Flashing R9 280X for boot screens/PCI System Information

[pierrox]

You didn't read me correctly guys, when I say earlier, I mean pre-Sierra. I run 10.10.5 myself and this card is a charm. Peace.

 

[h9826790]

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.

You didn't read me correctly guys, when I say earlier, I mean pre-Sierra. I run 10.10.5 myself and this card is a charm. Peace.

Sorry, I really don't understand what you mean.

Do you mean the driver is not optimised yet in the early Sierra Beta? But when you posted that, Sierra already has official 10.12.1.

And if you mean the driver is no optimised for El Capitan (pre-Sierra), then what's exactly the problem?

Or you mean the software itself (not the driver) is not optimised for Sierra yet, so expected some bugs.

I am not try to say you are wrong, or start a war. I just want to know the truth.

 

[Botts85]

Your 5770 beat the 280X? In which benchmark? What's the exact result?

The r9 280x performs about 5% below the 5770 in Civilization VI.
On Cinebench the r9 280x scored 53.75fps whereas the 5770 scored 51.58fps.
On BruceX, I'm getting about 46 seconds, which is significantly slower than R9 280x usually perform.

 

[h9826790]

The r9 280x performs about 5% below the 5770 in Civilization VI.
On Cinebench the r9 280x scored 53.75fps whereas the 5770 scored 51.58fps.
On BruceX, I'm getting about 46 seconds, which is significantly slower than R9 280x usually perform.

CineBench is not benchmarking the GPU is a well known fact (unless your GPU is very very weak, and the CPU speed is OK fast).

Not sure about Civilisation VI. However, it looks like exactly as the CineBench, your system is CPU single thread limiting. Therefore the performance is similar for both GPU.

Anyway, it doesn't looks like the 5770 can beat the 280X on every benchmark except GeekBench.

I am very sure the 280X can do better in Luxmark, Unigine Heaven, Unigine Valley, Furmark, GPUTest, CompuBenchCL, GFXBench GL, OpenCL_NBody_Simulation, GFXBench Metal....

 

[Moogintroll]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before but has anybody tried flashing the 6GB version of this card? Can it even be run in a 5,1 without an external PSU?

 

[Fangio]

... Anyway, it doesn't looks like the 5770 can beat the 280X on every benchmark..

I am very sure the 280X can do better in Luxmark, Unigine Heaven, Unigine Valley, Furmark, GPUTest, CompuBenchCL, GFXBench GL, OpenCL_NBody_Simulation, GFXBench Metal....

Agreed, hehe.. of course it can, it's Tahiti vs Juniper, and four years of evolution.

@Botts85 I have both cards, and I care for compute benchmarks only. Try this with a 5770

.. except GeekBench .. [4?]

What? No way

http://browser.primatelabs.com/v4/compute/119836

 

[LucMac]

I've recieved my flashed PowerColor R9 280X today.

My previous Sapphire 7950 Mac Edition showed up with 5.0 GT/s in the System Profiler.
My new R9 280X just with 2.5 GT/s bus-speed.

I've read something about removing the R17 resistors, but I'm not sure if it's safe to do so.

Is there anyone who could help me out?
I'm also wondering if theres a notable difference...


Thanks,
Lucas

 

[h9826790]

I've recieved my flashed PowerColor R9 280X today.

My previous Sapphire 7950 Mac Edition showed up with 5.0 GT/s in the System Profiler.
My new R9 280X just with 2.5 GT/s bus-speed.

I've read something about removing the R17 resistors, but I'm not sure if it's safe to do so.

Is there anyone who could help me out?
I'm also wondering if theres a notable difference...


Thanks,
Lucas

I did that on my 280. Very easy, but I won't call it safe. If you have concern, don't do it. There is virtually zero performance improvement in real world (unless you install the card in a X4 slot, but not the normal x16 slot).

