+1 To this. It works right out of the box, no hacks needed. RX 580 is very stable. The Pascal 10xx series are reportedly very unstable with MacOS, also with the GTX cards you will have to wait every MacOS update for NVIDIA to release a new Web Driver. But if you prefer to stay with the green team (Nvidia) than Maxwell cards (GTX 9xx) are also a great option but you will still have to wait for drivers every update.
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Mac Pro 5,1 Graphics Card upgrade suggestions?
- Thread starter Gr1f
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Yeah, thanks folks. The only thing putting me off the 580 is the power draw. Even the 4gb ones can go above 150w, and of course the 8 pin power connections. Suppose I'll have to choose between 'risking it' in terms of power, or putting up with it in terms of nvidia driver updates. Ho hum.
Cheers,
Razzerman
Cheers,
Razzerman
Use a 2x mini-6pin to single 8 pin adapter and there’s no ‘risking it’.
150W is nothing for the cMP. It has a 980W PSU, and can officially power a PCIe card up to 225W without any risk.
Just installed a nvidia branded GTX 1070 in my 5,1. Absolutely beautiful so far, zero glitches, sleep works. I even run a Heaven 4.0 bench and got 40 FPS over my RX580. Of course I need to test more, but it seems beautiful. Running Sierra.
What supplemental update disaster? If you are really reliant on your system working for you to work. Don't update right away, only update when you know that the drivers are there and that your apps will support the updates.
There is no rule saying to update straight away, even app developers say to not update until you know it wont negatively effect your software.
There is no rule saying to update straight away, even app developers say to not update until you know it wont negatively effect your software.
I’m fully switched to the green team. I used MacOS for 2 hours last night without a single hitch.
The 1070 is 50% faster than the RX580 from my benches. Not only that, but it’s more plug and play because with the RX580 you need to really do some undervolting to gain the most out of it.
I really need to update my VR thread with some numbers, but I’ve been too busy bathing myself in VR, which the 5,1 is going so flawlessly, even with super sampling!
Not sure where the GeForce hysteria is coming from, but I say we take a approach to figure out which setups are problemsome. Mine seems perfect.
The 1070 is 50% faster than the RX580 from my benches. Not only that, but it’s more plug and play because with the RX580 you need to really do some undervolting to gain the most out of it.
I really need to update my VR thread with some numbers, but I’ve been too busy bathing myself in VR, which the 5,1 is going so flawlessly, even with super sampling!
Not sure where the GeForce hysteria is coming from, but I say we take a approach to figure out which setups are problemsome. Mine seems perfect.
You make me really temped to run 2x1070 in my cMP now. Practically each mini 6pin is good enough to power a single 1070. So I can run two of them easily.
Since my monitor can accept 2 display port inputs and display them side by side without any gap simultaneously. I can self create a side by side version Split Frame Rendering (SFR). Each 1070 only need to drive 1920x1080 pixels, but the monitor actually displaying a single 3840x1080 picture. This will be an excellent solution to achieve better graphic performance. No need SLI, this hardware SFR should always work in any OS and API, no need special software support. 1080P is the most compatible resolution for almost anything, should have least issues as well. And this should be cheaper, and more powerful then any other single GPU solution.
As we discuss before, I am totally ready to deal with the web driver. As long as we have a OOTB card on hand, we are always safe. And I actually have one OOTB R9 380 + one HD7950 Mac Edition card. So, double safe. My very very last concern is just if the 1070 is buggy in MacOS (latest high Sierra). As long as it's normal in Finder, Safari, Chrome, etc. And didn't shows artifacts in Photoshop and FCPX. I am good to go. My cMP run 24/7, sleeping is not an issue for me. I know the iBook bug, but I don't really need it. When I really need iBook, I can do that on iphone / ipad.
But I don't really want to pay about $800 and then realise I am actually buying is headache.
Anyway, I think this will be a fun project to know how a cMP can perform as a gaming machine without Pixlas mod or the help of extra PSU.
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Hi guys - hoping for a bit of advice.
I'm on a Mac Pro tower 5,1
currently on el capitan (system runs logic nice and stable & i always keep this machine a bit behind!). running logic x mainly on this machine just for music production...
1. Are there any graphics card upgrades I can do that will work out of the box that will give me 4K at 60Hz on el cap? (i.e. not the ones that have been flashed)
2. If not - how about I upg to sierra? or will I have to go all the way to high sierra?
Sorry for n00b Q. Once i get this one sorted I have a 4,1 machine I need to flash to get to 5,1 and do the same thing!
I'm on a Mac Pro tower 5,1
currently on el capitan (system runs logic nice and stable & i always keep this machine a bit behind!). running logic x mainly on this machine just for music production...
