for Vega56 reference card, is there any indicator apart from the physical switch, to know if it's on full power or LowPower BIOS? Also is it safe to flip that switch while everything is running?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MP 1,1-5,1 GPU Compatibility List for cMP
- Thread starter Pentaxer
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
I haven't tried that. So I don't know really, I have to guess.
I believe nothing happens right away, bios is loaded at boot time, but next time at boot it would load the alternate bios.
I wouldn't want to try though, because in theory there is a chance the switch will be "inverted", and you have lost your control over which switch is which. Probably that's not gonna happen though.
But you can't change the bios in fly without booting, thats pretty sure though.
You can measure the amps and watts with software under GPU load and make an educated assumption about the bios mode selected. In Windows there might be easy software to tell about the bios modes then running the card (GPU-Z?). In MacOS, I don't know any, but you could dump the bios and examine it to find out what's in those powertables and so on. I'm not clever enough or willing to dig that deep to do that.
I believe nothing happens right away, bios is loaded at boot time, but next time at boot it would load the alternate bios.
I wouldn't want to try though, because in theory there is a chance the switch will be "inverted", and you have lost your control over which switch is which. Probably that's not gonna happen though.
But you can't change the bios in fly without booting, thats pretty sure though.
You can measure the amps and watts with software under GPU load and make an educated assumption about the bios mode selected. In Windows there might be easy software to tell about the bios modes then running the card (GPU-Z?). In MacOS, I don't know any, but you could dump the bios and examine it to find out what's in those powertables and so on. I'm not clever enough or willing to dig that deep to do that.
Regarding my post about multiple Vega 56s in cMP at:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gpu-compatibility-list-for-cmp.2174600/post-28162913
A mechanical compatibility observation:
With Powercolor Red Dragon Vega 56 installed in slot 2, you will have dremel or snip out a little bit of plastic out of the Red Dragon shield / cover (see pic). Otherwise you won't be able to flip the cover lock back in place (a.k.a lock the side plate). It's not that much, probably done with some mechanical cutter tools too, no need to dremel.
I have settled to one Vega for now, all my earlier ordered cables for the purpose seems to be all stuck behind the corona wall.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gpu-compatibility-list-for-cmp.2174600/post-28162913
A mechanical compatibility observation:
With Powercolor Red Dragon Vega 56 installed in slot 2, you will have dremel or snip out a little bit of plastic out of the Red Dragon shield / cover (see pic). Otherwise you won't be able to flip the cover lock back in place (a.k.a lock the side plate). It's not that much, probably done with some mechanical cutter tools too, no need to dremel.
I have settled to one Vega for now, all my earlier ordered cables for the purpose seems to be all stuck behind the corona wall.
I still haven't received the cables from China I have ordered a month ago or so. I had an optical drive cable at hand from my ongoing project, so I used that for the above mentioned mod. I also ordered another cable from powerbook medic (30€) for spare. This way you can power a Powercolor Vega 56 (low bios) in Mac Pro 2009-2012 and close the side panel, because the cables are not in the way. You could tear Mac Pro down and route the cable this way, but if ypu have a cable you can just leave the original there, no need to take Mac Pro apart first.
So it's just another way of accomplishing external power for a power hungry GPU. I'm waiting EVGA powerlinks to arrive, but needed the card to work today already. And I wanted my side panel closed, that's why I used this trick.
There are some considerations I just realised doing this. These Apple cables are of AWG20 size. Optical drive bay is fed by 5V and 12V voltages. There are only four pins in the cable.
So I am drawing all of the 6-pin power to my card from just one pair of AWG20 wires. I am wondering if there is any benefit of using double SATA power splitter in my case? Maybe there is, maybe the extension cable quality makes a difference too. What do you think? Would single SATA to 6-pin power be just as safe as double SATA to 6-pin in this configuration? Extension cable reads AWG18, and seems a little bit thicker than Apple part cables.