 

[LucMac]

I did that on my 280. Very easy, but I won't call it safe. If you have concern, don't do it. There is virtually zero performance improvement in real world (unless you install the card in a X4 slot, but not the normal x16 slot).

Okay, good to know.

Should I just leave it as it is or should I try the resistor removement?

I don't get why I have to remove the resistors for the use in a Mac (when I want 5 GT/s bus-speed).
5 GT/s are certainly achieved in a PC without removing the resistors, right?

What kind of tools are recommended?

Thanks again,
Lucas

 

[h9826790]

Okay, good to know.

Should I just leave it as it is or should I try the resistor removement?

I don't get why I have to remove the resistors for the use in a Mac (when I want 5 GT/s bus-speed).
5 GT/s are certainly achieved in a PC without removing the resistors, right?

What kind of tools are recommended?

Thanks again,
Lucas

The theory suggested that the resistor control the initialise procedure. By removing it, the graphic can now properly initialised in a Mac.

Anyway, I suggest you just leave it and don't touch the resistor. I do that mainly for fun, and end up proved no performance gain.

 

[LucMac]

@h9826790 helped me out a bit and I was successful.

Full 5 GT/s with my 280X!

Maybe this is helpfull for someone:

PowerColor Radeon R9 280X

 

[sp1tf1r3]

I had that card and gave up. It has a special PCB layout and a 256K rom. I tried to follow the patching guides but never achieved anything. I would recommend just using it unflashed, in combination with the GT120 if you want to keep a boot screen when needed.

Hey guys ! I also had a deal on an Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP, and decided to give it a try on my Mac Pro 5,1 (2010) that originally had a 5870. Here's a short summary of what I learned, what did work and what didn't :

• First I tested the card as-is, i.e. ran some benchmarks (both Windows and macOS) and monitored the power usage (I'm using a 1x 6 pins + 1x 6 to 8 pin, no other power from the SATA ports or whatever)
• I read a big part of this thread ("Flashing R9 280X for boot screens/PCI System Information"), as well as the "R9 280x flashed with EFI" and "AMD EFI firmware thread" over at netkas.org
• The first 64K of the BIOS is the classic BIOS, the second 64K is the EFI part
• Yes, the Asus BIOS of this card is 256K when dumped with atiwinflash, but the second half (128K) after the EFI is blank, so did not seem to be an issue
• I took the first 64K of my original BIOS and copied it over the first 64K of the "280Xog.efi.rom" found on netkas that was built for a Sapphire Dual-X R9 280X OC (same port layout as the R9 280X DirectCU II TOP: DVI-D, DVI-I, HDMI and DP)
• Flashed this 128K BIOS with atiwinflash and rebooted (and of course kept the original BIOS somewhere safe)
• No boot screen at first
• After booting the OS : Windows = both screens OK, macOS = only 1 screen working :-(

I played around with the cables, and in fact, you can get a boot screen (grey apple & boot selection if you press alt during startup), but not on every port or any kind of display. With my setup, a 1600x1200 display on the DVI-D port worked, but not a 1920x1200 display ! On macOS, the second DVI display was recognised, but didn't show any output.

Conclusion : if you only use 1 display (with a "small" resolution ?), the Asus Radeon R9 280X with a patched EFI BIOS might work for you. Otherwise, you'd better get a Gigabyte or an other 280X card that has the same port layout as the 7950 Mac Edition, that is DVI-D, HDMI, mDP and mDP. I first chose the Asus because I thought it was close the AMD reference layout, but in fact what matters is that it is close the the layout of the Mac Edition card from which the EFI BIOS was derived.

For now, I'll stay with the Asus R9 280X and its original BIOS, as it is a major improvement over the 5870. If I need to boot Windows, I just select the boot device from macOS and vice-versa. In the coming days/weeks, I'll try to better understand the EFI port mapping and see what can be done for a DVI-D + DVI-I + HDMI + DP layout ("Radeon Port Mapping" thread at netkas). I'll also try to measure the Amps over the booster cables and check that I'm not over the limits.

