connection
 
Ignore theoretical maximum of the 2.0 x16 interface. The host Thunderbolt card negotiates a x4 connection regardless of 2.0 or 3.0, if you can even get it to work in the first place.

If his solution involved a PLX chip, 8x PCIe 2.0 could be turned into 4x PCIe 3.0 (as done by various NVMe cards). In any case, we remain to see if his method is genuine / anything new.
 
Soooo there is no required workaround due to the lack of the Thunderbolt header on the cMP logic board? You simply just don't use that cable at all? I saw the posts about making a jumper connection, That specifically is one of the things I haven't wrapped my head around yet.

I am not even as concerned about it working in macOS. I could run my audio software and hardware on Windows also. The only thing I would be interested in using thunderbolt for is for connecting an audio interface. I don't have a need for 4k+ screens and the other features this card has. I just didn't understand how this card works with the lack of a thunderbolt header connection

Yep, no need for the jumper cable or power my friend. I personally saw no difference when I tried it, seemed to do nothing. There was hope that keeping it jumped would force MacOS to see it on cold boot. But to clarify, it's currently working in my cMP with no other cable connections and using Windows to enable. I understand some people have had luck with the Alpine Ridge controller as well, however, I'll only speak to the Titan controller linked above as I have personal experience with it.
 
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