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Dual RX 480s in Mac Pro 5,1 running MacOS (w/ How-to)

vaspgn said:
So, I have installed 2 cards rx480 Saphire Radeon (one 8 gb Vram, second 4 vram) into my mac pro 5.1 with 48 Gb and 2 xeon x 6 cores = 12 and, sierra. OS Sierra. kexts 5100 hacked as described in this forum, cards not flashed.
I did Luxmark light:
average about 23.000 points in light ball, using both cards. CPU gives +2500 only, so in total about 25.500.
Each card is connected with mini 6 to 6pci, power consumption according to iStat is
Pci boost A: up to 6 peak amper + 3 pci slot 4 up to 3 amper, that is (6+3)*12V=108 Watt
same second card attached to pci slot 3 and PCI boost B supply
Each card sucks about 100 watt, though according to passport should be up to 225 watt.
I thought they might be underloaded because of 6 pin connection limitation, though I-stat showes almost 100% load GPU for both cards when benchmarking luxmark
Cards are not flashed.
Great performance when working with final cut.
Be cautious when running luxmark text with 12 cpu - it is near PSU limit, though I assume completely ok for final cut, as cpu usage normally does not exceed 800% with up 80% of those both GPU load.
When installing
7 days the flight is in normal mode.
1 problem found: in Civilization 6 with max graphics capacity setup for 4k monitor PSU has stopped in emergency for 5 minutes after I started equipment test in the game interface. I have not tried to repeat it again. I assume power total capacity, thought I have not experieced problem with luxmark. So for final cut I find the solution great and safe, thought it is up to your responcibility.
Click to expand...

6pin won't limit the card. The GPU has no way to know how many power avail from the source. As long as you plug in a 8pin on the card, it will draw whatever it demand.

225W is just the max official possible draw base on the config (8pin + PCIe slot), not the card decided to draw that much. Especially RX480 was released with a single 6pin at the beginning. Sure it won't naturally draw 75W more even with a little bit factory OC.

110W sounds a bit low. However, Luxmark is not that demanding if compare to AAA 3D game. I use Unigine Valley and Heaven to simulate gaming demand, the result is here.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...or-approaching-silence.1982499/#post-23120938

The RX480 was very famous because it drawed >75W from the slot when it was introduced. Which reported to burn a few motherboards (on the gaming PCs, not Mac Pro). So, I bet that's why the manufacture mice to 8pin rather then keep the 6pin. It gives the users more room to OC, and also no need to draw 75W from the slot. Which confirmed by your test, your card only draw around 40W from the slot.

However, the card was required to pull 75W from the slot because it really need slightly >150W in total when under stress. So, your 110W demand seems a bit low to me. My guess would be not because any hardware limitation, but Luxmark is not that demanding. Also, the RX480 can't be fully utilised in MacOS (poor driver support).

But if the card really able to perform during gaming. Then it can expected to draw >150W, if only 36W drawed from the slot. The remaining >114W will be from the 8pin, which also means via a single mini 6pin in your case. Which can actually trigger the shut down protection because the power draw during gaming is not that stable, the spark can actually quite high, and once go over 120W, the shut down protection can be activated.

Anyway, FCPX is not that demanding (ref to the above link), no need to worry about the GPU's power draw, or total power draw too close to the PSU limit, etc.
 
STek ZeNIO said:
  • Is it not at all possible to make RX 480 work on El Capitan? This is what shows in my Graphics/Displays info - No Kext loaded.
Click to expand...

I've tried multiple times to modify the kexts under El Capitan for an R9 Fury card, using both the Tonga and Hawaii profiles. Neither worked. The card works in default config, but with no acceleration at all, and is painfully slow.

From the testing I've done so far (i.e. what I just wrote), it seems that there isn't any support for this or newer GPU chipsets in El Capitan, and Sierra will be the minimum OS needed.

Cheers,
Surf
 
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Hello.
Im wondering if i could ask for some help.
been searching a lot to also try and fix some issues. i cant even get past the black screen and ive been wondering what to do next.

