iM 4,1-14,4 iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade

[panduhsaur]

hm. Reading into this thread has anyone attempted an m1200 gpu?

If not if anyone can provide general insight that’s be great. I was able to successfully revive a 21.5” with a k1100m card. And I just acquired a 27” with a bad gpu. I happen to have a m1200 card laying around so I figured I might as well try.

Any response is appreciated. I saw most of the installs in this thread refer to the m4000/m3000 with some pascal mentions. (I’ll probably wing it and report back if it’s successful with minimal persuasion

 

[Ausdauersportler]

hm. Reading into this thread has anyone attempted an m1200 gpu?

If not if anyone can provide general insight that’s be great. I was able to successfully revive a 24” with a k1100m card. And I just acquired a 27” with a bad gpu. I happen to have a m1200 card laying around so I figured I might as well try.

Any response is appreciated. I saw most of the installs in this thread refer to the m4000/m3000 with some pascal mentions. (I’ll probably wing it and report back if it’s successful with minimal persuasion

Hi!

Could you please post some screen shots of your 24" iMac 2009 working with the K1100M and elaborate on what is working and what is missing compared to the features promised on the iMac GPU thread?

Thanks in advance

 

[panduhsaur]

Hi!

Could you please post some screen shots of your 24" iMac 2009 working with the K1100M and elaborate on what is working and what is missing compared to the features promised on the iMac GPU thread?

Thanks in advance

Sure I can get you screen shots. It’s not a 2009 though. It’s a 21.5 mid 2011 (I need to Edit the original post)

And which features are you referring to specifically because I assume you’re on the fence yourself?

I haven’t done extensive testing because that 21.5 and this 27 for that matter is just going to be a casual browsing machine. The one issue I do know of that bothers me is the lack of boot screen unless I do a pram reset when I do need boot options. But yeah feel free to request something for me to verify if it’s simple. I only have El Capitan on there currently. I was also running into issues installing high sierra. Something about error unable to validate firmware.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Sure I can get you screen shots. It’s not a 2009 though. It’s a 21.5 mid 2011 (I need to Edit the original post)

And which features are you referring to specifically because I assume you’re on the fence yourself?

I haven’t done extensive testing because that 21.5 and this 27 for that matter is just going to be a casual browsing machine. The one issue I do know of that bothers me is the lack of boot screen unless I do a pram reset when I do need boot options. But yeah feel free to request something for me to verify if it’s simple. I only have El Capitan on there currently. I was also running into issues installing high sierra. Something about error unable to validate firmware.

Never mind! I was just curious about experiences with 24 Mid 2009 MXM models - we are not sure it if will be working. Every other machine and GPU mentioned on the GPU thread has been tested by multiple users so far.

Our blind spot is only the Core2Duo systems with MXM slots built in 2009.

 

[m0bil]

hm. Reading into this thread has anyone attempted an m1200 gpu?

If not if anyone can provide general insight that’s be great. I was able to successfully revive a 21.5” with a k1100m card. And I just acquired a 27” with a bad gpu. I happen to have a m1200 card laying around so I figured I might as well try.

Any response is appreciated. I saw most of the installs in this thread refer to the m4000/m3000 with some pascal mentions. (I’ll probably wing it and report back if it’s successful with minimal persuasion

I'd mostly follow what @G3llings did with the M4000M. Have in mind that if card works, it will only work up to High Sierra on MacOS (no problem in Windows 10).

It's specially important to prepare before swapping card for M1200, as most probably internally screen will not work. Have in hand bootable linux usb and preinstalled windows with nvidia drivers, and test remote access to both in advance.

Also try to find different vbios for your card (usually found at techpowerup), as some of it may make the internal screen work once Windows loads Nvidia driver.
Make a backup of the vbios that came with your card before programming new ones.
Use same OCLP as posted in this thread for M4000M.

Post results here, if iMac POSTSs and card works, we may be able to help with making internal display work with emulated boot screen.