 

[h9826790]

Hey guys ! I also had a deal on an Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP, and decided to give it a try on my Mac Pro 5,1 (2010) that originally had a 5870. Here's a short summary of what I learned, what did work and what didn't :

• First I tested the card as-is, i.e. ran some benchmarks (both Windows and macOS) and monitored the power usage (I'm using a 1x 6 pins + 1x 6 to 8 pin, no other power from the SATA ports or whatever)
• I read a big part of this thread ("Flashing R9 280X for boot screens/PCI System Information"), as well as the "R9 280x flashed with EFI" and "AMD EFI firmware thread" over at netkas.org
• The first 64K of the BIOS is the classic BIOS, the second 64K is the EFI part
• Yes, the Asus BIOS of this card is 256K when dumped with atiwinflash, but the second half (128K) after the EFI is blank, so did not seem to be an issue
• I took the first 64K of my original BIOS and copied it over the first 64K of the "280Xog.efi.rom" found on netkas that was built for a Sapphire Dual-X R9 280X OC (same port layout as the R9 280X DirectCU II TOP: DVI-D, DVI-I, HDMI and DP)
• Flashed this 128K BIOS with atiwinflash and rebooted (and of course kept the original BIOS somewhere safe)
• No boot screen at first
• After booting the OS : Windows = both screens OK, macOS = only 1 screen working :-(

I played around with the cables, and in fact, you can get a boot screen (grey apple & boot selection if you press alt during startup), but not on every port or any kind of display. With my setup, a 1600x1200 display on the DVI-D port worked, but not a 1920x1200 display ! On macOS, the second DVI display was recognised, but didn't show any output.

Conclusion : if you only use 1 display (with a "small" resolution ?), the Asus Radeon R9 280X with a patched EFI BIOS might work for you. Otherwise, you'd better get a Gigabyte or an other 280X card that has the same port layout as the 7950 Mac Edition, that is DVI-D, HDMI, mDP and mDP. I first chose the Asus because I thought it was close the AMD reference layout, but in fact what matters is that it is close the the layout of the Mac Edition card from which the EFI BIOS was derived.

For now, I'll stay with the Asus R9 280X and its original BIOS, as it is a major improvement over the 5870. If I need to boot Windows, I just select the boot device from macOS and vice-versa. In the coming days/weeks, I'll try to better understand the EFI port mapping and see what can be done for a DVI-D + DVI-I + HDMI + DP layout ("Radeon Port Mapping" thread at netkas). I'll also try to measure the Amps over the booster cables and check that I'm not over the limits.

Good work, thanks! It's not that easy to figure out how to make the Mac EFI working on an incompatible card.

Even thought it's not perfectly supported. At least you still figure out how to get the boot screen if you really need it (e.g. single user mode).

Anyway, in your case, I will also prefer to keep using the PC BIOS. And only switch to Mac EFI ROM when you really need it.

There is almost no need for boot screen now apart from debug / fixing issues. There is no performance difference by booting with PC BIOS, you can select the boot partition in system preference, and even the recovery partition can work with just the PC BIOS.

 

[weckart]

I have an odd card. I bought a Gigabyte Windforce HD7950 from eBay and was sent an R9 280X instead - according to the lettering on the PCB by the contacts. Tested the card in GPU-Z and it stated that it had an ID of 679a rather than 6798, which would indicate a HD7950 bios. All other readings suggested either the R9 280X or somewhere in between. It also has Elpida rather than Hynix RAM on it.

I tried it out in my cMP 5,1. Both bioses worked. No 2 had louder fans, so suggested a higher clocking than No 1. I flashed it switched to bios No 1 with the HD7950 EFI script as per instructions on Netkas and it worked first time. No error messages. Booted up and I got boot screens on DVI and miniDP but not HDMI, which only kicked in when OSX booted up. So far so good. However, fan noise was louder and akin to being on bios 2. Furthermore, bios 2 no longer works: The MP chimes and seems to boot but no display output is detected. I tried running Unigine to see what I ended up with but it refused to run. After I cranked it down to the basic setting it started to run then turned my cMP off without so much as a by your leave.




