MP 1,1-5,1 mac pro 5.1 blower style gpu card, capable of 144 hz ultra widescreen.

[chris-snd]

Hi,

As of now i'm running a 5.1 cMP, dual 3.33 ghz cpu, with a blower style flashed nvidia gtx 680 2gb vidcard, running mojave and dual boot legacy win 10.

My screen is a ultra wide screen with 3440x1440 resolution, capable of 144hz. But its running at 60 hz, which is the max my gtx 680 card can output on this screen resolution.

I'm looking for a blower style vidcard upgrade, capable of bootscreen, to utilize the 144 hz my screen is capable of. And, if possible, future os upgrades.

Anyway i'm offered a radeon vega 56 blower style vidcard (140 euro) and a radeon rx 480 blower style vidcard (100 euro). Would any of these cards run a ultra widescreen 3440x1440 at 144 hz? And, can i, if flashed, dualboot with those vidcards? Unfortunately i don't have a spare pcie slot left for a second "boot" vidcard.

Are there any other blower type vidcards i'm missing out that would do in my situation?

My search field is a bit narrowed down to blower type vidcards because i have al 4 pcie slots filled and with a multiple fan style vidcard, the airflow would be blocked by any of the other pcie cards.

So what is the best card for my situation? i need:

3440x1440 at 144
bootscreen
future os upgrades (using mojave as of now)


Btw, i read multiple reviews about users that need to do the pixlas mod for a vega 56 card, some say you only need the pixlas mod if you firmware upgrade it to a 64 vega, others say you need the pixlas mod anyway, and again other users say you don't need the pixlas mod for a vega 56 vidcard. I could do the pixlas mod but rather not.


Thanks,

 

[h9826790]

Hi,

As of now i'm running a 5.1 cMP, dual 3.33 ghz cpu, with a blower style flashed nvidia gtx 680 2gb vidcard, running mojave and dual boot legacy win 10.

My screen is a ultra wide screen with 3440x1440 resolution, capable of 144hz. But its running at 60 hz, which is the max my gtx 680 card can output on this screen resolution.

I'm looking for a blower style vidcard upgrade, capable of bootscreen, to utilize the 144 hz my screen is capable of. And, if possible, future os upgrades.

Anyway i'm offered a radeon vega 56 blower style vidcard (140 euro) and a radeon rx 480 blower style vidcard (100 euro). Would any of these cards run a ultra widescreen 3440x1440 at 144 hz? And, can i, if flashed, dualboot with those vidcards? Unfortunately i don't have a spare pcie slot left for a second "boot" vidcard.

Are there any other blower type vidcards i'm missing out that would do in my situation?

My search field is a bit narrowed down to blower type vidcards because i have al 4 pcie slots filled and with a multiple fan style vidcard, the airflow would be blocked by any of the other pcie cards.

So what is the best card for my situation? i need:

3440x1440 at 144
bootscreen
future os upgrades (using mojave as of now)


Btw, i read multiple reviews about users that need to do the pixlas mod for a vega 56 card, some say you only need the pixlas mod if you firmware upgrade it to a 64 vega, others say you need the pixlas mod anyway, and again other users say you don't need the pixlas mod for a vega 56 vidcard. I could do the pixlas mod but rather not.


Thanks,

There are many users in this forum have all 4 slots filled, and no problem to use open fan type graphic card (I am one of them).

Of course, you can force yourself to use blower type card, it's your won choice, but IMO, this is not required. In fact, many new card's fan won't run at all until the GPU reach certain temperature. Blower cooler won't work better when the fan isn't spinning.

For flashed card, you can buy that from MVC. Or, you may join the OpenCore EnableGop beta test to flash your own card.

Pre-OpenCore GOP support for EFI-era iMacs and Mac Pros

You wait ten years for a driver to enable pre-boot graphics on unsupported GPUs in EFI era Macs, and then two come along at once... This post is to announce a firmware driver to enable the native Apple boot picker and early macOS boot progress bar (plus other parts of the firmware UI: target...

forums.macrumors.com

Anything newer than RX460 should able to drive that monitor at 144Hz without issue. RX460 or newer also capable to deliver UEFI GOP boot screen on cMP after flashing (the card, or the cMP) with EnableGOP injected ROM. If you don't want to flash anything, you can simply use the OpenCore boot picker.

Only talking about "Vega56" isn't enough to determine if the setup need pixlas mod.

It's all about the card's actual power draw, and how it draw the power.

e.g. A factory overclocked 225W Vega56 can be programmed to draw 5W from PCIe slot, 70W from a 6pin, and 150W from a 8pin. In this case, Pixlas mod is almost required to keep the setup robust.

But another factory overclocked 240W Vega 56 may be programmed to draw 70W from the PCIe slot, and 85W from each 8pin. Then it's actually OK to use mini 6pin only to deliver the power.

So, there is no way to tell if pixlas mod is actually required for your "not yet accquired" Vega56. But in general, Vega56 doesn't need that if not severely overclocked, and the user know how to balance the power draw (e.g. buy using EVGA PowerLink)

For your info, I have a RX580 and a Radeon VII. Both of them can drive my 3840x1080 monitor at 144Hz, and both of them can show boot screen via OpenCore.

 

[pattielipp]

Take a look at the AMD W5700. It won't run on mojave, so you'd need to update to bigsur or above, but it should work for your needs.