 

[m0bil]

Good news for Pascal cards: after much pain (I hate to remove card from iMac and use eeprom clip for each vbios mod I try) and research I've managed to unlock clocks on the P3000. As I suspected clock cap it is the main reason of card "underperfomance". Once fully unlocked card is hitting PerfCap very often, so I need to make further adjustments on vbios before public release (clock is throttled often due to PerfCap, so I guess I should try to adjust max TDP/Power or need to set a lower clock cap for stability). I see no need for hardware mod as all settings seem to be available on vbios.

Some first impressions:
- Card can be VERY overclocked. On my initial testing at 30% overclock, not a single crash has happened.
- Card temperature and power does not seem to increase much with overclocking.

Attached are some quick benchmarks I did on the overclocked P3000.

 

[jay508]

Good news for Pascal cards: after much pain (I hate to remove card from iMac and use eeprom clip for each vbios mod I try) and research I've managed to unlock clocks on the P3000. As I suspected clock cap it is the main reason of card "underperfomance". Once fully unlocked card is hitting PerfCap very often, so I need to make further adjustments on vbios before public release (clock is throttled often due to PerfCap, so I guess I should try to adjust max TDP/Power or need to set a lower clock cap for stability). I see no need for hardware mod as all settings seem to be available on vbios.

Some first impressions:
- Card can be VERY overclocked. On my initial testing at 30% overclock, not a single crash has happened.
- Card temperature and power does not seem to increase much with overclocking.

Attached are some quick benchmarks I did on the overclocked P3000.

Boost or more obvious it directly modify the vbios overclocked core? I purchased another P5000 for testing, T1000 testing without the internal screen display.

 

[m0bil]

Finished modding the Pascal P3000 vbios. Fine tuning power consumption and thermal throttle has made possible additional performance improvements. As far as I know, this is a world first in mobile Quadro overcloking ?

Benchmarks look very good (pictures attached).

Will make some further tests for stability and publish the modded vbios for others to test and use.

 

[m0bil]

iMac Quadro P3000M Overclocked & Power modded rom:

- Fully unlocked clocks up to 1657 MHz and 0.9V
- Max TDP effectively increased from 75W to 100W. Power throttle steps slightly increased.
- Temperature throttle steps increased from 54ºC/65ºC/91ºC to 70ºC/80ºC/91ºC
- Power Limit (%) slider unlocked in Afterburner, to decrease Max TDP if desired.

I used @Santa's Little Helper iMac Quadro P3000M vbios as a base for modding. All iMac adaptation work was done by him.

Performance is expected to be at least 20% up to 30% higher than the standard clocked rom. See previous post for some benchmark results.

GPU clock can be locked to a specific value using the voltage-frequency curve in Afterburner. The curve itself can't be edited (no undervolting possible).

I've been testing memory overclock, but it does not seem to make a difference on performance, so I've kept the standard memory clocks. If you wish you can test memory overclock using Nvidia Thermspy.

Max TDP of 100W can easily be lowered, if desired, using the Power Limit (%) slider in Afterburner. If you move it down to 90% then Max TDP is adjusted to 90W. Clocks will then be lowered by GPU Boost to account for new Max. TDP.

I've been testing this rom for a few days on my 2011 iMac 27'' without any issues, temperatures remain well under control and had no issues getting 100W from the MXM slot. Not a single OS or driver crash has happened under stress. Feel free to test it and report any issues.

You must use a hardware programmer to flash the eeprom chip (nvflash will not work, as digital signature is invalid).

 

[m0bil]

On my latest testing, I've found that many modern Pascal cards come with a IS25WQ040 flash chip. This 1.8V eeprom chip is currently not recognized by flashrom or AsProgrammer. It seems like on AsProgrammer, selecting W25Q40EW_1.8V makes it work, at least for reading/erasing/programming on my limited testing.

If you wish to use flashrom, you can checkout latest master branch from github and apply pull request #204 to add support for it. Take care to also apply galkinvv fixup patch to account for correct eeprom size (4Mbit). After that, just "make" the new flashrom and it should work just fine with such eeprom chips.