So it's just another way of accomplishing external power for a power hungry GPU. I'm waiting EVGA powerlinks to arrive, but needed the card to work today already. And I wanted my side panel closed, that's why I used this trick.
There are some considerations I just realised doing this. These Apple cables are of AWG20 size. Optical drive bay is fed by 5V and 12V voltages. There are only four pins in the cable.
So I am drawing all of the 6-pin power to my card from just one pair of AWG20 wires. I am wondering if there is any benefit of using double SATA power splitter in my case? Maybe there is, maybe the extension cable quality makes a difference too. What do you think? Would single SATA to 6-pin power be just as safe as double SATA to 6-pin in this configuration? Extension cable reads AWG18, and seems a little bit thicker than Apple part cables.
In this Wiki list, it says RX 480 doesn’t support Metal 2 but I running Mojave with reference RX 480 with single six pin. On system information it says macOS GPUFamily2 v1, is this not metal 2?
Also some of users says Vega 56 (reference) can be powered without Pixlas Mod. Is this true? Anyone can confirm this? I plan to put reference Vega 56 as upgrades. I am not going into Pixlas Mod unless I can found spare PSU as backup in case going wrong.
Also some of users says Vega 56 (reference) can be powered without Pixlas Mod. Is this true? Anyone can confirm this? I plan to put reference Vega 56 as upgrades. I am not going into Pixlas Mod unless I can found spare PSU as backup in case going wrong.
Thanks for providing this information. I'm not a techy. But, just upgraded to from Lion 10.7.5 to El Capitan 10.11.4 (Recovered from the previous 10.11.6 update and the 2018-001 security update bootloop disaster!!!). Thought I researched well before buying my GPU with hopes of upgrading beyond El Capitan...knowing that further OS upgrades require a metal GPU.
1) Currently, I own a brand new AMD Sapphire Radeon RX 570 which isn't in your list. Is there any way of making it compatible with El Capitan 10.11.4 on a MP2,1???
2) Now my screen rolls at startup using my Gateway TFT LCD Monitors; my NIVIDIA GeForce 7300GT 5MB card; 64GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM, and 4X 2TB SATA disks.
I can no longer use dual DVI displays (One turns on, though both are clearly being powered by the CPU/GPU). Also tried watching movies from the Apple Store and the screen flashes with no audio...despite hearing the startup chime (indicating that my speakers do work, right?). Are there any patches to make my displays/cards function correctly?
3) I realize my displays are dated. Would buying new displays change anything? Fix my graphic card dilemma?
1) Currently, I own a brand new AMD Sapphire Radeon RX 570 which isn't in your list. Is there any way of making it compatible with El Capitan 10.11.4 on a MP2,1???
2) Now my screen rolls at startup using my Gateway TFT LCD Monitors; my NIVIDIA GeForce 7300GT 5MB card; 64GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM, and 4X 2TB SATA disks.
I can no longer use dual DVI displays (One turns on, though both are clearly being powered by the CPU/GPU). Also tried watching movies from the Apple Store and the screen flashes with no audio...despite hearing the startup chime (indicating that my speakers do work, right?). Are there any patches to make my displays/cards function correctly?
3) I realize my displays are dated. Would buying new displays change anything? Fix my graphic card dilemma?
I have MP2,1 running El Capitan... Specifically, I have 2 Gateway TFT LCD Monitors; my NIVIDIA GeForce 7300GT 5MB card; 64GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM RAM, and 4X 2TB SATA disks.
You recommended the Radeon R9 280X for MP2,1s running 10.8 or greater. Does it matter which brand and configuration? There are so many different ones I'm confused. None of them are new...all used. I'm considering the ASUS R9280X-DC2T-3GD5. Would this work? I know little about graphic cards.
You recommended the Radeon R9 280X for MP2,1s running 10.8 or greater. Does it matter which brand and configuration? There are so many different ones I'm confused. None of them are new...all used. I'm considering the ASUS R9280X-DC2T-3GD5. Would this work? I know little about graphic cards.
