MP 1,1-5,1 Experiences with replacing Mac Pro 3,1 graphics cards?

[Rik Star]

I’m wondering if there’s any of you out there who've had experience replacing the graphics card on a Mac Pro 3,1? Particularly replacing with the Radeon RX 570 or RX 580. Did you get any difficulties with either of these? I was recommended these both as viable replacements.

 

[Dayo]

Did you get any difficulties with either of these?

None with the example in my signature

 

[Rik Star]

None with the example in my signature

Thanks for the reply.
Did you have to flash the card before installing or did it come “mac ready”?
Any issues with unsupported MacOS?

 

[Dayo]

No real need to flash any cards these days as loaders such as RefindPlus and OpenCore will show proxy boot screens.

If used directly without such loaders, there is a blank screen until the Stage 2 loading screen, after which the login page is shown (if set) and then Mac OS. It is supported as from HiSierra IIRC. Not sure about LoSierra. Ventura can be patched for support via the OCLP but this is still a work in progress AFAIK.

 

[Rik Star]

No real need to flash any cards these days as loaders such as RefindPlus and OpenCore will show proxy boot screens.

If used directly without such loaders, there is a blank screen until the Stage 2 loading screen, after which the login page is shown (if set) and then Mac OS. It is supported as from HiSierra IIRC. Not sure about LoSierra. Ventura can be patched for support via the OCLP but this is still a work in progress AFAIK.

Many thanks!

 

[Dayo]

PS: You will need SSE4.2 support, not available on MP31, to use it as from Mojave at least but I assume however you plan to implement unsupported Mac OS will be providing that. Otherwise, you will need to install it manually: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2206682

 

[Rik Star]

PS: You will need SSE4.2 support, not available on MP31, to use it as from Mojave at least but I assume however you plan to implement unsupported Mac OS will be providing that. Otherwise, you will need to install it manually: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2206682

Now thats where I‘m inexperienced…. No idea about SSE4-2 support?!? I’m using the DosDude1 Catalina patcher. Hopefully that covers this. Thanks for the link though, I’ll have a look at that.

 

[Dayo]

The DosDude Patcher installs this for MP31.

 

[Rik Star]

The DosDude Patcher installs this for MP31.

Thats great, Many thanks for your help Dayo!

 

[Rik Star]

Anybody else tried the Radeon RX 570 in a MP 3,1?

 

[840quadra]

I have a 580 on my 3,1 and flashed 4,1 without issue. Both have been solid though the 3,1 took more fussing to get working with metal and boot screens.

 

[Rik Star]

I have a 580 on my 3,1 and flashed 4,1 without issue. Both have been solid though the 3,1 took more fussing to get working with metal and boot screens.

Thanks for the reply. Can you explaine why it ”took more fussing to get working with Metal”? My understanding is that that the RX 580’s are Metal compatable straight out of the box. But maybe I’m missing something about the setup process. (I know that to get a working boot screen requires using something like Open Core).

 

[840quadra]

Thanks for the reply. Can you explaine why it ”took more fussing to get working with Metal”? My understanding is that that the RX 580’s are Metal compatable straight out of the box. But maybe I’m missing something about the setup process. (I know that to get a working boot screen requires using something like Open Core).

Worked straight out of the box on the 4,1, for whatever reason the 3,1 the card worked fine, but I had zero HW acceleration based on my initial tests. I had to play a bit around a bit with open core for it to work properly in that regard, and with boot screens.

Could be due to my doing a dossdude install first with an OEM card, then swapping to the 580 later. Don’t let my experience divert you, I likely did did something to make it harder on myself .

 

[Rik Star]

Worked straight out of the box on the 4,1, for whatever reason the 3,1 the card worked fine, but I had zero HW acceleration based on my initial tests. I had to play a bit around a bit with open core for it to work properly in that regard, and with boot screens.

Could be due to my doing a dossdude install first with an OEM card, then swapping to the 580 later. Don’t let my experience divert you, I likely did did something to make it harder on myself .

Okay thanks for that. I’ll be using the card in a machine used for audio work, so hardware acceleration probably won’t be needed. But I have seen on anothe thread that there is some info on mac rumors about how to get the HWA working so I’ll look for that if I run into difficulties.