./flashrom -L | grep IS25WQ
ISSI                   IS25WQ040                            PREW            512  SPI

Now reading, erasing and writing eeprom work fine:

./flashrom --programmer ch341a_spi -r test.bin
flashrom v1.2-229-ge7b27b2 on Linux 5.10.63-v7+ (armv7l)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at https://flashrom.org

Using clock_gettime for delay loops (clk_id: 1, resolution: 1ns).
Found ISSI flash chip "IS25WQ040" (512 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
Reading flash... done.

ls -la test.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 524288 Dec 10 16:58 test.bin

Edit: It is possible to read flash without patching flashrom source, using options -c and -f, but erasing and writing do not work and still require source patching.

./flashrom --programmer ch341a_spi --chip "W25Q40EW" -r test4.bin -f
flashrom v1.2-229-ge7b27b2 on Linux 5.10.63-v7+ (armv7l)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at https://flashrom.org

Using clock_gettime for delay loops (clk_id: 1, resolution: 1ns).
No EEPROM/flash device found.
Force read (-f -r -c) requested, pretending the chip is there:
Assuming Winbond flash chip "W25Q40EW" (512 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
Please note that forced reads most likely contain garbage.
Reading flash... done.

 

[JohnPascololo]

Does the P3000 break sleep on windows? Does it take the 30 seconds delay to init the windows driver? These have been the main reasons for me to switch to an AMD but as the kid is only gaming on windows I would consider NVIDIA P3000 or P4000. Can you provide more info on the card models to use? Is it from Dell?

 

[m0bil]

Does the P3000 break sleep on windows? Does it take the 30 seconds delay to init the windows driver? These have been the main reasons for me to switch to an AMD but as the kid is only gaming on windows I would consider NVIDIA P3000 or P4000. Can you provide more info on the card models to use? Is it from Dell?

There is no 30 secs delay on init when windows load drivers, card works just fine on UEFI windows and there is not even need to patch drivers for installation.

I'm not sure about sleep, I think I would have noticed if it did break sleep. I will test sleep on the P3000 by the end of the week and report back.

As for card model, you should ask for the Dell model (the one with eeprom onboard). I think only difference with other boards is the presence or absence of the eeprom chip.

The P4000 should be slightly faster than the overclocked P3000. I've not had a P4000 card to test vbios overcloking, so no overclocked vbios is available yet for the P4000 (anyways I don't expect so much % gain as on the P3000, as the P4000 is already rated at 100W).

Edit: I tested sleep on the P3000 and Windows 10 and it seems to work just fine.

 

[JohnPascololo]

@m0bil Thanks for pointing out. I'm having a hard time figuring out what cards exist and what their relative comparison in respect to performance is. What is the point in taking the P3000 in respect to a GTX980M? There is one GTX 1080 from MSI without extra power supply but is slightly bigger than the normal format. Has anybody thought about this one? I'm not sure if it would even fit or if it causes collision. It would be a huge performance gain to the GTX 980M.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

@m0bil Thanks for pointing out. I'm having a hard time figuring out what cards exist and what their relative comparison in respect to performance is. What is the point in taking the P3000 in respect to a GTX980M? There is one GTX 1080 from MSI without extra power supply but is slightly bigger than the normal format. Has anybody thought about this one? I'm not sure if it would even fit or if it causes collision. It would be a huge performance gain to the GTX 980M.

The main point is that somebody must break the ice and develop a vBIOS with the famous EFI boot screen to operate with or from.

Otherwise you may try every available MXM card (GOP vBIOS) and rely on the OpenCore boot picker and UEFI windows installation.

It is the same story as on the other thread - and this ice breaking with NVIDIA can take ages. Creating a GOP vBIOS takes some searching and a Windows platform or minor hex editing skills - you can do this on your own!

 

[m0bil]

@m0bil Thanks for pointing out. I'm having a hard time figuring out what cards exist and what their relative comparison in respect to performance is. What is the point in taking the P3000 in respect to a GTX980M? There is one GTX 1080 from MSI without extra power supply but is slightly bigger than the normal format. Has anybody thought about this one? I'm not sure if it would even fit or if it causes collision. It would be a huge performance gain to the GTX 980M.

View attachment 1938837

As @Ausdauersportler said, the main problem is the lack of a specific iMac vbios for all these untested cards. Without that you may face all kind of problems/limitations like:

- card not POSTing at all (iMac won't power up)
- internal screen not recognized and/or not working
- GPU not boosting and staying at low power state P5

On top of that, some cards may have hardware incompatibilities with our iMacs that prevent them from working correctly even if a vbios is available. I'd definitely stay away from non standard sized mxm cards.

