RX 580 - no Sapphire Pulse 8GB available - "pure cosmetics?"

[owbp]

Same here. Pulse RX 580 from NewEgg. The card is not fully recognized in “About this Mac.”

However, it works just fine.

So it looks like Sapphire changed BIOS id in new batch of cards. Wouldn't worry too much.

Since the Apple developer eGPU kit is sold out, it will be interesting to see if it will be listed again and with what cards it will be this time.
But Sapphire being full 2 slot card, ASUS Dual or MSI Gaming might be a better choice for guys that want to use second x16 slot without blocking one of the fans.

What's word on the XFX RX580? Is it still one of the few XFX cards that work in macOS (being XFX, we all remember the situation with Tahiti cards)?

 

[Davidlean10]

Related, I would like to know about how to get the XFX RX580 to work in my MacPro 5.1. Is my hookup to the power correct? I used the 6 pin to 6 pin cable as it was with my original AMD graphics card. It lights up with a red glow from the LEDs, but do I really need 2 cables? I see nothing on the monitor when I try to boot up in High Sierra. (By the way High Sierra is running terribly slow compared to Yosemite.)

What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? If I can't find a solution, I am going to return the XFX card.

 

[h9826790]

Related, I would like to know about how to get the XFX RX580 to work in my MacPro 5.1. Is my hookup to the power correct? I used the 6 pin to 6 pin cable as it was with my original AMD graphics card. It lights up with a red glow from the LEDs, but do I really need 2 cables? I see nothing on the monitor when I try to boot up in High Sierra. (By the way High Sierra is running terribly slow compared to Yosemite.)

What am I missing? What am I doing wrong? If I can't find a solution, I am going to return the XFX card.

BOTH cables are required, the 6pin inputs are NOT optional.

 

[Jake Bloom]

Disappointing about the ID being changed. I was going to order one this weekend from New Egg.

 

[William Payne]

Does the ID change actually effect its performance or is just a thing that only shows in about this mac.

 

[Jake Bloom]

I think the driver still loads but it just has that generic name. I need to find out for sure myself as I wanted to order this card today. I am sure someone will let us know for sure. Until then I am going to go back reread the threads.

One of my current monitors is starting to fail so I was going to make the jump to 4K.
I wanted mostly OOTB but I do not mind doing some things.
I do not have a need for CUDA and NVIDA so I wanted to stay with something that would not require special drivers or flashing. I do coding for a living and really love my cMP because I can build multiple virtual machines using the 40 GB of RAM and run them with their own dedicated cores out of the 12 cpu cores and 12 virtual cpu cores.

The main reason for the 4K is for watching movies and getting a larger screen so I can have multiple windows up.
I do some light gaming with my son but nothing too taxing as far as GPU requirements.

Currently I use El Captain and never upgraded to Sierra.
Everything was stable so I left it as is.
In prepping for the RX 580 I just installed High Sierra on another disk and cannot get TotalSpaces2 running yet. I posted on their forums and waiting to hear. I am currently back on El Captain as no TotalSpaces disrupts my work flow.

 

[h9826790]

Disappointing about the ID being changed. I was going to order one this weekend from New Egg.

Does the ID change actually effect its performance or is just a thing that only shows in about this mac.

Pretty sure the Device ID didn't change, just the part number changed.

As long as the Device didn't change, the driver will load, the card should work (depends not the driver's quality). Even the part number is changed. I suspect there is virtually no change on the PCB, GPU, VRAM, etc. Therefore, the PULSE RX580 should be still the most compatible RX580, or even the most compatible up-to-date GPU available for cMP.

The part number should only affect the MacOS ident, couldn't think about how can it affect the performance. And I am 99.999% sure you can simply flash the "old" VBIOS onto this card, and make it the "Mac Edition card" again. That ROM image sems already available on the net. Or some very helpful member here Mau willing to upload their “good” Sapphire PULSE RX580 ROM here for the others to download.

I am not sure about the other cards. But the “old” ROM should be very safe to use on the new PULSE 8GB card (Or the Nitro+).

 

[Squuiid]

But the “old” ROM should be very safe to use on the new PULSE 8GB card (Or the Nitro+).

I would proceed with caution here. Prior to this new part number there were two part numbers and each had a different BIOS. One supported Hynix RAM and the other supported both Hynix and Samsung RAM.
This new part number may have introduced yet again different RAM or some other change which MAY need BIOS support.
While I think it’s likely an old BIOS will work with this new part number I would be careful as this card does not have a backup BIOS.

 

[Synchro3]

Disappointing about the ID being changed. I was going to order one this weekend from New Egg.

I'm pretty sure the new ID or part number will be integrated in future OS updates (along with ID's from other cards like Vega), when official eGPU support will begin. Also in apps like Geekbench the card is indicated correctly as RX 580 8GB.

