For 256k ROM, you can copy and paste the EFI part manually from the 128k ROM to make it Mac Edition. But the non standard PCB is a problem, some port may be disabled after flash.
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Flashing R9 280X for boot screens/PCI System Information
- Thread starter Mr. Zarniwoop
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For 256k ROM, you can copy and paste the EFI part manually from the 128k ROM to make it Mac Edition. But the non standard PCB is a problem, some port may be disabled after flash.
I did but almost bricked my card in the process. No idea where I made a mistake but fact is there is no foolproof guide or automated script for 256K ROMs and I could not find a single success report for that particular card.
I also posted my rom here back in June '15 but despite some support offers nobody came back with a patch. I'm not blaming anybody, just highlighting that patching that ROM is not straightforward.
The R9 280X itself should be very foolproof for flashing (dual ROM design). However, totally agree that's not easy for beginner.
If you go back to page 15 on this thread. There is another guy has a card that with 256K ROM, and we got it wrong for about 4-5 times before we can actually made a working ROM. Anyway, that ROM was made by me, and end up it's purely cut and paste job, no other software require (including terminal).
The "instruction" was from MVC.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...tem-information.1808938/page-15#post-21670230
If you go back to page 15 on this thread. There is another guy has a card that with 256K ROM, and we got it wrong for about 4-5 times before we can actually made a working ROM. Anyway, that ROM was made by me, and end up it's purely cut and paste job, no other software require (including terminal).
The "instruction" was from MVC.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...tem-information.1808938/page-15#post-21670230
I recently purchased a 3 month old (according to seller anyway) MSI r9 280x 3G Gaming for my mac pro 4,1, but I think I may have been send a dead card. I'v previously had succes flashing an 7970 and that still works in the 4,1, but the new r9 280x is not giving me a signal.
Can anyone confirm that this card works out of the box without flashing? I'm a litle hesitant to send it back before I know for sure that it's supposed to work witout being flashed.
The card is an MSI gaming 3G series 3GB r9 280x V277 VER:1.2
I've also tried it in a PC at work without luck, but that also didn't give me a signal with my known-working 7970, so that might be a driver issue.
When I put the r9 280x in to my mac pro with another GPU in stot 2 I was able to boot to windows, and GPU-Z showed one generic VGA adapter that was based on the same architecture as the r9 280x, but with 0kb memory, and the other GPU that was powering the display was not listed at all... :/When booting to mac OS X with both cards installed, I get halfway in to the bootscreen, but as soon as the loading bar reaches halfway, it goes weird and a black bar appears at the top of the screen and slowly starts filling with randomly coloured pixels...
When trying to reinstall the AMD drivers windows kept on crashing before compleating the install, and I kept having to roll back to an earlyer version with the old drivers still installed.
Anyone any other ideas on how to confirm the card is dead?
Can anyone confirm that this card works out of the box without flashing? I'm a litle hesitant to send it back before I know for sure that it's supposed to work witout being flashed.
The card is an MSI gaming 3G series 3GB r9 280x V277 VER:1.2
I've also tried it in a PC at work without luck, but that also didn't give me a signal with my known-working 7970, so that might be a driver issue.
When I put the r9 280x in to my mac pro with another GPU in stot 2 I was able to boot to windows, and GPU-Z showed one generic VGA adapter that was based on the same architecture as the r9 280x, but with 0kb memory, and the other GPU that was powering the display was not listed at all... :/When booting to mac OS X with both cards installed, I get halfway in to the bootscreen, but as soon as the loading bar reaches halfway, it goes weird and a black bar appears at the top of the screen and slowly starts filling with randomly coloured pixels...
When trying to reinstall the AMD drivers windows kept on crashing before compleating the install, and I kept having to roll back to an earlyer version with the old drivers still installed.
Anyone any other ideas on how to confirm the card is dead?
I used to have a Gigabyte R9 280X R2 for my Mac Pro 1.1 and it ran quite good. However i only got bootscreen on the VGA port. I sold the card and got a GTX680 for my new 4.1 mac pro and it worked much better but supports only one 4K screen.
I now bought myself another R9 280X and im going to flash it as soon as i get the cables off ebay. I just want to ask if there is any chance that i can get bootscreen on ALL ports not just VGA?
