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Mac Pro 5,1 "Build"
- Thread starter devon807
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- mac pro (2010) upgrade
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Alright, I took you guys advice and decided to give undervolting a shot. After a few hours of playing with the settings (and I still have a lot of dialing in do do) this is what I came out with. MSI GamingX RX 580 @1415MHz @ 1075 mV
Pretty good results.
Mine did an insta-freeze at @ 1400MHz @ 1100mV . I just decided to be happy at 1360MHz @ 1060mV.
1415 @ 1075mV is something I'd be pretty happy with. And see, you got that last ounce of performance possible and much lower wattage that it came with. Pretty cool, huh?
I'm assuming you maxed your power limit at +50?
Mine did an insta-freeze at @ 1400MHz @ 1100mV . I just decided to be happy at 1360MHz @ 1060mV.
1415 @ 1075mV is something I'd be pretty happy with. And see, you got that last ounce of performance possible and much lower wattage that it came with. Pretty cool, huh?
I'm assuming you maxed your power limit at +50?
I'm not sure. I used WattMan and set the bottom (mv) to 1075 until State 3, than 1415 (MHz) until State 3. Where is the option for power limit? And yes I am having a blast doing this! I need to find a way to dump the ROM so that it can run in MacOS.
[doublepost=1507426723][/doublepost]Just Tested with +50 power @ 1475 MHz @1150mv
There you go! H98 will take over from here on out. I think you've found a good place. Basically, your card was throttling at your previous 1415 speeds. That's why your minimum FPS was poor prior. That means your card was seldom hitting 1415 during load. Power Limit just means throttle limit. When you max that out, you're allowing the card to freely draw the to maximum designed limit. What I can't understand is if it's the 185TDP "rated" limit, or if it's the 225w connector limit. Either way, maxing out the power limit of the RX 580 seems safe and a must (AMD's indirect advice) in a Mac Pro since both are at, or under, 225w. More confirmation is needed, but I'm a conservative person, and I'm convinced. The cards come stock, especially the refereced card, with power savings turned on.
So you win. I will say that I paid only $300 shipped/after tax for my card.
Maybe, if I find some kind of hunch, I'll start raising my voltage and overclock to the MSI Gaming X figure. Believe me- the reference blower is pretty good, and I have a lot more headroom. But another 3 FPS with more noise, thermal, and heat, doesn't seem to be a worthy proposition with a blower cooler.
btw, in Watmann, bring the prior states to 1075mV if you find any states that are higher than that. That's a simple, easy way to do it. In other words, states 3-7 should ALL be 1075m or lower.
When you FLASH the card, H98 will talk you through. Flashing requires more testing. More than what Heaven 4.0 has to offer. You probably should run a few rounds of Furmark at those settings. If it's safe, then it's flashable at those settings.
The big point is, is that the RX580 "out of the box" is pretty unsatisfactory. Poor optimization. +/- 3-4 FPS in a given benchmark at 1440p is not acceptable. My 1440p benches ranged from 41AVG FPS to 45FPS. When I unvolted it, raised the power limit, it's 47.6FPS every. single. time. now. 41 FPS vs 47.6 @ 1440 is absolutely significant.
Yep, it's time to fall in love with the RX 580!
So you win. I will say that I paid only $300 shipped/after tax for my card.
Maybe, if I find some kind of hunch, I'll start raising my voltage and overclock to the MSI Gaming X figure. Believe me- the reference blower is pretty good, and I have a lot more headroom. But another 3 FPS with more noise, thermal, and heat, doesn't seem to be a worthy proposition with a blower cooler.
btw, in Watmann, bring the prior states to 1075mV if you find any states that are higher than that. That's a simple, easy way to do it. In other words, states 3-7 should ALL be 1075m or lower.
When you FLASH the card, H98 will talk you through. Flashing requires more testing. More than what Heaven 4.0 has to offer. You probably should run a few rounds of Furmark at those settings. If it's safe, then it's flashable at those settings.
