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Mac Pro 5,1 Graphics Card upgrade suggestions?

Just want to confirm the RX 560 is working OOTB on my 2010 5,1 running 10.12.6. No issues at all.

For those interested, it is a Gigabyte Windforce Gaming OC 2G (2Gb) RX 560
 
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Squuiid said:
Yep, as Silencio said, flash your 2009 4,1 to a 5,1 using the tool talked about in these forums and you can indeed.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
I bought my 2009 already flashed to 5,1. But everytime I read on this forum, I seem to find out new stuff that makes me hesitate to continue building my cMP.
 
eyeangle said:
I read on this page:

http://www.144hzmonitors.com/best-graphics-card/

...that the RX 560 can work without the power cables. Would this be true for the Mac Pro?
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I think that's a bit misleading. The RX460 (or 560) may come with (or without) the power connector (depends on their factory setting). For the card that has the power connector, the card may not work without it (in fact, I bet 99% won't work). That article should mean if you choose the card that has no power connector, you don't need any extra power to drive it.

If you buy a card that has power connector, 99% is NOT optional, and must connect properly.
 
carpsafari said:
You could not find that answer in the ±100 other topics? Wow.
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Long time reader, first time poster.. having recently acquired a Mac Pro 2010 (5.1) myself, I'm interested in a potential graphics card upgrade. I've trawled through these forums and others for hours and hours and there doesn't seem to be a straight-forward, consistent answer throughout the past 12-24 months.

It seems that support for Nvidia graphics cards waivers between the two ends of the extreme between "Yes, it works, all Nvidia cards work with driver support", then those who have it working yet have driver issues that are "glitchy", to the other end, where some who can't get it working at all.

In summary from all the reading - as at August 2017, it seems that unless you get a flashed card, it's risky to get an Nvidia card (there is no real guarantee of driver/ongoing support). It may work, it may not work. If it works, there's a high possibility of driver issues, and there's no knowing if future OSX updates will cause further issues.

For a modern/advanced graphics card, my understanding is that Radeon RX 580 is probably one of the safer options (since iMac uses "Radeon Pro" which is effective Radeon RX 570/580 series).

I'll probably go down the RX 580 route.. I see too many threads of 1060/1070/1080 users having driver issues even to this day.
 
Ozbastion said:
Long time reader, first time poster.. having recently acquired a Mac Pro 2010 (5.1) myself, I'm interested in a potential graphics card upgrade. I've trawled through these forums and others for hours and hours and there doesn't seem to be a straight-forward, consistent answer throughout the past 12-24 months.

It seems that support for Nvidia graphics cards waivers between the two ends of the extreme between "Yes, it works, all Nvidia cards work with driver support", then those who have it working yet have driver issues that are "glitchy", to the other end, where some who can't get it working at all.

In summary from all the reading - as at August 2017, it seems that unless you get a flashed card, it's risky to get an Nvidia card (there is no real guarantee of driver/ongoing support). It may work, it may not work. If it works, there's a high possibility of driver issues, and there's no knowing if future OSX updates will cause further issues.

For a modern/advanced graphics card, my understanding is that Radeon RX 580 is probably one of the safer options (since iMac uses "Radeon Pro" which is effective Radeon RX 570/580 series).

I'll probably go down the RX 580 route.. I see too many threads of 1060/1070/1080 users having driver issues even to this day.
Click to expand...

Welcome, and I was in a similar position to you. I read a lot and a lot and decided on the Radeon RX 560 4GB that I bought today because the 580 was just out of my price range for what I need. It works perfectly in 10.12.6 but I would recommend the RX 580 8GB version if you want to spend the extra $. You could wait a couple of weeks for the Vega but I'm not sure what price range it's going to be.
 
Thanks eyeangle - no particular rush; will wait a couple more weeks to see how Vega affects pricing etc. Did you end up with the Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 Gaming OC 4G? Any particular reason you ended up with your particular one (i.e. brand being close to reference card?)
 