Any ideas before I attempt to reflash? I am concerned about losing the second bios, however that happened.

 

[h9826790]

I have an odd card. I bought a Gigabyte Windforce HD7950 from eBay and was sent an R9 280X instead - according to the lettering on the PCB by the contacts. Tested the card in GPU-Z and it stated that it had an ID of 679a rather than 6798, which would indicate a HD7950 bios. All other readings suggested either the R9 280X or somewhere in between. It also has Elpida rather than Hynix RAM on it.

I tried it out in my cMP 5,1. Both bioses worked. No 2 had louder fans, so suggested a higher clocking than No 1. I flashed it switched to bios No 1 with the HD7950 EFI script as per instructions on Netkas and it worked first time. No error messages. Booted up and I got boot screens on DVI and miniDP but not HDMI, which only kicked in when OSX booted up. So far so good. However, fan noise was louder and akin to being on bios 2. Furthermore, bios 2 no longer works: The MP chimes and seems to boot but no display output is detected. I tried running Unigine to see what I ended up with but it refused to run. After I cranked it down to the basic setting it started to run then turned my cMP off without so much as a by your leave.

View attachment 676309


Any ideas before I attempt to reflash? I am concerned about losing the second bios, however that happened.

My suggestion, do not touch BIOS 2 unless you 100% BIOS 1 is working properly.

If you create the EFI ROM from your BIOS 1 image. The fan should not go louder. Are you sure it's the graphic card's fan noise? The windforce card is known to be quiet. May be the fan noise is actually coming from the PCIe fan.

Lossing HDMI is very common after flashing if your card use a different framebuffer than the reference card (even though it looks has exactly the same port layout).

If you never touch BIOS 2, and it works before, it should still working at this moment.

If it has a 8pin input, and BIOS 2 is the OC BIOS, may be it draw too much power, which actually shut down the Mac Pro.

Anyway, gv-r928xoc-3gd (rev. 2.0) should be a R9 280X. Even though I am not sure if any 7950 will use this board. It's possible that you actually have a 280X but flashed with the 7950 ROM. If I were you, I will find the proper 280X ROM and try to flash it.

 

[weckart]

Anyway, gv-r928xoc-3gd (rev. 2.0) should be a R9 280X. Even though I am not sure if any 7950 will use this board. It's possible that you actually have a 280X but flashed with the 7950 ROM. If I were you, I will find the proper 280X ROM and try to flash it.

Thing is, is it possible to flash a 280X with the 7950 rom? The IDs don't match and if I try to use a Windows utility to flash the appropriate 280X bios on it the flash won't proceed because of the ID mismatch.

 

[h9826790]

Thing is, is it possible to flash a 280X with the 7950 rom? The IDs don't match and if I try to use a Windows utility to flash the appropriate 280X bios on it the flash won't proceed because of the ID mismatch.

AKAI, it's not just possible but how people get the boot screen at the very beginning when using the HD7970 on Mac Pro.

 

[slawkos]

AKAI, it's not just possible but how people get the boot screen at the very beginning when using the HD7970 on Mac Pro.

Please help I have a Gigabyte R9 280x OC

I can not run or you ready for this card bios

 

[hwojtek]

Thing is, is it possible to flash a 280X with the 7950 rom? The IDs don't match and if I try to use a Windows utility to flash the appropriate 280X bios on it the flash won't proceed because of the ID mismatch.

Not the whole ROM. Dump the original ROM in Windows, parse it with the EFI part from a 7950 using a well-known script, flash it back in Windows and you have a 280X with 7950 IDs.

 

[weckart]

Not the whole ROM. Dump the original ROM in Windows, parse it with the EFI part from a 7950 using a well-known script, flash it back in Windows and you have a 280X with 7950 IDs.

