MP 7,1 Is W5700x stable?

[ajem]

Hi all,

I am looking to upgrade my 580 card in the Mac Pro for general purpose computing in MacOS only.

I understand there are some stability issues with W5700x when it first came out; I wonder if these issues still exist? Is the card stable, or should I get Pro Vega II (I don't really need the additional power, but could get the latter purely for its stability).

Thanks!

 

[randy85]

It is stable for me. Driving the Pro Display XDR with no issues.

When I first got it, there were some problems with it waking up from sleep, but it looks like updates took care of that.

 

[dominicperry]

There are other threads on this subject - including https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ro.2219016/page-7?post=29747191#post-29747191

 

[choreo]

Still having issues here, but can't ascertain the source for sure. Only Mac I ever had in 30 years that just restarts itself. Sometimes makes it 2 weeks, then may have 4 crashes a day. Really hates Quicktime Player this year. Nearly every crash happens on waking from sleep, during sleep or when launching an app - rarely while doing work (thankfully). If they have not fixed it by now, probably never will after a year.

 

[sam80]

I'm doing the same consideration as the op and may actually risk the W5700X if it's mostly sleep issues. The waking from sleep doesn't bother me much, I avoid having the system sleep, as if it does wake up (it's about 50:50) it reliably causes something to hang, especially Wacom tablet, and depending on cable it's also making one of displays not to wake up, even with 580. Thanks!

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Still having issues here, but can't ascertain the source for sure. Only Mac I ever had in 30 years that just restarts itself. Sometimes makes it 2 weeks, then may have 4 crashes a day. Really hates Quicktime Player this year. Nearly every crash happens on waking from sleep, during sleep or when launching an app - rarely while doing work (thankfully). If they have not fixed it by now, probably never will after a year.

Curious, have you tried pulling the 5700 and running with another card for a while to see if it’s limited to that card?

 

[choreo]

I'm doing the same consideration as the op and may actually risk the W5700X if it's mostly sleep issues. The waking from sleep doesn't bother me much, I avoid having the system sleep, as if it does wake up (it's about 50:50) it reliably causes something to hang, especially Wacom tablet, and depending on cable it's also making one of displays not to wake up, even with 580. Thanks!

The "Wacom" was one of my ongoing suspects, so I took the risk and installed their latest 6.3.41-2 driver about a month ago. Really thought it solved my wake from sleep problem - made it two full weeks! Back to the old auto-restart schedule every 2-3 days. I still got a few crashes during that 2 weeks when trying to launch Quicktime Player, etc.

 

[choreo]

Curious, have you tried pulling the 5700 and running with another card for a while to see if it’s limited to that card?

No, I don't have a few extra grand laying around to test it and Apple confirmed once again last week that under no circumstances do they send out "components". Best case scenario is the Vega card would solve the problem (which I am sure it would), but I did not sign up to pay thousands of dollars on a Pro computer just to be told I have to spend several thousand more to get it to work properly. You would think Apple would be eager to send out a test card just to isolate the issue - they have moved on. Just have to learn to live with my bad decision.

 

[ajem]

Update: I pulled the trigger on W5700X, the day before big Navi support was announced. Just like how I pulled the trigger on 580X a few days before W5700X was announced...

Anyway, W5700X suffices for my computing needs now, and will report back on stability.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

No, I don't have a few extra grand laying around to test it and Apple confirmed once again last week that under no circumstances do they send out "components". Best case scenario is the Vega card would solve the problem (which I am sure it would), but I did not sign up to pay thousands of dollars on a Pro computer just to be told I have to spend several thousand more to get it to work properly. You would think Apple would be eager to send out a test card just to isolate the issue - they have moved on. Just have to learn to live with my bad decision.

maybe try a 580x? Or maybe buy the Vega, doesn’t Apple have a 30 day return period. Not sure if that’s enough time. Regardless, sorry to hear it’s still problematic.

 

[mattspace]

Apple confirmed once again last week that under no circumstances do they send out "components".

Anyone remember the xServe had a spare parts kit, with replacement power supplies etc that you could have on hand?

Pro workflows group / getting serious about pro users etc is clearly just marketing bs for "buy our most expensive product, and bring it to the "genius" bar where no one will be trained to fix it, and there'll be no replacement parts in stock."

 

[rondocap]

I'm running 2 W5700X, seems to be stable, have not had any issues whilst running on the latest OS, I'm even on Big Sur 11.4 beta and runs fine now

 

[cobra521]

I just removed my W580X that came with the 7,1 and installed a W5700X. The sleep issues began immediately after no problems since new (about a year?)

I have BS 11.3.1 installed.

The symptom is that after the Mac goes to sleep, VMWare Fusion (the most recent version - showing on my second monitor) locks up and its Windows 10 software gives a blank, black screen. The mouse cursor disappears and won't reappear anywhere on either monitor. If I press enough random keys on the keyboard the Mac reboots and goes right back to the deep freeze.

The only thing that has worked so far is to do a forced shutdown by holding the on/off button down until it shuts off, then waiting for a slow count of eight and turning it back on again.

What a wonderful bunch of fun! NOT!

Looks like I've joined the W5700X catatonia club,

Tom

 

[elfamosisimoJON]

Been with W5700X first day, no problems at all, not with Catalina, not with Big Sur, stress the card every single day, everything is fine and smooth, put the computer to sleep at least 2 times a day, 3 displays connected to it, one being 5K ultra fine, its been a really good experience to be honest.