So, unless you wan't to try for yourself (many of us have done that and spent money on it just for fun or helping the community), I'd stick with the already tested cards. If you want good windows 10 gaming performance, right now that'd be the M4000M, P3000 or P4000.

As of performance, I'm using the 3DMark Time Spy for reference (also you can find online scores for almost any card if you want to compare). GPU scores I've tested on my 27'' 2011 with i7 2600 are roughly:

GTX780M ~ 1432
M4000M ~ 2579
P3000 ~ 3542

The P4000 is not tested by me, but it should score around 4000 or slightly above if overclocked. Also the Pascal cards are more power efficient and stable as they adjust clock to avoid overheating. If budget is no problem I'd go for the P3000 (6GB) or P4000 (8GB), both should perform nicely even on modern games.

 

[Cloud9]

I was referred to this thread after checking out the imac 2011 gpu upgrade thread.

I want to upgrade my 2011 27" imac with i72600 so that it can function as a mac, run games in macos, and run some games in windows.

I don't have opencore proficiency. I do have a hackintosh that I can dual boot as a pc and I have flashed gpus before to get that working. My opencore files though were all created with help and I don't have the know how to do anything other then follow directions for copying and pasting provided those directions are clear and well written out.

I would also absolutely put a p3000/4000 or m4000 in the machine if I can also run macos games on highsierra with it.

I am open to throwing up to $300 at this.

1.It sounds like the easiest thing to do is get a 780m...? If there is an just as easy better option I'd love to know that also.

2. If go the m4000/p3000/4000 route will I only be able to game in windows?

3. Is an amd card a better choice for me then the pascal or 780m?

4. Can I get it working with just using files here or do I need to be able have a good knowledge of opencore? My brain absorbs new complex information slowly, I can do it, but I am slow at it. When I was younger it was easier to brute force my way through learning stuff that is only applicable to itself. Concepts vs details.

I am fine only gaming in highsierra (or later if possible) and windows. I could possibly live with gaming only in windows but I'd prefer to only use windows only for games where I don't have a mac option. It would also be nice to have highsierra work because logitech ghub doesnt seem to work on my m1 mini but it does on my highsierra 2011 imac.

I am happy to move this questions to the other thread if it is inappropriate or not best place to get answers here. Please advise.

Thank you from a middle aged, fractionally competent single dad who is trying to do light mac based LAN gaming with his boys. (We will eventually do heavier gaming in windows but starting our exploration with mac stuff since I have an m1, a hackintosh, and an imac. Right now we are gaming on my m1 mini, hackintosh, and an m1 macbook air, but I want to sell the air because I dont use it for anything other then the gaming. An dual boot imac with a newer graphics card would be better for my needs.)

 

[m0bil]

I was referred to this thread after checking out the imac 2011 gpu upgrade thread.

I want to upgrade my 2011 27" imac with i72600 so that it can function as a mac, run games in macos, and run some games in windows.

I don't have opencore proficiency. I do have a hackintosh that I can dual boot as a pc and I have flashed gpus before to get that working. My opencore files though were all created with help and I don't have the know how to do anything other then follow directions for copying and pasting provided those directions are clear and well written out.

I would also absolutely put a p3000/4000 or m4000 in the machine if I can also run macos games on highsierra with it.

I am open to throwing up to $300 at this.

1.It sounds like the easiest thing to do is get a 780m...? If there is an just as easy better option I'd love to know that also.

2. If go the m4000/p3000/4000 route will I only be able to game in windows?

3. Is an amd card a better choice for me then the pascal or 780m?

4. Can I get it working with just using files here or do I need to be able have a good knowledge of opencore? My brain absorbs new complex information slowly, I can do it, but I am slow at it. When I was younger it was easier to brute force my way through learning stuff that is only applicable to itself. Concepts vs details.

I am fine only gaming in highsierra (or later if possible) and windows. I could possibly live with gaming only in windows but I'd prefer to only use windows only for games where I don't have a mac option. It would also be nice to have highsierra work because logitech ghub doesnt seem to work on my m1 mini but it does on my highsierra 2011 imac.