I think there is a little misunderstanding here. The process you described is what I have already done to get bootscreens on my cMP. What I am struggling to understand is why my card was detected by the script and by GPU-Z as a 7950 prior to my flashing the card with the Mac EFI. In other words, the previous owner must already have flashed it with the Gigabyte 7950 bios somehow.

From the stats in GPU-Z it would appear to be the Gigabyte overclocked 7950 bios for this card based on GPU-Z results submitted online, given that its clock speed is 1000MHz and Memory 1250MHz.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4121#ov



What makes me think that my card is a bona fide R9 280X card and not a factory downgraded batch is that it has Elpida RAM onboard. All the bioses for the 7950 only refer to Hynix RAM, whereas the 280X has both Hynix and Elpida bios releases. My understanding is that flashing in Windows or DOS would fail if the ID of bios and card mismatch - the 7950 has an ID of 679a, as did my card, but the 280X has an ID of 6798, in line with the 7970 range of cards on which it is based. Somehow, someone put the wrong bios on without bricking the card.

Having played with the card, I can now get bootscreens with the HDMI output, so it all seems to work on bios 1 apart from running benchmarks where it crashes the system. Bios 2 just gives a black screen with a flashing cursor on my secondary nVidia card that I inserted to troubleshoot what was happening or fails to complete to boot altogether.

 

[Sko]

The ROM I made from your work is attached in case it helps others. Thank you so much!

The card I used:

MSI RADEON R9 280X GAMING 3G (TWIN FROZR IV, OC EDITION)
part number 912-V277-067 (on box)
EAN 4 719072 314026 (sticker on card)
UPC-A 8 24142 01599 5 (sticker on card)
...

PC BIOS (stock as shipped): 113-MSITV277MS.350 TAHITI B0 XTL C38650 GDDR5 3GB, BIOS Version 015.041.000.000.003435, ROM Revision 113-C3865001-TU5

I used your ROM on a MSI Radeon 912-V277-062 with original PC BIOS 015.040.xxx and it works flawlessly. I did some before and after tests and it might have gained some performance, well within tolerance of measuring, but every number is higher.

Thanks for posting this.

 

[Stephen Valente]

Would anyone be able to advise on the best R9 280X card to consider buying with a view to easy flashing?

 

[pierrox]

I like my MSI OC, was easy to flash. The resistor trick didn't do anything though.

 

[pierrox]

I got an MSI R9 280X Gaming 3GB video card, and it worked great out-of-the-box, but I wanted to get boot screens and get it recognized in the PCI section of System Information. I chose this card because it's not too expensive, and clearly others have had good compatibility experiences in Mac Pros with Mavericks and Yosemite.

So, I read the AMD EFI firmware thread on netkas for a general understanding, grabbed Rominator's 7970 EBC firmware, and used them to make my own MSI EBC Mac ROM.

Works. Dive in. The water's fine. Boot screens and all.

Next step: figuring out how to change the "AMD Radeon HD 7970" text string in System Information.

I've just spent hours trying to replicate this, and no success. I don't quite understand what I'm doing wrong. About 2 years ago, I was successful without too much sweat, with a MSI card. This time, with 2 Gibabyte cards, fail.

I read the AMD EFI firmware thread, grabbed the 7970.rom mentioned, and got an "out of range dd" error or something similar when adapting the Terminal commands.

I followed that thread and realized later that the resulting rom was bigger than the original.

I used your ROM, and copied the EFI part manually into a dump of mine, starting at offset 65535 in HexFiend, and no luck either.

Whatever the method, no boot screen. And with either cards, one being a rev1 and the other a rev2.

Could someone be kind enough to point out my mistakes? Or direct me to an easier method?
Thanks!

 

[owbp]

Could you attach here .roms that you created and original ones?

I don't know what you did but Gigabyte HD7950 already had factory UEFI rom, so copy/paste worked flawlessly.
Cant be sure without looking at the rom what the problem is.