Ozbastion said:
Thanks eyeangle - no particular rush; will wait a couple more weeks to see how Vega affects pricing etc. Did you end up with the Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 Gaming OC 4G? Any particular reason you ended up with your particular one (i.e. brand being close to reference card?)
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Yes I went with the Gigabyte Radeon RX 560 Gaming OC 4G because I read that Gigabyte was the best brand to go with because of it being closest to the reference card. Whatever that means I dunno but it all works.
 
eyeangle said:
I read on this page:

http://www.144hzmonitors.com/best-graphics-card/

...that the RX 560 can work without the power cables. Would this be true for the Mac Pro?
Click to expand...

Use the 6 pin power cable to plug into the Mac Pro's spare AUX port. You need it!

And yes, its completely plug and play - try a reboot if you encounter occasional screen flickers in the first few hours.
 
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From personal experience the nvidia cards are great. Drivers are stable and installation is easy. You don't have to flash them and they will work fine. You just need to keep your original low end card around for system and driver updates. Or do what I did, I installed a GT120 for one monitor that I use for firmware boot and driver updates.

The GTX980ti is a great card but it takes a ton of power and runs really hot. I traded it off for a GTX1080 which is a dream. Uses a single 8 pin connector, which the mac pro can easily run. Temps are much cooler and the fans are happier. If I was to recommend, its hands down GTX1080/1070 all the way.
 
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xactoman said:
From personal experience the nvidia cards are great. Drivers are stable and installation is easy.
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Great to hear you've had a good experience, which particular brand/model of GTX 1080 have you been using? Seems that OS X is better with some brands than others.

I recall a few other threads cautioning against 'high powered' video cards since it was a big unknown how much power is actually being provided - though I haven't seen any issues with users experiencing too much power draw etc
 
Ozbastion said:
Great to hear you've had a good experience, which particular brand/model of GTX 1080 have you been using? Seems that OS X is better with some brands than others.

I recall a few other threads cautioning against 'high powered' video cards since it was a big unknown how much power is actually being provided - though I haven't seen any issues with users experiencing too much power draw etc
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I only use EVGA. The 980ti was good, it pulled two power plugs from the logic board and two from the CD rom bay, ran hot though. 1080 is much better. Quieter, cooler and uses way less power. Just plug the two logic board connectors into a y-adapter and you are good to go. Works well with Mac OS. No trouble. REALLY comes to life in win10. It's a powerhouse
 
For anyone who's opened up their running cMP 5,1 (or 4,1, etc) with an RX560 in it to discover the GPU fans lying idle - don't panic. It seems there's enough airflow passing over the card (a nice breeze actually) to keep the card cool enough to be passively cooled - at least that's with Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Safari with about 10 tabs open and a second user account running in the background. Have yet to test this theory while playing a game though.

Not bad!
 
haha! i did exactly that, opened the door to see my 560 fans idol. They are most of the time unless I'm playing a heavy duty game or running Valley Unigine to test them.
 
eyeangle said:
haha! i did exactly that, opened the door to see my 560 fans idol. They are most of the time unless I'm playing a heavy duty game or running Valley Unigine to test them.
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Have you had any display issues since installing? When I first installed the card I had a couple of screen flickers but none since.
 
t0rr3s said:
Much fun reading the posts here. Getting me a 1070 FE for my 5,1.
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I'd think twice about that. I have a 1080 FE I use in Windows on a cMP and that works perfectly.
The experience of my 1070 FE in macOS leaves something to be desired. It really isn't good and you'll find that things are pretty buggy. Glitches, black screen when resuming from sleep, or even from monitor sleep, it's cumbersome having to remote into the Mac to update the driver prior to every OS update. It's not worth the hassle IMO.
I put back in my GTX 680 ME, uninstalled the NVIDIA web driver and ALL the problems disappeared. It now works perfectly. It is very conclusive that the problem lies with the web driver to me.

I really don't think Pascal macOS drivers are any good and I don't see them improving in a hurry.
NVIDIA seem to be doing the bare minimum to offer 'support' for the cards in macOS.

Go for a Sapphire RX 580 Pulse 8GB and you'll be much better off!
 
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