I am happy to move this questions to the other thread if it is inappropriate or not best place to get answers here. Please advise.

Thank you from a middle aged, fractionally competent single dad who is trying to do light mac based LAN gaming with his boys. (We will eventually do heavier gaming in windows but starting our exploration with mac stuff since I have an m1, a hackintosh, and an imac. Right now we are gaming on my m1 mini, hackintosh, and an m1 macbook air, but I want to sell the air because I dont use it for anything other then the gaming. An dual boot imac with a newer graphics card would be better for my needs.)

All M4000M/P3000/P4000 work fine for gaming on High Sierra with full acceleration using the Nvidia Web Drivers. Also brightness control and sleep should work fine.

The WX4130/4150 AMD cards will allow for MacOs compatibility beyond High Sierra and good Metal performance, but their overall speed is slower than the M4000M or Pascal cards (they score around 1500 on windows 3DMark Time Spy, vs 2500 for the M4000M and 3500 for the P3000).

I have used a lot the 780M both on MacOS and Windows, and while it offers good compatibility, sadly it tends to overheat when stressed on heavy gaming (depends on the game), the iMac just cant dissipate all the heat the card generates and goes on hard shutdown, which is very frustrating.

If you goal is High Sierra and windows gaming I'd give the M4000M a go, it's cheap at around $100 and easy to get working (all needed opencore files are here on this thread and it's easy to flash). If you like the result and feel you'd like more power you can always upgrade later.

 

[Cloud9]

All M4000M/P3000/P4000 work fine for gaming on High Sierra with full acceleration using the Nvidia Web Drivers. Also brightness control and sleep should work fine.

The WX4130/4150 AMD cards will allow for MacOs compatibility beyond High Sierra and good Metal performance, but their overall speed is slower than the M4000M or Pascal cards (they score around 1500 on windows 3DMark Time Spy, vs 2500 for the M4000M and 3500 for the P3000).

I have used a lot the 780M both on MacOS and Windows, and while it offers good compatibility, sadly it tends to overheat when stressed on heavy gaming (depends on the game), the iMac just cant dissipate all the heat the card generates and goes on hard shutdown, which is very frustrating.

If you goal is High Sierra and windows gaming I'd give the M4000M a go, it's cheap at around $100 and easy to get working (all needed opencore files are here on this thread and it's easy to flash). If you like the result and feel you'd like more power you can always upgrade later.

Do all p3000 and p4000 cards require an eeprom reflash? Is anyone selling a flashed one? How challenging and expensive is this?

When does metal performance come into play? Would the non metal m4000 perform better then an amd card with metal? The tables from the first page of the imac gpu thread show the m4000 with both poor opengl and metal performance.

I have reinstalled my hackintosh multiple times. If I go this route, is it possible for me to just copy my hackintosh install and efi and treat the imac like a hackintosh without having to edit files?

If eeprom reflashing is a pain then I am only looking at the m4000. If its not I would look into p4000 and just do the upgrade once. If metal is better though then I would be probably look at the wx4150 pr even an wx7100 rx480 if I can find one. Its hard to tell but some benchmarks put the wx4150 above the m4000.

Random thoughts...:

Are there any other nvidia or amd cards that are worth experimenting with? I would be open to trying out a card people are interested in and feel confident could work if its just like doing a hackintosh with whatevergreen and lilu. Is there a way to get an adapter/possibly drill a hole and run a desktop gpu and treat it like a hackintosh? I bet there are some small form factor desktop gpus with some frankenstein cooling that might just fit in the case if it can be installed like a hackintosh.

I need a good project right now.

 

[m0bil]

Do all p3000 and p4000 cards require an eeprom reflash? Is anyone selling a flashed one? How challenging and expensive is this?

When does metal performance come into play? Would the non metal m4000 perform better then an amd card with metal? The tables from the first page of the imac gpu thread show the m4000 with both poor opengl and metal performance.

I have reinstalled my hackintosh multiple times. If I go this route, is it possible for me to just copy my hackintosh install and efi and treat the imac like a hackintosh without having to edit files?