Does the ID change actually effect its performance or is just a thing that only shows in about this mac.

I've got a Geekbench OpenCL result about 100'000 with the RX 580 via eGPU (TB1), so no performance loss I think.

 

[Erlang]

My Amazon UK pre-order 580-8gb arrived today, and is one of the recognised part numbers so fully recognised. So obviously a new monitor itch has now started.

 

[Jake Bloom]

So it looks like Sapphire changed BIOS id in new batch of cards. Wouldn't worry too much.

Since the Apple developer eGPU kit is sold out, it will be interesting to see if it will be listed again and with what cards it will be this time.
But Sapphire being full 2 slot card, ASUS Dual or MSI Gaming might be a better choice for guys that want to use second x16 slot without blocking one of the fans.

What's word on the XFX RX580? Is it still one of the few XFX cards that work in macOS (being XFX, we all remember the situation with Tahiti cards)?

Does anyone have links for the ASUS or MSI cards? I want to make sure I am purchasing the correct card.

 

[wispy007]

Hi Guys,

After much deliberation regarding a new card for my mac pro I took the plunge and bought a used RX 580 Pulse 8GB. I currently have two mac pro's running with gtx 980 & 970. I was looking for better open CL performance over the 970 for one of my machines for some photography software that I use.

I received the card today and have a few observations/questions regarding the power management of the card. It's not one of the listed cards and it does not display the correct info in the about this mac section. No big issue for me.

Firstly, in OS X10.2.6 the card is silent until put under slight under load and then there is some coil whine (?) present that goes away after about 10-20 seconds. This is not present under windows 7, i cannot repeat it. However the biggest issue is that when placed under heavy load (running Heaven bench marks) the graphics card fans spin at high speed and also the mac pro fans all spin up. Now I know this is normal for this test but once I quit Heaven all of the fans remain at high speed, the only way I can return them to normal speed is by restarting the mac pro.

I have the same issue on the windows side once the card is put under load, so I'm wondering if this is a power management issue on the mac pro itself. Never had any such issues with the Nvidia cards.

Is there a need to update the firmware of the mac pro to the latest High Sierra build?

 

[William Payne]

However the biggest issue is that when placed under heavy load (running Heaven bench marks) the graphics card fans spin at high speed and also the mac pro fans all spin up. Now I know this is normal for this test

Is it normal? at what resolution?

 

[MarkC426]

The card will not show correctly in sierra (only in HS).
Do you have a dual 6 pin to 8 pin for the power.

 

[wispy007]

The card will not show correctly in sierra (only in HS).
Do you have a dual 6 pin to 8 pin for the power.

[doublepost=1512696820][/doublepost]Yes the card is powered by a dual 6 pin to 8 pin adaptor. I had a chance to spend a bit more time with it last night, I can now reproduce the " coil whine" in windows 7. Interestingly when I play Fifa 18 in windows the card and the mac are almost silent, when I start Star Wars Battlefront the mac sounds like it's going to take off (even at the opening screen). I'm assuming this has to be a power draw issue and the macs power management control.

Also noticed the card is an overclocked version.

 

[LightBulbFun]

This may be a problem for customised PCB RX580, but for the reference card, pretty sure it’s just cosmetic.

In fact, from memory, the Radeon frame buffer always work. The “port disabled” issue only happen when someone flash the card with the EFI that’s builded for another card.

However, if hex edit the part number inside a RX580’s ROM to make it ident itself as RX580 inside MacOS. Then the MacOS may apply the wrong frame buffer to that particular card as well.

If a user leave that R9 xxx cosmetic issue there. Not try to do anything to “fix” it. Then it should be nothing more than just cosmetic.

For non reference RX580, there is no guarantee it can work from the beginning. Nothing to do with if it’s the PULSE or not.

well Look at the 10.13.2 sleep bug thats just cropped up https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/high-sierra-10-13-2-broke-sleep.2093595/#post-25570147

which is caused by the Generic frame buffer assuming wrong information about the ports on the video card

a Properly initialised AMD Card would have its ports pre-defined in its frame-buffer layout and not have these issues. (ie a (flashed) EFI one or the RX 580 Pulse card used in the Apple eGPU box dev kit)

so as I said before its more then just cosmetics (also worth noting the AMD Radeon RX 580 used by apple in the Dev eGPU box is not actually a reference card it even has 2 HDMI and 2 DP where as a refrence RX 580 would have 3 DP 1 HDMI)

in the end im just saying, dont brush it off so easly

 

[h9826790]

well Look at the 10.13.2 sleep bug thats just cropped up https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/high-sierra-10-13-2-broke-sleep.2093595/#post-25570147

which is caused by the Generic frame buffer assuming wrong information about the ports on the video card

a Properly initialised AMD Card would have its ports pre-defined in its frame-buffer layout and not have these issues. (ie a (flashed) EFI one or the RX 580 Pulse card used in the Apple eGPU box dev kit)

so as I said before its more then just cosmetics (also worth noting the AMD Radeon RX 580 used by apple in the Dev eGPU box is not actually a reference card it even has 2 HDMI and 2 DP where as a refrence RX 580 would have 3 DP 1 HDMI)

in the end im just saying, dont brush it off so easly

My post was posted before 10.13.2 release. At that time, it’s cosmetic.