Last edited:
Hi, does it means that those pci-e display used on PC could be used on Mac Pro except there will be no boot screen support? I want to try the latest GPU which can give great 3D gaming performance at boot camp, such as the ASUS ROG-STRIX-RTX2060-O6G-GAMING
For info, cMP won't use the GPU to encode by default. You have to hactivate it by yourself.
[automerge]1584662882[/automerge]
This card actually can provide boot screen on cMP. But won't work in macOS.
If you only run Windows / Linux on your cMP, then this card works.
No macOS drivers. Turing/Volta/Ampere GPUs don't have macOS support at all. Btw, NVIDIA RTX 2xxx and GTX 1650/1660 GPUs are Turing and don't have macOS drivers.
The last generation of NVIDIA GPUs to have macOS support, up to 10.13.6, are Pascal GPUs.
Last edited:
To expand a bit. No boot screen. Yes, you can boot into Mojave, but you will have no acceleration due to no Nvidia drivers. All operations will be extremely laggy.
Lou
NVIDIA RTX cards have functional pre-boot configuration support when installed in a Mac Pro 5,1. So, yes, boot screens work with a MP5,1.
NVIDIA developed a translation shim between GOP and UGA calls that work with Apple standard EFI drivers, no acceleration whatsoever. Without it you wouldn't even have a display on the screen.
Hi everyone, I have a Mac Pro 2,1 with no OS installed and would like to run El Capitan. In my country there are no Mac version graphic cards available so I would need to flash a PC version. I understand that to install El Capitan I must first install Lion (last officially supported version) and then update the EFI. Since it has no OS, my guess is that I need boot screen in Lion to install it for the first time (Please correct me if my info is wrong). Can you recommend a used PC version card I can flash to work and have a boot screen in Lion please? If you can name also the brand it would be nice, and if you know of several cards please write them. Thank you.
"Quick" question. Please enlighten me.
UNFLASHED cards, if compatible and in general, work with cMPs but do not provide a boot screen? (meaning: the little apple logo screen?)
The computer works normally even being unflashed but anything before login is inaccessible? is that right?
UNFLASHED cards, if compatible and in general, work with cMPs but do not provide a boot screen? (meaning: the little apple logo screen?)
The computer works normally even being unflashed but anything before login is inaccessible? is that right?
This is correct to a point.
As long as the card is supported by the version of MacOS you have (see page 1).
Also you may need a mac ‘efi’ card to update firmware depending on your version (again related to OS version).
Most people do not actually need the boot screen.
As long as the card is supported by the version of MacOS you have (see page 1).
Also you may need a mac ‘efi’ card to update firmware depending on your version (again related to OS version).
Most people do not actually need the boot screen.
In general you'll know if you want one. I've had an RX580 installed for over a year, running 10.14.6 at the moment. Haven't missed the boot screen at all. Not once. On the contrary I've enjoyed the AMD Hardware modification discussed in another thread - greatly increases video workflows.
[edit - fixed typo in OS release number]
[edit - fixed typo in OS release number]
Last edited:
Hi everyone, I have a Mac Pro with no GPU and no GPU cables, and would like to install something like an nVidia 6xx/7xx/9xx/10xx, but I read that you can't use the cable that comes with the card, you need a propietary Apple six pin cable that connects to the motherboard and then to the GPU. Is this correct? Can you give the name or link of where I can buy that cable? Thank you
The 4,1 and 5,1 have a “Mini 6 pin” connector on their board (not sure about the other models). Remember to treat the mini 6 pins like normal 6 pins by not getting a mini 6 pin to 8 pin, or you can overload the backplane (dual mini 6 pin to 8 pin is standard here though ?).
Be aware you may have driver issues, make sure to do research before you buy a Nvidia GPU.
Edit: Just search “mini 6 pin to 6 pin” or “dual mini 6 pin to 8 pin“ on Amazon or something to get the cable for you ?