1. Are there any graphics card upgrades I can do that will work out of the box that will give me 4K at 60Hz on el cap? (i.e. not the ones that have been flashed)
2. If not - how about I upg to sierra? or will I have to go all the way to high sierra?
Sorry for n00b Q. Once i get this one sorted I have a 4,1 machine I need to flash to get to 5,1 and do the same thing!
Do you need a bootscreen? If not, you have a wide range to choose from. You can choose any of the Radeon RX 500 series of cards starting with the RX 560 and up (issues with the RX 550) on Sierra, on El Cap you can use unflashed 7950/R9 280/X or R9 380 and it will work OOTB but with no bootscreen. If you want you can also use Nvidia cards, but these are not OOTB and require web drivers.
Is there anything special you have to do with the 1070, like flash it? I am also tempted to make the switch from MX580.
Not entirely sure what I would 'need' a boot screen for really, have never really understood that :-( I just do straight mac stuff so no bootcamp switching or anything - what do I lose by not having a boot screen? it would be amazing if i could just buy a card to whack in this machine still on el cap, but give myself 4K 60Hz (not crappy 30Hz) with no messing around. Thanks for the pointers on this radeons - ill have a google about!
hmmm...afaik you need the bootscreen for the safe boot as well.
i just run a titan x in my 4.1, but catched a wonderfull gtx980 "FE" for really small budget.
i benched the two cards with heaven and GB 4.0...while the open cl really get a boost from 80k to 110k, the score in heaven goes down to 1314 instead of 1433 with the older kepler card...
i just run a titan x in my 4.1, but catched a wonderfull gtx980 "FE" for really small budget.
i benched the two cards with heaven and GB 4.0...while the open cl really get a boost from 80k to 110k, the score in heaven goes down to 1314 instead of 1433 with the older kepler card...
Looking at flashed ones on eBay - what would you recommend will work most reliably on an el cap 5,1? Ive found a 3Gb 7950 that looks decent - any others better? Thanks for your help!
Not for OOTB cards like the RX580. Recovery works fine as the driver is in the OS.
i suggest you, safe the money for the pre-flashed card and buy a cheaper stock card...
invest the money in an original mac nvidia gt120 card, thats how i handle it.
with the two cards inside, you dont reach the powerlimit and have the benefit of a faster gpu and compatibility with the tiny mac flashed card for emergency issues...
invest the money in an original mac nvidia gt120 card, thats how i handle it.
with the two cards inside, you dont reach the powerlimit and have the benefit of a faster gpu and compatibility with the tiny mac flashed card for emergency issues...
No need to go for a flashed card
1) It's more expensive
2) You can flash it by yourself if you want to
3) The MOST important one, it won't gives you 4K 60Hz boot screen, but just hang you computer.
Then why pay more to buy trouble?
There is NO 4K 60Hz OOTB card with boot screen exist on the world yet (for cMP).
For El Capitan, you only have one choice for 4K 60Hz boot screen. A flashed Maxwell card from MVC. However, it require Nvidia web driver to work, definitely not a OOTB solution.
And all other GPU either not working in El Capitan at all. Or cannot provide 4K 60Hz boot screen.
Therefore, only go for normal PC card, that's the best you can do. HD7950 is a good choice for just driving 4K 60Hz OS UI.
There is not much better choice, 7970 is stronger, but power management may be a bit messy.
GTX680 is also a good choice, but depends on usage, it's not necessary better than 7950 (especially if you use it for compute).
Having just installed a Sapphire RX 580 Pulse 8GB I can't recommend it highly enough.
No boot screens but otherwise it's perfect. Good performance, recovery works fine, it does 4K/5K @60Hz, plenty of RAM and natively supported in macOS.
No boot screens but otherwise it's perfect. Good performance, recovery works fine, it does 4K/5K @60Hz, plenty of RAM and natively supported in macOS.
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I am in the same situation like John B_Beta (but using my 5,1 MacPro 2012 with Sierra mainly for music production and sometimes for some visualize videos created in After Effects).
I'm undecided between the R9 280X and RX580 - which one is better? (both cards work OOTB right? Which is very important for me)
Thanks =)
I'm undecided between the R9 280X and RX580 - which one is better? (both cards work OOTB right? Which is very important for me)
Thanks =)
In 10.12.6, yes, both GPU are OOTB.
The main benefit of the 280X is very good driver optimisation, and able to flash.
If you have not plan to flash it (to show boot screen), then I personally will prefer to RX580 more.
It has more VRAM, it's a much newer card, it has better port (e.g. HDMI 2.0), it has more functions (e.g. hardware h265 decode in Windows), it draw less power, it has higher performance (assume same level of driver and software optimisation).....
Even though the 280X may do better in some particular applications, but the RX580 should not fall behind by too much. And the RX580 usually can do better (by it's raw power) even thought the software is not optimised for it yet.
For production, I think you better go for a new RX580 that come with warranty. But not a used 280X that may die at anytime.