MP 1,1-5,1 Mac OS compatibility with Sapphire Radeon RX 580 Pulse 8GB

[equivalence82]

I was just wondering before I purchase this graphics card, what is the furthest I can go up to in terms of OS in my MacPro 5,1 2010.

Iv’e read that it will work with Mojave quite easily, but I’m wondering if I can go further than this to say….Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura etc?

Has anyone on here got one in a MP 2010 that is successfully running any of the above OS’s? I’m currently running High Sierra on the stock NVIdia card But this is as far as I can go. I want to go as close to the latest version as possible but with minimal bugs of course!

thanks

 

[bmoraski]

I can attest to it working perfectly in Mojave.

 

[sfalatko]

I was just wondering before I purchase this graphics card, what is the furthest I can go up to in terms of OS in my MacPro 5,1 2010.

Iv’e read that it will work with Mojave quite easily, but I’m wondering if I can go further than this to say….Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura etc?

Has anyone on here got one in a MP 2010 that is successfully running any of the above OS’s? I’m currently running High Sierra on the stock NVIdia card But this is as far as I can go. I want to go as close to the latest version as possible but with minimal bugs of course!

thanks

Without patching it will work for all versions of macOS up to and including Monterey. Past Monterey it will need OCLP (which is needed to support Ventura and Sonoma no the cMP5,1)

 

[mattspace]

I was just wondering before I purchase this graphics card, what is the furthest I can go up to in terms of OS in my MacPro 5,1 2010.

Iv’e read that it will work with Mojave quite easily, but I’m wondering if I can go further than this to say….Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey or Ventura etc?

Has anyone on here got one in a MP 2010 that is successfully running any of the above OS’s? I’m currently running High Sierra on the stock NVIdia card But this is as far as I can go. I want to go as close to the latest version as possible but with minimal bugs of course!

thanks

That RX580 will work fine in High Sierra, so you can upgrade the hardware with no changes to your system, and get comfortable with it.

One thing I'll note abut mine, which I bought new - it developed identical dark shadowing on the displayport outputs, which manifested as a screen burnin / water stain pattern about 1-2cm high along the bottom edge of two of my displays. I thought it was my displays, but when I plugged them into my new 7,1 the problem went away. It could have been the cables, though they were different cable lengths, and I think different brands.

 

[equivalence82]

Without patching it will work for all versions of macOS up to and including Monterey. Past Monterey it will need OCLP (which is needed to support Ventura and Sonoma no the cMP5,1)

Hi thanks for your advice. Forgive my ignorance here but what is the OCLP and how do I go about using this to get to Ventura and Sonoma exactly? Is it a longwinded process, and does it require any further hardware?

 

[sfalatko]

Hi thanks for your advice. Forgive my ignorance here but what is the OCLP and how do I go about using this to get to Ventura and Sonoma exactly? Is it a longwinded process, and does it require any further hardware?

OCLP is OpenCore Legacy Patcher. OpenCore is a boot manager that lets you boot unsupported versions of macOS (anything beyond Mojave) on the cMP. To use OpenCore you need to create/edit a config.plist file to "tell" it about your hardware. You can do that manually - it isn't too hard and those that like to know what is going on do it that way.

OCLP is a program that surveys your hardware and automagically creates the config.plist and hence is a much lighter lift. OCLP supports Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma. On a cMP it has to do a lot of root patching for Ventura and Sonoma so many people stay with Monterey.

Read the first post in this thread to start learning about it OpenCore and see if you want to do the manual way (this will only support up to Monterey) -

Manually Configured OpenCore on the Mac Pro

In this guide, you'll learn how to use OpenCore to install, run and update macOS Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey on the 2009–2012 Mac Pro, ending up with a clean unaltered operating system just like on a supported Mac. The approach described in this guide is for setting up and configuring...

forums.macrumors.com

To learn about OCLP look at their site -

OpenCore Legacy Patcher

Experience macOS just like before

dortania.github.io

 

[haralds]

For those not technically literate or just tired of tweaking config files, OCLP is the way to go.
A quick summary to go past the officially supported Mojave:
- Catalina - use DosDude patcher
- Monterey (just skip Big Sur) - OCLP. It works reliably with the RX-580.
- Ventura/Sonoma - OCLP, but there are stability issues due to missing AVX2 instruction support in the Xeons.

 

[equivalence82]

Okay thanks both for your advice on this, sounds like an easier thing to do is to just stick to Monterey for now until I get tired of it or until it falls over! From what I've heard from others, the ventura and sonoma seem to have stability issues, especially if i want to run Logic Pro and other audio software and video software.