I do clean install every update of macOS though

 

[cobra521]

JON,

That sounds like something I'd like to try!

Would you mind sharing the steps you use to do a clean install of a MacOS update?

Thank you,

Tom

 

[flowrider]

My experience. I had an Aorus RX5700XT that I just replaced with a Reference RX6800. With the 5700 I was getting one or two panics a day with Catalina and with Big Sur. I've had the 6800 for a week now. Used it in 11.4 and now on the 11.5 Beta. No panics - Nada?

I believe the 5700 Apple drivers have an issue.

Lou

 

[elfamosisimoJON]

JON,

That sounds like something I'd like to try!

Would you mind sharing the steps you use to do a clean install of a MacOS update?

Thank you,

Tom

For sure, first you backup everything that you don't want to loose cuz we are going to erase the main SSD, after that, just disconnect everything, just leave your monitor, mouse and keyboard and turn on the Mac Pro and when you hear the chime, hold OPT + CMD + R, that will take you to internet recovery and will install you the latest public release, just before you install, open disk utility in that menu and erase the Main SSD from the root, format with APFS, name your disk and your good to go for a clean install.

Like a said, since day 1, never had an issue with the W5700X, my machine is 7,1, 16 cores, 96 gb ram, 1tb SSD.

 

[cobra521]

JON,

Thank you.

I use Time Machine. If I look at the backup it has for my boot drive, I see four folders: Applications, Library, System, Users. After I reformat the boot drive and install the newest Big Sur, do I restore all four, or are there more or less items I should restore?

Tom

 

[elfamosisimoJON]

JON,

Thank you.

I use Time Machine. If I look at the backup it has for my boot drive, I see four folders: Applications, Library, System, Users. After I reformat the boot drive and install the newest Big Sur, do I restore all four, or are there more or less items I should restore?

Tom

My personal recommendation is to only restore documents and files, and to install the apps manually, that way you have the cleanest possible way of everything to be as fresh as possible, been doing that for years and never had a major issue.

 

[cobra521]

JON,

Thank you again. I'm getting closer to being motivated to do this: this morning when I powered it up, it seemed to start normally but never got to asking for a login. All it had was a spinning beachball. Had to hold the switch down for a while for it to turn off, then when I turned it back on, it booted normally. Yet another new behavior after the W5700X install...

Tom

 

[choreo]

My personal recommendation is to only restore documents and files, and to install the apps manually, that way you have the cleanest possible way of everything to be as fresh as possible, been doing that for years and never had a major issue.

I wish I could do that, but I cannot even imagine how many weeks it would take me to try and locate all the 3rd party installers for all my apps - not to mention scores of 3rd party plugins for Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc. Don't even want to think about having to look up and enter 100 serial numbers! To make things even worse, lots of apps now have to be deactivated or they cannot be reactivated in a fresh install - cannot keep up with all the apps I have that require that now. Apple Mail was hard enough to get it synced when upgrading to Catalina - took 2 days. I could see being crippled for a month and never getting back to where I am now - just have to live with all the crashes in my case.

Updated Photoshop yesterday and it started crashing on launch. A dialog came up from Adobe that said "We have a solution". It said to keep trying to launch the app and if successful, go to prefs and turn off Open CL (which I did, and that patched it). Adobe said as an alternative, upgrade to the latest version of Big Sur! Big Sur has only been out a few months and Adobe is already crippling their products in Catalina??? It has always been bad, but it is getting worse - just about to give up the fight.

 

[cobra521]

choreo has voiced some of my reluctance to do a clean install - I don't have hundreds but probably dozens including some non-Apple software.

On the other hand, there hasn't been another bout of post-sleep catatonia since the first one. The computer has gone to sleep several times and no wakeup crashes.

I updated to BS 11.4 yesterday so we'll see. If something else arises I'll post a followup.

Tom

 

[patrick.a]

I wish I could do that, but I cannot even imagine how many weeks it would take me to try and locate all the 3rd party installers for all my apps - not to mention scores of 3rd party plugins for Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, etc. Don't even want to think about having to look up and enter 100 serial numbers! To make things even worse, lots of apps now have to be deactivated or they cannot be reactivated in a fresh install - cannot keep up with all the apps I have that require that now. Apple Mail was hard enough to get it synced when upgrading to Catalina - took 2 days. I could see being crippled for a month and never getting back to where I am now - just have to live with all the crashes in my case.

Updated Photoshop yesterday and it started crashing on launch. A dialog came up from Adobe that said "We have a solution". It said to keep trying to launch the app and if successful, go to prefs and turn off Open CL (which I did, and that patched it). Adobe said as an alternative, upgrade to the latest version of Big Sur! Big Sur has only been out a few months and Adobe is already crippling their products in Catalina??? It has always been bad, but it is getting worse - just about to give up the fight.

Sorry to hear, that must be very frustrating. I'm on Catalina too and don't experience any problems with Adobe software. But yes, they all definitely want you to install Big Sur. Got a new iMac 27" yesterday to jump in for my broken Mac Pro 7.1 and it came with Big Sur pre-installed. It took me hours to get Catalina running on this machine because Apple unnecessarily wouldn't let me install it over internet recovery.

 

[flowrider]

As I have posted elsewhere I can't remember the last time I did a clean install. In fact my boot SSD (on a HighPoint) came out of my cMP 5,1. All I did was update the OS. With the RX6800, I now have a stable machine.

Lou

 

[dspdoc]

Checking in to see if 5700 is stable yet too?