Frequently Asked Questions About AMD PC (non-EFI) Graphics Cards?

[fiatlux]

The "FAQ about nVidia" thread is a handy reference for all things nVidia on Mac Pro but I miss a similar thread for AMD cards.

I thought AMD support was about as universal as nVidia but recently found out that a number of cards would need hacks or not even run at all (e.g. R9 270).

With a possible shift towards OpenCL on the Mac platform, I think AMD cards deserve a central information repository.

So, who is willing to start?

 

[toke lahti]

Now that rx480 has been announced, I'd like to know more about using amd's cards in cMP.
Nvidias cards are powerful, but too expensive and old and wanting to use macvidcard's efis in them doubles the price.
Are amd's efis freely in the wild and what are the options?

 

[h9826790]

Now that rx480 has been announced, I'd like to know more about using amd's cards in cMP.
Nvidias cards are powerful, but too expensive and old and wanting to use macvidcard's efis in them doubles the price.
Are amd's efis freely in the wild and what are the options?

Not better than Nvidia (or I should say even worse).

AMD didn't provide any driver for the new card now. So, no matter how good the new card is, as long as Apple didn't include the driver inside OSX. Those new cards are totally useless in cMP (the Rx 480 may fall into this category for a long period of time).

If you want a card that can be self flash (EFI for free), the best option is the 79xx card at this moment. In fact, to be more precise, the best options are 7950 (also name as R9 280), and 7970 (also name as R9 280X). Any card newer than the R9 280X cannot be flashed for EFI yet (not even available in MVC store). So, practically not better than Nvidia. On the Nvidia side, the GTX 680 can also be flashed for free.