I currently have an AMD 5770 in my MP 5,1 (2.8 ghz 2010). I use Photoshop a lot, and do some gaming on occasion. I have a 20" Apple Cinema Display (older aluminum case). I use Photoshop mostly for batch editing scanned documents, and the 5770 seems to do ok with that, but it falls short even when playing Civ V at the highest settings, and now Aspyer has released Civ VI which apparently is not compatible with this old card. I'd like more a more powerful GPU without needing an extra power supply. I want to keep my boot screen, and I don't want to worry about the card not working everyy time I updated the OS. I tried searching the forum, but so far everything has scared me off. I am such a newb to this. It seems that GPU swaps aren't as plug and play as the Mac was once famous for.
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Help me find the right GPU
- Thread starter AmishIndy
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What scare you? This has been ask many times, and always the same answer, HD7950 or GTX 680 Mac Edition is the way to go.
If you don't want to pay the stupid expensive price for that, then you can flash the card by yourself.
Anything better than that will either need to manage the 8pin power input, or need extra driver, or no boot screen.
If you don't want to pay the stupid expensive price for that, then you can flash the card by yourself.
Anything better than that will either need to manage the 8pin power input, or need extra driver, or no boot screen.
h9826790 is correct.
Furthermore, I'll say that the GTX680 is the faster of the two, and quite easy to flash yourself if you have a Windows computer or Windows on your MP. There is a link to step-by-step instructions in my signature, so you can see how easy or difficult it is depending on your individual comfort level.
And of course you can buy official Mac cards so you don't have to flash, or buy one that's already been flashed, but those scenarios will cost more than self-flashing.
Furthermore, I'll say that the GTX680 is the faster of the two, and quite easy to flash yourself if you have a Windows computer or Windows on your MP. There is a link to step-by-step instructions in my signature, so you can see how easy or difficult it is depending on your individual comfort level.
And of course you can buy official Mac cards so you don't have to flash, or buy one that's already been flashed, but those scenarios will cost more than self-flashing.
Why do you need more? the 5770 (released in 2009) has as much TFLOPS as a Top model 2016 Macbook Pro. THAT IS ALL YOU NEED. /s
The options above are great for boot screens. If you have a higher budget you can get a flashed 980 (2 x 6 pin). Alternatively, you can get a $80 GT120 single slot card and throw in just about any Non-polaris pascal (9xx or below) Nvidia card you want. If your monitor has 2 inputs just toggle between them when you need to use boot screens.
I am loving my gtx 980 + GT120 setup. I've put over 900 hours in Civ V on the 980.
You might want more than a 680 for Civ 6 if you ever get it too (I'm not a big fan of civ 6 personally)
The options above are great for boot screens. If you have a higher budget you can get a flashed 980 (2 x 6 pin). Alternatively, you can get a $80 GT120 single slot card and throw in just about any Non-
I am loving my gtx 980 + GT120 setup. I've put over 900 hours in Civ V on the 980.
You might want more than a 680 for Civ 6 if you ever get it too (I'm not a big fan of civ 6 personally)
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Do you actually mean Pascal?
Some Polaris card (e.g. RX460) actually can be used in cMP OOTB, but just no boot screen. In fact, in OP's case, it's possible to keep the 5770 and run an extra RX480 in order to get boot screen support without GT120. However, this require kext edit, therefore, not desirable.
yes lol my brain hurts. No 10XX's or new titans.
He doesn't want external PSU I think.
Thanks to info gathered in this forum, I just popped a Gigabyte 4Gb RX460 in my Mac Pro 4,1>5,1; it works great under Sierra (macOS 10.12.1) and, since it is essentially the same card Apple uses in its newest laptops, there is no fear the card won't be supported in future iterations of macOS.
NO boot screen though. I don't need it, so no worries here.
I'm running three monitors simultaneously, (two 1920x1200 and one 1280 x 1024) using all of the ports on the card with an HDMI to DVI adaptor for one. This GPU should do 4k nicely, too. Currently $121 at Newegg (I'm getting a $30 rebate, but that deal ended a few days ago.)
NO boot screen though. I don't need it, so no worries here.
I'm running three monitors simultaneously, (two 1920x1200 and one 1280 x 1024) using all of the ports on the card with an HDMI to DVI adaptor for one. This GPU should do 4k nicely, too. Currently $121 at Newegg (I'm getting a $30 rebate, but that deal ended a few days ago.)
At this point I'm thinking just doing the kext edit. I traded the 5770 to my brother for his NVIDIA GT 120 so he could have a half decent card since I only need something for a boot screen occasionally, and since the gt120 doesnt require external power, that will help with that. I am considering an RX480 due to the extremely low power consumption, which lets me either run two rx480s or get a usb3 card with power from one of the 6 pin connections. Since it seems crossfire is not supported in Sierra, two cards doesnt make sense to me at this time.