 

[equivalence82]

That RX580 will work fine in High Sierra, so you can upgrade the hardware with no changes to your system, and get comfortable with it.

One thing I'll note abut mine, which I bought new - it developed identical dark shadowing on the displayport outputs, which manifested as a screen burnin / water stain pattern about 1-2cm high along the bottom edge of two of my displays. I thought it was my displays, but when I plugged them into my new 7,1 the problem went away. It could have been the cables, though they were different cable lengths, and I think different brands.

Hi I have ordered the Radeon 580 and installed it into the Mac 5,1 today. However, my monitor screen says "no input" even when I connect different cables such as display port, or HDMI, neither of them give me a signal where I can see the login screen? So how do I troubleshoot this issue? I thought it was just a case of plug it in and its supposed to work as the old one did?

 

[mattspace]

Hi I have ordered the Radeon 580 and installed it into the Mac 5,1 today. However, my monitor screen says "no input" even when I connect different cables such as display port, or HDMI, neither of them give me a signal where I can see the login screen? So how do I troubleshoot this issue? I thought it was just a case of plug it in and its supposed to work as the old one did?

Have you connected the auxiliary power cables (twin mini 6 pin to single 8 pin - they won't come with the card, you'll have to buy them separately)?

 

[equivalence82]

Have you connected the auxiliary power cables (twin mini 6 pin to single 8 pin - they won't come with the card, you'll have to buy them separately)?

Hi yes I've connected that very cable between the computer and to the card. Still no signal.

 

[mattspace]

Hi yes I've connected that very cable between the computer and to the card. Still no signal.

OK, so in High Sierra, you can run the pulse 580 with a stock card like a Nvidia GT120 (something that doesn't require auxiliary power). so you could keep the display plugged in to that card, get the system running and make sure the pulse is recognised, plug a second display cable between one of your monitor's other inputs and the new card, then see what happens in the displays prefpane, and when you switch inputs on the display.

 

[equivalence82]

So are you saying to plug the Radeon 580 in above the existing Nvidia card so that both cards are connected to the computer? Not sure if I have the space for that inside the machine? But is that what you meant? How do I make sure the 580 is recognised though if I'm using the Nvidia graphics card at that time?

 

[mattspace]

So are you saying to plug the Radeon 580 in above the existing Nvidia card so that both cards are connected to the computer? Not sure if I have the space for that inside the machine? But is that what you meant? How do I make sure the 580 is recognised though if I'm using the Nvidia graphics card at that time?

The 580 can go into the bottom slot, the gt-120 in the slot above. It's tight, but they do both fit. If you have no other cards instlled, putting the 580 in the second slot would be fine.

The first thing you want to check is if the 580 shows up in System Profile while the disply is connected to the 120, then plug a second display cable between the 580 and the (or another) display, and see if anything changes. Then see if you can switch our display to the 580s input.

 

[equivalence82]

The 580 can go into the bottom slot, the gt-120 in the slot above. It's tight, but they do both fit. If you have no other cards instlled, putting the 580 in the second slot would be fine.

The first thing you want to check is if the 580 shows up in System Profile while the disply is connected to the 120, then plug a second display cable between the 580 and the (or another) display, and see if anything changes. Then see if you can switch our display to the 580s input.

Okay let me try that and I will let you know what happens....thanks for the advice.

 

[equivalence82]

Okay so I have both plugged in like you said, and when I switch the HDMI ports, only the Nvidia one is connecting to HDMI 1, when I switch to the Radeon which is plugged into HDMI 2, its still saying "no signal". I have tried both display port and HDMI and neither of them seem to connect to the monitor. Any other suggestions?

The good news is that the Mac has recognised that I have plugged in the Radeon and its seated correctly so it is seeing that the radeon is there as a graphics card yet its not connecting to it when I switch to that HDMI port where it is plugged into. This is really strange now!

 

[equivalence82]

Its okay I fixed it, finally! I managed to switch between the mirroring windows using the arrangement tab, in the displays settings on system prefs. I also toggled between the various resolutions and it seems that it works best on 3440x1440 resolution. Then, I unplugged the Nvidia card from HDM1, then plugged in the Radeon card in its place in HDMI1, and it seemed to work, The Radeon is now the card that is connected and not the Nvidia! Prior to this though I did a completely power off of the screen unplugged the power cable, for about 60 seconds, then replugged it back in and did as mentioned above. So thanks for the advice it helped me massively to solve the problem!