I want it on DVI, DisplayPort1 & 2.
I understand it cannot give bootscreen in 4K so im happy with just having it on all ports.
Is this possible?
I read about portmapping, but dont know what apps to use. What kind of editor are you using when you edit the ROM files?
Thanks guys for all the good work!
I now bought myself another R9 280X and im going to flash it as soon as i get the cables off ebay. I just want to ask if there is any chance that i can get bootscreen on ALL ports not just VGA?
I want it on DVI, DisplayPort1 & 2.
I understand it cannot give bootscreen in 4K so im happy with just having it on all ports.
Is this possible?
I read about portmapping, but dont know what apps to use. What kind of editor are you using when you edit the ROM files?
Thanks guys for all the good work!
If your card has the reference port layout, there is a high chance that all dp 1+2 and DVI can show the boot screen.
If your card has VGA port, then you get the wrong card from the very beginning.
Hello!
Thanks for fast reply.
The card is the Gigabyte R9 280X V2. It doesnt have a VGA port but the DVI has analog out and on the other card i had it was just like this.
Dual mDP, DVI, HDMI.
Its this card:
Thanks for fast reply.
The card is the Gigabyte R9 280X V2. It doesnt have a VGA port but the DVI has analog out and on the other card i had it was just like this.
Dual mDP, DVI, HDMI.
Its this card:
I had Gigabyte HD7950 (same as yours R9 but older cooler) and it flashed quite easily with DVI and HDMI ports giving the bootscreen. Didn't have mDP adapter at the time so I couldn't test it. If you go through this topic you'll see that all Gigabyte and MSI cards are joy to work and don't give any problems.
With that particular R9 280X you will maybe have to just split power between 6 and 8 pin cables because it did turn off few of the members Mac's when in full load (8 pin is taking too much power, while 6 pin is almost idling...).
I have 2 r9 280x, one is flashed for bootscreen. The sistem reporert is see one r9 280x and the other is 7xxx. My question is. I need to use CROSSEFIRE cable ? witch pcie slot need to use for the second videcard? I need to flash the other videocard? Thank you.
You can click on @h9826790 's signature (R9 280 + 7950 Mac Edition (Crossfire)), best signature out there by mile, and it will lead you to his posts about crossfire, power consumption and everything else you would like to know about running two GPU's in Mac Pro.
As far as i know, for OS X you don't need crossfire cable (but it is not a problem if you put them on cards), since system is using both from PCIe slots only.
For Windows you need crossfire cables AND both cards to be on stock PC Bios (so just move bios switch on the washed one to other position).
Really, see the man's signature, it is packed with useful information!
As far as i know, for OS X you don't need crossfire cable (but it is not a problem if you put them on cards), since system is using both from PCIe slots only.
For Windows you need crossfire cables AND both cards to be on stock PC Bios (so just move bios switch on the washed one to other position).
Really, see the man's signature, it is packed with useful information!
Thank you for the information. I have mac pro 5.1 and the 2 cards are the same from gigabyte. Can i put in every slot? I f know corect 2 pcie are 4x and the other 2 are 16x. The 3 and 4 pcie those are 4x. The 4x pcie wil be slower? If i use pcie 1 and 2 (16x), the videocards are to close and it could be problem with ventilation. What is the recomandation? I sory for my english , i am from Romania. Thank you
Don't worry, your english is great.
Once again, you should really take a look here for all the info - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mac-with-2-d700s.1732849/page-5#post-21722712
Penalty for using x4 slot is so small that you'll hardly ever notice the difference.
I don't believe that Gigabyte cards, with their Windforce coolers, will have any trouble cooling it selves even if you put them both in x16 slots.
The only thing that you'll need to be cautious about is that they are a big and power hungry cards, so i would try them at stock config (1000MHz), but for the sake of it i would use VBE7 to clock them down a bit and restrict power consumption to specs of the reference HD7950.
Once again, you should really take a look here for all the info - https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mac-with-2-d700s.1732849/page-5#post-21722712
Penalty for using x4 slot is so small that you'll hardly ever notice the difference.