If eeprom reflashing is a pain then I am only looking at the m4000. If its not I would look into p4000 and just do the upgrade once. If metal is better though then I would be probably look at the wx4150 pr even an wx7100 rx480 if I can find one. Its hard to tell but some benchmarks put the wx4150 above the m4000.

Random thoughts...:

Are there any other nvidia or amd cards that are worth experimenting with? I would be open to trying out a card people are interested in and feel confident could work if its just like doing a hackintosh with whatevergreen and lilu. Is there a way to get an adapter/possibly drill a hole and run a desktop gpu and treat it like a hackintosh? I bet there are some small form factor desktop gpus with some frankenstein cooling that might just fit in the case if it can be installed like a hackintosh.

I need a good project right now.

All cards require eeprom flash. Up to the M4000M you can do this from software booting linux or windows with remote access. The P3000 and P4000 require a cheap hardware programmer like the ch341a, plenty of videos on youtube so you can judge yourself. I heard some sellers will flash the card for you at no cost if you give them the vbios.

The low score of the M4000 on the first page of iMac GPU thread is clearly wrong. I took a benchmark on High Sierra and scored 2700 and 64 fps on Unigine Valley. This was probably caused by the fact that before a proper vbios was made for the iMac, the card stayed at low power state and didn't boost speed. On windows 3DMark the M4000M scores almost double as my WX4130.

Metal is the Apple replacement for OpenGL, some recent games start to use it, you'll need an AMD card if you want good performance on this. There is no Metal on windows, equivalent would be DX or Vulkan, so it's kind of deciding which way to go, on recent MacOS AMD cards will perform better, on windows Nvidia ones. The RX480 does not work on iMac 2011 at the moment, so don't buy it.

About experimenting, read this post, cards need an vbios mod to work properly on the iMacs. Also there's plenty of information on the main thread, I know it's long but most of the information is already there and can be searched.

 

[Cloud9]

All cards require eeprom flash. Up to the M4000M you can do this from software booting linux or windows with remote access. The P3000 and P4000 require a cheap hardware programmer like the ch341a, plenty of videos on youtube so you can judge yourself. I heard some sellers will flash the card for you at no cost if you give them the vbios.

The low score of the M4000 on the first page of iMac GPU thread is clearly wrong. I took a benchmark on High Sierra and scored 2700 and 64 fps on Unigine Valley. This was probably caused by the fact that before a proper vbios was made for the iMac, the card stayed at low power state and didn't boost speed. On windows 3DMark the M4000M scores almost double as my WX4130.

Metal is the Apple replacement for OpenGL, some recent games start to use it, you'll need an AMD card if you want good performance on this. There is no Metal on windows, equivalent would be DX or Vulkan, so it's kind of deciding which way to go, on recent MacOS AMD cards will perform better, on windows Nvidia ones. The RX480 does not work on iMac 2011 at the moment, so don't buy it.

About experimenting, read this post, cards need an vbios mod to work properly on the iMacs. Also there's plenty of information on the main thread, I know it's long but most of the information is already there and can be searched.

Wow! Thank you again! This is great info! Truly! Thank you.

Do you think an m4000 or p4000 would perform better then the wx4150 for high sierra gaming just because of the sheer performance increase even without the metal support? If so I think I am ready to go with the p4000.The wx4150 only does 25% better metal then the 780m, but the p4000 is almost 3 times better then the 780m with open gl. It seems like the only benefit to the lower performance amd cards is the ability to use more recent version of macos. Or are nvidia web drivers so much garbage that the amd would still trounce it?

I think I can manage the eeprom stuff. This looks exciting. I think I would even be into expairimenting with vbios editing and newer amd cards after this project. Gosh it would be awesome to revitalize this mac for another 4 years.

 

[m0bil]

Wow! Thank you again! This is great info! Truly! Thank you.

Do you think an m4000 or p4000 would perform better then the wx4150 for high sierra gaming just because of the sheer performance increase even without the metal support? If so I think I am ready to go with the p4000.The wx4150 only does 25% better metal then the 780m, but the p4000 is almost 3 times better then the 780m with open gl. It seems like the only benefit to the lower performance amd cards is the ability to use more recent version of macos. Or are nvidia web drivers so much garbage that the amd would still trounce it?