 

[wazgilbert]

I have just fitted today a Vega56 with EVGA powerlink, so that I could simply use the cables already fitted that were for the RX580 it replaced. So it has from the back-plane - 2x mini 6pin to 1x 8pin cable inserted in the powerlink, and the powerlink has it's two 8pin connectors inserted into the '56.

(reason I made such a mild upgrade was to better enjoy the 27" 1440p monitor - also 144hz, with a blower configuration - the RX580 was not - and make the PCI bay cooler as a result.)

 

[chris-snd]

Well I've got myself a amd radeon vega 56.

I've got 2 x, 6 mini pins to 8 pins cables,

And I've got a dual 8 pins cable wich I could use for the pixlas mod.

So I have two options for now.

 

[chris-snd]

Only talking about "Vega56" isn't enough to determine if the setup need pixlas mod.

It's all about the card's actual power draw, and how it draw the power.

e.g. A factory overclocked 225W Vega56 can be programmed to draw 5W from PCIe slot, 70W from a 6pin, and 150W from a 8pin. In this case, Pixlas mod is almost required to keep the setup robust.

But another factory overclocked 240W Vega 56 may be programmed to draw 70W from the PCIe slot, and 85W from each 8pin. Then it's actually OK to use mini 6pin only to deliver the power.

So, there is no way to tell if pixlas mod is actually required for your "not yet accquired" Vega56. But in general, Vega56 doesn't need that if not severely overclocked, and the user know how to balance the power draw (e.g. buy using EVGA PowerLink)

Oke so about this,

I don't have a 2 x 6 mini pins to single 8 pins with a evga powerlink combi. So this evga powerlink option to balance the power is something to keep in mind.

Gonna try it in a few days, first have to read myself in about opencore to get a bootscreen.

Unfortunately I can't use os higher then mojave since I need 32 bit support for the pcie soundcard apps for settings.

Is there a way to know how this amd radeon vega 56 is programmed?

 

[chris-snd]

Hmm I've done some reading again, it seems the best option is the pixlas mod, also to be save.

For now I have a spare corsair modulair 600 watts psu with a double 8 pin lead, from wich I could power the vega 56 directly. Just can't close the mac lid that way but at least I could test the card.

Now only to find out how to do the opencore bootpicker without to much trouble since I don't need any of the other features opencore has to offer.

 

[chris-snd]

I guess using opencore to enable a bootscreen on the vega 56 is not an option for me.

As with opencore I can't boot to a legacy win 10 install.

So need to find another way.

Maybe use a usb stick with open core on it to boot into mojave,

Than if I want to boot to win 10, shut down, remove the opencore usb stick and power back on into win 10?

It's not ever gonna be easy is it

 

[h9826790]

Unfortunately I can't use os higher then mojave since I need 32 bit support for the pcie soundcard apps for settings.

Is there a way to know how this amd radeon vega 56 is programmed?

10.14.6 works very well for Vega56.

No way to know until you actually use the card and monitor the power draw. But reference Vega56 should be OK with just the mini 6pin.

Now only to find out how to do the opencore bootpicker without to much trouble since I don't need any of the other features opencore has to offer.

You may simply use my OpenCore package. Even though you only need the boot screen, but nothing wrong to activate the card's H264 / HEVC hardware acceleration (unless you never use your cMP to watch any video).

I guess using opencore to enable a bootscreen on the vega 56 is not an option for me.

In this card, you can simply flash your cMP to make it can display GOP boot screen, not need to use OpenCore.

 

[chris-snd]

Thanks for your reply!

I have the card running now in the mac with an external 600 watts Psu.

And did some testing.

Funny thing, the vega 56 with the bios switch in normal position identicates as a vega 64 in "about this mac" with the bios switch in "eco?" mode, it reports as a vega 56. So apperently this vidcard is already flashed to a vega 64. So I guess the benchmark results between 56 eco bios and 64 bios settings should be noticeable

Test results geekbench 5, reporting as a vega 64, 945 mhz freq,
OpenCL score 56476
Metal score 57560


Test results geekbench 5, reporting as a vega 56, 800 mhz freq,
OpenCL score 56518
Metal score 58755

Well that doesn't add up, bios 56 eco mode scores higher then bios 64?

In the Unigine Heaven benchmark it's the other way arround, there does the 64 bios score a little higher then the 56 eco bios. I tested that with two different templates and the results stay the same. The vega 64 bios scores about 2 fps higher then the 56 bios.

So what's going on here?

Could it be that the original 56 eco bios is replaced with the normal 56 bios, and that the normal 56 bios is replaced with the 64 bios?

Is there a way to find out and identicate wich bios are flashed?


Anyway, for now I can't use windows since I don't have the bootscreen right now. I will look and read myself in your suggestions to get a bootscreen.

Thanks for so far!

 

[h9826790]

So what's going on here?

GB is a poor benchmarking software. That's it.

If you want something that has better consistence, I suggest Luxmark.

 

[h9826790]

Anyway, for Mojave, install RadeonBoost will significantly increase GB score

Tired of low Geekbench scores? Use RadeonBoost!

OUTDATED. PLEASE DON'T USE THIS KEXT ON ANYTHING LATER THAN CATALINA. THIS KEXT IS NOT BEING MAINTAINED ANYMORE BECAUSE I SWITCHED TO APPLE SILICON MACS Hello everyone! Together with the help of @DSM2.Hackintosh I built a Kext aiming at removing limitations put in place by Apple for PC...

forums.macrumors.com

And of course, your GPU won't perform that much better in absolutely most of other software. So that you know how poor GB is.