And exactly as I said, the card should work, the driver should load (the 10.13.2 driver do work indeed, and those “identifieless” RX580 do work in 10.13.2), but depends on the driver quality, may not able to sleep wake properly. Apple introduce a bug inside the driver, but the card can work, can perform, just can’t sleep.

But anyway, I agree since now, the “RX xxx” issue can be more than cosmetic. At least the sleep wake ability could be different (more may come).

 

[pierrox]

My post was posted before 10.13.2 release. At that time, it’s cosmetic.

Have you seen the gamer's forums? Everyone is screaming their heads off against 10.3.2 which comes with vastly deteriorated graphics performances. Many examples of games like Dirt Rally seeing their frame rates halved by this update.
Clearly, HS is the biggest pos Apple has given us in a long time, between the #passwordgate, then the #rootgate, then the #******patchupdate and so on. Let's hope they get their act together very soon.

 

[William Payne]

I don't game on my mac and am using an nvidia card but everything has been smooooooooth sailing for me. Its hard for me to understand all this stuff as im not seeing it. I can understand the frustration.

 

[owbp]

Let's hope they get their act together very soon.

Snow Leopard was a complete mess in first few updates, so i wouldn't loose hope just yet.
But i completely agree with you.

 

[MarkC426]

Have you seen the gamer's forums? Everyone is screaming their heads off against 10.3.2 which comes with vastly deteriorated graphics performances. Many examples of games like Dirt Rally seeing their frame rates halved by this update.
Clearly, HS is the biggest pos Apple has given us in a long time, between the #passwordgate, then the #rootgate, then the #******patchupdate and so on. Let's hope they get their act together very soon.

Personally I am waiting until there is the option to have APFS or not.
You should have the choice.
It’s not used for spinny drives, so why not the option like you have always had in disk utility, for different file systems.

 

[h9826790]

Have you seen the gamer's forums? Everyone is screaming their heads off against 10.3.2 which comes with vastly deteriorated graphics performances. Many examples of games like Dirt Rally seeing their frame rates halved by this update.
Clearly, HS is the biggest pos Apple has given us in a long time, between the #passwordgate, then the #rootgate, then the #******patchupdate and so on. Let's hope they get their act together very soon.

Didn't have time to read that forum yet, but sounds really bad. Anyway, I gave up gaming in MacOS some time ago. Not just FPS, but even graphic quality is day and night if compare to Windows.

 

[William Payne]

Didn't have time to read that forum yet, but sounds really bad. Anyway, I gave up gaming in MacOS some time ago. Not just FSP, but even graphic quality is day and night if compare to Windows.

I was listening to a programmer talk about this topic once and he said that the reason gaming is bad in mac os is because the games would have to be completely re coded to work properly on the Mac due to different API's and that most games are written purely for windows.

Ive never encountered the problems myself because gaming on a mac does not interest me.

 

[z3thon]

So I'm running an RX580 that I just got installed today as well. Everything works fine and it tears through every game I have but running bootcamp with this card is a problem. Holding down "option" during boot doesn't let me view my boot options.

Does anyone have experience with this side of the matter? It was truly a plug and play experience except that I never see the boot screen, it jumps straight to the login screen.

Thanks.

 

[h9826790]

So I'm running an RX580 that I just got installed today as well. Everything works fine and it tears through every game I have but running bootcamp with this card is a problem. Holding down "option" during boot doesn't let me view my boot options.

Does anyone have experience with this side of the matter? It was truly a plug and play experience except that I never see the boot screen, it jumps straight to the login screen.

Thanks.

The RX580 is a normal PC Card, there is no Mac EFI in the ROM. Therefore, it won’t display anything until driver load. This is true for all PC Card. If you want to use the boot manager. You may

1) install another Mac EFI card (e.g GT120) to provide boot screen

2) Flash the card with Mac EFI (however, there is no working Mac EFI for RX580 yet. So this is not an option at all at this moment)

3) use some boot loader to “active” the card. E.g. Clover, eEFInd, etc. It was done by someone with the older OS on another card. There is no report about able to do that on RX580 yet.

So, technically, only option 1 available to you.

However, that’s solely base on you need boot manager. If all you want just a way to switch between Windows and MacOS. You can select the “next boot partiton” in system preference (MacOS), or Bootcamp manager (Windows). If your MacOS is already running APFS, then BootChamp with SIP disabled can also work flawlessly.