The big point is, is that the RX580 "out of the box" is pretty unsatisfactory. Poor optimization. +/- 3-4 FPS in a given benchmark at 1440p is not acceptable. My 1440p benches ranged from 41AVG FPS to 45FPS. When I unvolted it, raised the power limit, it's 47.6FPS every. single. time. now. 41 FPS vs 47.6 @ 1440 is absolutely significant.
Yep, it's time to fall in love with the RX 580!
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Well, I sold my beloved 6-core Mac Pro yesterday. She had a good run and is going to a good home. I honestly wouldn't have sold it but the offer was just too good. I will continue to use my Hackintosh as my main machine until I find a 2009 8 core 4,1 which will be the replacement for the 5,1 6 core.
Well, exactly two months later, i'm back using a Mac Pro! Was a short hiatus but was offered a really good price on my old 5,1 6-core Mac Pro. Got a good deal on this 4,1 8-core, $500 shipped with 2x 2.26Ghz Quad Cores, 32GB DDR3 1333 ECC, 1TB HDD, GT 120.
I upgraded the CPU's straight away, as 2.26 is waayyy to slow. Replaced with X5677 3.46 GHz Quad Cores (Don't mind the dust, was cleaned shortly after) I used 10mm M4 washers (2 for each post) to prevent crushing my socket. These CPU's are only in temporarily as I will be purchasing X5690's in a few months.
Before the upgrade, I tried to upgrade the firmware from 4,1-5,1 on El Capitan but did not work. Read elsewhere that one may have to use an older OS for the upgrade. I used an old DMG of 10.9 on my old archive drive and it worked flawlessly the first try.
The setup on this Mac Pro will be a bit different for the time being, I am using a HP OEM RX 480 4GB that I had laying around instead of the MSI RX 580 8GB, I am waiting on custom cables to be made for the "Pixlas" mod so I can run a Vega FE or 56/64 sometime in the future, also because I do not have an adapter (dual 6 to 8 pin). I also have; Starting from top to bottom:
Wi-Fi card (No wifi in 09 Mac pro)
Ableconn USB 3.1 10Gbps Type C Card
SM951 256gb
RX 480 4GB (temp)
Some Benchmarks:
Overall, this should offer a substantial boost in performance in transcoding, rendering and exporting over the 6-core. I have already edited a small test project and in it's current state, is only a small bit faster (if not the same) in export, but is noticeably faster transcoding. I will also be doing some tests with handbrake and compressor to see how well they favor more cores.
I upgraded the CPU's straight away, as 2.26 is waayyy to slow. Replaced with X5677 3.46 GHz Quad Cores (Don't mind the dust, was cleaned shortly after) I used 10mm M4 washers (2 for each post) to prevent crushing my socket. These CPU's are only in temporarily as I will be purchasing X5690's in a few months.
Before the upgrade, I tried to upgrade the firmware from 4,1-5,1 on El Capitan but did not work. Read elsewhere that one may have to use an older OS for the upgrade. I used an old DMG of 10.9 on my old archive drive and it worked flawlessly the first try.
The setup on this Mac Pro will be a bit different for the time being, I am using a HP OEM RX 480 4GB that I had laying around instead of the MSI RX 580 8GB, I am waiting on custom cables to be made for the "Pixlas" mod so I can run a Vega FE or 56/64 sometime in the future, also because I do not have an adapter (dual 6 to 8 pin). I also have; Starting from top to bottom:
Wi-Fi card (No wifi in 09 Mac pro)
Ableconn USB 3.1 10Gbps Type C Card
SM951 256gb
RX 480 4GB (temp)
Some Benchmarks:
Overall, this should offer a substantial boost in performance in transcoding, rendering and exporting over the 6-core. I have already edited a small test project and in it's current state, is only a small bit faster (if not the same) in export, but is noticeably faster transcoding. I will also be doing some tests with handbrake and compressor to see how well they favor more cores.