I don't believe that Gigabyte cards, with their Windforce coolers, will have any trouble cooling it selves even if you put them both in x16 slots.
The only thing that you'll need to be cautious about is that they are a big and power hungry cards, so i would try them at stock config (1000MHz), but for the sake of it i would use VBE7 to clock them down a bit and restrict power consumption to specs of the reference HD7950.
thank you for the information ! And the last question. Do a need to flash the other video card ? In the system information are different. One is r9 280x (flashed for bootscreen) and the other is HD7xxx. ( is not flashed). Performance will change?
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I completely missed that you have two R9 280X by Gigabyte.
You should be very cautious with them, since they are now to peak at 300+ Watts when under load, so you'll definitely have to down clock them if you're not using another power supply with the Mac's one.
Or if you have MP4,1/5,1 you could also do a Pixlas Mod.
You don't need to flash other video card, but i would do it just for the sake of it.
Again, if you're booting into Bootcamp with Crossfire cables, you should move the switch on both of them to PC BIOS.
Edit: Performance will stay the same, but it will use correct frame buffer when flashed.
You should be very cautious with them, since they are now to peak at 300+ Watts when under load, so you'll definitely have to down clock them if you're not using another power supply with the Mac's one.
Or if you have MP4,1/5,1 you could also do a Pixlas Mod.
You don't need to flash other video card, but i would do it just for the sake of it.
Again, if you're booting into Bootcamp with Crossfire cables, you should move the switch on both of them to PC BIOS.
Edit: Performance will stay the same, but it will use correct frame buffer when flashed.
How is performance working for your MSI R9 280x?
Mine is showing significantly hampered OS X performance (the 5770 beat it on every benchmark but Geekbench) but performing fine in Windows 10 through Bootcamp.
I'm getting 72.60FPS in Cinebench R15 Windows, but less than 55FPS on Cinebench R15 OS X. GeekBench 4 is showing great and identical GPU performance on both OS X and Windows though.
Civilization VI is also way quicker through Boot Camp although games tend to perform better in Windows.
Mine is showing significantly hampered OS X performance (the 5770 beat it on every benchmark but Geekbench) but performing fine in Windows 10 through Bootcamp.
I'm getting 72.60FPS in Cinebench R15 Windows, but less than 55FPS on Cinebench R15 OS X. GeekBench 4 is showing great and identical GPU performance on both OS X and Windows though.
Civilization VI is also way quicker through Boot Camp although games tend to perform better in Windows.
10.12.1 and Windows 10
Just noticed that Luxmark is showing GPU clock at 102MHz, don't know if that's related. Luxmark is scoring decently though.
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10.12.1 and Windows 10
Just noticed that Luxmark is showing GPU clock at 102MHz, don't know if that's related. Luxmark is scoring decently though.
Luxmark is doing the same for me after updating to 10.12.
For example? (I mean the reason that related to R9 280X's function / performance)
Non optimised drivers, for a lot of things, so I'm not surprised to hear about glitches on our decade old machines running the latest os.
That is not my experience at all.
It works 100% flawlessly in OS X Mavericks (2013), Yosemite (2014), and El Capitan (2015), including the R9 280X, although there are more than a few hoops to get it installed due to EFI32. It works because the drivers are fully optimized and delivered by Apple in the OS since the AMD graphics Tahiti platform is used by the current 2013 model Mac Pro. If the R9 280X wouldn't work, neither would the D700 in the 2013 Mac Pro!
There is no current solution, however, to run macOS Sierra (2016) because the kernel uses CPU capabilities simply not present in the circa-2006/2007 Intel Xeon CPUs.
How you get this conclusion?
For 280x, anything earlier than 10.8.3 not even work natively.
10.9, can't remember any significant buys for 280x. The worst optimised software is a game called "Hitman" (low FPS). But OpenCL work as expected.
10.10, "Hitman" fixed.
Since the, seems everything work properly all the way down to the latest 10.12.1.
As Zarniwoop pointed. The 280x has the exact DeviceID as the D700. It's almost the best optimised GPU you can get (especially in something like FCPX).
What's the exact problem you have with this card? The biggest problem I know is the power management bug, but that's specifically for 3,1 only, all other Mac Pros are not affected.