2009 2.66 quad 16gb ram, updated to 5,1, with the Asus RX 480 model (and gt).

installed 10.12.4 and soon after discovered the potential issues with the 4 update. but i have modified the kext files 4100 and 9510. tried 67df in front, in back, before, after or just specifically where it says IOPCIMatch..all to no avail. each time I fixed permissions. security is off.
Ive seen the use of clover, but I havent been able to figure out how to utilize the recommendations in various threads, only what to use, and not necessarily where to put it.

i actually watched the card attempting to boot and got excited; it spins the fans for about 3 seconds then stops and just has a slow flashing red led. Im using the mini 6-pin in the board going to a normal 6-pin and an adapter which goes to a dual 6-pin+2 to the card.

Im in between:
wondering if all these modifications are even possible with the early 09,
wondering if I may have tweaked something wrong in my kext files,
also wondering if someone could share their modified kext files :):),
wondering if clover could be of use to set the card to boot after the logo screen,
or if i should take this back and trade, maybe for the powercolor card since i heard that has better luck with plug-n-play/ mod kext files.

i was concerned about a good connection to PCI and the cords, but it definitely gets power, just not sure why it doesnt keep going.


any help would be appreciated. forgive me if theres been some good answers in the 'haystack'. theres so much info out here in extremely long threads.


EDIT:

i just installed 10.12.3 on another HD. booted up the card right away, even while installing the OS. no tweaks to anything. thought about using the stock kexts and copy them over and try again, but ill just start fresh.
fans still don't spin, so i can rule that out as a bad thing.

so, no .4 update yet lol...or else ill go terminal, one day.
 
Last edited:
QuakeProd said:
Hello.
Im wondering if i could ask for some help.
been searching a lot to also try and fix some issues. i cant even get past the black screen and ive been wondering what to do next.

2009 2.66 quad 16gb ram, updated to 5,1, with the Asus RX 480 model (and gt).

installed 10.12.4 and soon after discovered the potential issues with the 4 update. but i have modified the kext files 4100 and 9510. tried 67df in front, in back, before, after or just specifically where it says IOPCIMatch..all to no avail. each time I fixed permissions. security is off.
Ive seen the use of clover, but I havent been able to figure out how to utilize the recommendations in various threads, only what to use, and not necessarily where to put it.

i actually watched the card attempting to boot and got excited; it spins the fans for about 3 seconds then stops and just has a slow flashing red led. Im using the mini 6-pin in the board going to a normal 6-pin and an adapter which goes to a dual 6-pin+2 to the card.

Im in between:
wondering if all these modifications are even possible with the early 09,
wondering if I may have tweaked something wrong in my kext files,
also wondering if someone could share their modified kext files :):),
wondering if clover could be of use to set the card to boot after the logo screen,
or if i should take this back and trade, maybe for the powercolor card since i heard that has better luck with plug-n-play/ mod kext files.

i was concerned about a good connection to PCI and the cords, but it definitely gets power, just not sure why it doesnt keep going.


any help would be appreciated. forgive me if theres been some good answers in the 'haystack'. theres so much info out here in extremely long threads.


EDIT:

i just installed 10.12.3 on another HD. booted up the card right away, even while installing the OS. no tweaks to anything. thought about using the stock kexts and copy them over and try again, but ill just start fresh.
fans still don't spin, so i can rule that out as a bad thing.

so, no .4 update yet lol...or else ill go terminal, one day.
Click to expand...

I upgraded from El Capitan to Sierra 10.12.4 yesterday, it "just worked". When the computer rebooted after installing, I stopped it and booted into single user mode (Cmd-S), then edited the kext in vi (only 4100 needs modification for the R9 Fury, as the Fury is included in the 9000 kext already, but both 4100 and 9150 need modding for the RX 480), fixed permissions (chmod -R 775; chown -R root:wheel) and rebooted.

It all works now. Hope this can help you.

Surf
 
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SurfNorway said:
I upgraded from El Capitan to Sierra 10.12.4 yesterday, it "just worked". When the computer rebooted after installing, I stopped it and booted into single user mode (Cmd-S), then edited the kext in vi (only 4100 needs modification for the R9 Fury, as the Fury is included in the 9000 kext already, but both 4100 and 9150 need modding for the RX 480), fixed permissions (chmod -R 775; chown -R root:wheel) and rebooted.