I think I can manage the eeprom stuff. This looks exciting. I think I would even be into expairimenting with vbios editing and newer amd cards after this project. Gosh it would be awesome to revitalize this mac for another 4 years.

TBH, I have no idea about metal or gaming performance on High Sierra with the Maxwell and Pascal cards. All I have tested is the "it works" and ran Unigine Valley benchmarks to test OpenGL performance. My guess is that they should perform good at OpenGL gaming, but now that you mention it, I doubt Nvidia Web Drivers offer Metal support on High Sierra, so you may be limited to OpenGL with Maxwell and Pascal.

 

[GhostPants]

Hello everyone

I will build an iMAC 2011 27“ gaming pc with windows.

Now i read the complete thread and my question is, whats the best card for me?

I take the i7 2600 cpu.

 

[GhostPants]

All M4000M/P3000/P4000 work fine for gaming on High Sierra with full acceleration using the Nvidia Web Drivers. Also brightness control and sleep should work fine.

The WX4130/4150 AMD cards will allow for MacOs compatibility beyond High Sierra and good Metal performance, but their overall speed is slower than the M4000M or Pascal cards (they score around 1500 on windows 3DMark Time Spy, vs 2500 for the M4000M and 3500 for the P3000).

I have used a lot the 780M both on MacOS and Windows, and while it offers good compatibility, sadly it tends to overheat when stressed on heavy gaming (depends on the game), the iMac just cant dissipate all the heat the card generates and goes on hard shutdown, which is very frustrating.

If you goal is High Sierra and windows gaming I'd give the M4000M a go, it's cheap at around $100 and easy to get working (all needed opencore files are here on this thread and it's easy to flash). If you like the result and feel you'd like more power you can always upgrade later.

You gave the M4000M a go for Windows an OS X Gaming. but I only use Windows (not all my games work on OS X)

But I need the "best" card for Windows gaming only.
And really I don't know what better is, M400M, P3000 or P4000, or an other?
Technical.city says P3000 with benchmark?

 

[m0bil]

Hello everyone

I will build an iMAC 2011 27“ gaming pc with windows.

Now i read the complete thread and my question is, whats the best card for me?

I take the i7 2600 cpu.

It mostly depends on you budget. A few posts above you can see benchmark performance of several cards.
The M4000M is currently the best value/performance card, easily found and at around €100 it offers good performance even on a lot of modern games. The P3000 is roughly twice the price and ~40% performance boost, I've used it to play Witcher 3 in high settings and looked great at 45 to 60 fps.

For the P4000 no overclocked vbios is available (I don't have one to test), so performance increase over the overclocked P3000 may not justify price difference.

I'm currently working on a GTX1070 iMac vbios which should score above 5000 on 3DMark Time Spy, but cost of the card is above €400, way more than you'd pay for the whole iMac 2011.

Also, take into account that Pascal cards need a hardware programmer (ch341a with 1.8v capability) to flash vbios, or a seller that will program it for you.

Guess I'll have to write an iMac 2011 windows gaming thread on it own

 

[GhostPants]

It mostly depends on you budget. A few posts above you can see benchmark performance of several cards.
The M4000M is currently the best value/performance card, easily found and at around €100 it offers good performance even on a lot of modern games. The P3000 is roughly twice the price and ~40% performance boost, I've used it to play Witcher 3 in high settings and looked great at 45 to 60 fps.

For the P4000 no overclocked vbios is available (I don't have one to test), so performance increase over the overclocked P3000 may not justify price difference.

I'm currently working on a GTX1070 iMac vbios which should score above 5000 on 3DMark Time Spy, but cost of the card is above €400, way more than you'd pay for the whole iMac 2011.

Also, take into account that Pascal cards need a hardware programmer (ch341a with 1.8v capability) to flash vbios, or a seller that will program it for you.

Guess I'll have to write an iMac 2011 windows gaming thread on it own

The thread is an very good Idea!

Budget is no matter, I need at fist a good iMac who is under 100€ an tear it down for customizing the Apple Logo and some other ideas.

I buy the P3000^^
What is with the P5000?

When do you start the Thread for Gaming?

Thanks^^