It all works now. Hope this can help you.

Surf
Click to expand...

Just now getting back home to try.
I'll do yours verbatim, after I just do a fresh install to get the stock kexts back in order (somehow didn't save one of them properly before mods).
I edited the kexts on the functional drive that worked with the 480 because I was trying to enhance it (has a sickening choppy experience) but it won't boot now lol..

I forget where I seen that kext process in single user mode, but I have a feeling it would be on this site somewhere..
 
QuakeProd said:
Just now getting back home to try.
I'll do yours verbatim, after I just do a fresh install to get the stock kexts back in order (somehow didn't save one of them properly before mods).
I edited the kexts on the functional drive that worked with the 480 because I was trying to enhance it (has a sickening choppy experience) but it won't boot now lol..

I forget where I seen that kext process in single user mode, but I have a feeling it would be on this site somewhere..
Click to expand...

Remember to make a backup of your freshly installed kexts before modding them, eg.:

# cp -a ./AMD9000Controller.kext ./AMD9000Controller.backup
and so on for whatever files you plan on modifying (I guess it's 9150Controller, and RadeonX4100)

good luck!

Surf
 
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SurfNorway said:
Remember to make a backup of your freshly installed kexts before modding them, eg.:

# cp -a ./AMD9000Controller.kext ./AMD9000Controller.backup
and so on for whatever files you plan on modifying (I guess it's 9150Controller, and RadeonX4100)

good luck!

Surf
Click to expand...


thank you for your help.
it appears to be a fully functional, and even went to sleep and woke up without issues.

had to do it a couple times. seems i had forgot to fix permissions to do this additional step--to utilize the enhancement of the computing units through the terminal.
 
All of a sudden I have boot loops, then force restarts, then came the kernel panics and now I'm back to freezing at boot...and back to a black screen..

Can't win with this card at all..Didn't modify anything after a successful boot, and now I'm back to square one again.

Maybe I'll go get the powercolor. This asus just isn't cutting it.
It doesn't even show up in the system anymore.
 
Here is the LuxMark score I got after plugging in my monitor cable (DP) into the second card (2nd 16x pcie lane):
Screen Shot 2017-05-16 at 10.11.33.png

I'm rather surprised by this score as I usually get a score around 22K, never gotten close to 28K.
Setup:
macOs: 10.12.4
2009 Mac Pro
Dual Xeon X5960
2x XFX RX480 8GB (OC)
 
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That's very good to see. The improved performance is most likely due to CUs unlock.
 
I believe the RX480 can do much better. If only 22K, my 7950s can also deliver that without any issue. 28K is faster, but isn't the RX480 have ~2x processing power of the 7950? Anyway, it's good to hear that the XFX card can work on your cMP.
V3 10.11.4 b5 50:50.jpg
 
A single R9 Fury does about 19000. I wouldn't expect two to be twice as fast, and understand that the RX 480 is a slower chip with a focus on performance per watt rather than overall grunt. 28800 doesn't seem bad at all in that perspective!

Surf
 
Polaris driver for rx 480 and rx 580 are now included in High Sierra. No more Kext mod necessary. Works pretty well and valley benchmark scores 2605 Faster than my D700 on MP 2013 which scores 2351
 
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Beckett5 said:
Polaris driver for rx 480 and rx 580 are now included in High Sierra. No more Kext mod necessary. Works pretty well and valley benchmark scores 2605 Faster than my D700 on MP 2013 which scores 2351
Click to expand...

How did you install the high sierra beta? what version is that?
 
michaelwalkertoye said:
Thanks. I couldn't install it to an apple raid drive. I hope this isn't a bad sign for this next version of the OS for me.
Click to expand...
You may need to switch to software RAID. I doubt there will be a friendly mix of APFS and AppleRAID.

There may also be a requirement for X56xx chips instead of X55xx chips, but I have not seen confirmation of this yet. Apple noted that support was coming for the 2012 Mac Pro, but not the 2010. The only difference between them should be CPUs. I wouldn't be surprised if APFS needs AES-NI on the chip to run.

If I had an easier way of dealing with FileVault unlocking, I'd have dropped one of my RX580s in my Mac Pro already.
 
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