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RX 580 or GTX 1060 or...?

F

fiatlux

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 5, 2007
356
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Until very recently I had a non-flashed GTX960 in addition to the original GT120 in my Mac Pro.

As I thought I did not really need 3D acceleration on my Mac but needed a card for a simple PC I was building for the kids, I just transferred the GTX960 to that PC.

But I now realise how much the whole macOS "experience" relies on 3D acceleration to be perfectly smooth. I'm therefore looking at getting another graphic card at a reasonable cost (ca. 250€). I have identified the following options:

AMD Radeon RX 580:

+ supported by stock macOS drivers
+ AMD better optimised at Open CL than nVidia (under macOS)
- less power efficient
- no boot screen

nVidia GTX 1060

+ CUDA support (giving a better boost that OpenCL in e.g. Resolve)
+ more power efficient
- nVidia web drivers not as well optimised for OpenCL
- nVidia web drivers broken by OS updates - hence the need to keep the GT120 (remote login is a clunky alternative IMO)

flashed GTX 680

+ supported by stock macOS drivers
+ boot screen
- 5y old tech, 2 GB only

Anything I missed? Any recommendation?

My main use for my Mac Pro: Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC, Capture One and Hasselblad Phocus, and a little bit of iMovie and Davinci Resolve.
[doublepost=1513097145][/doublepost]I should add that, in the past, I had a GTX 570 and then a R9 280x. I got rid of both as I thought they were noisy power hogs, but none of the software I used had any GPU acceleration back then.
 
Info missing: The GTX680 has 4GB version, also flashable for boot screen.

Since you are only very light user of Davinci Resolve, I won't base on that to choose a CUDA supported GPU (e.g. 1060).

Same reason, I also won't base on light use of iMovie to conclude that RX580 is a better option.

All other usage (e.g. Photoshop) is virtually the same for all these 3 GPU options.

My Pascal experience (1080Ti) is flawless so far in High Sierra. However, I really can't see why it's worth for you to go for a non OOTB card if you don't need that much GPU power. Therefore, I personally won't choose 1060 in your case. Even though you have a GT120, but Apple is quite unpredictable nowadays. Like the last OS update, if a user update the OS from Appstore / terminal, then the build number is 17C88. And if the user update via the combo installer, the build number will be 17C89. And since the user can't see the build number until the update finish. There is a chance that the user may accidentally update to an OS build that has no Nvidia web driver available (yet). In fact, it did happen on some of the member here who is a very experienced Nvidia card user. If you accidentally fall into that point, it's not about if you still can see the screen (by the GT120 in your case), but your computer will lost the 1060's power until web driver available.

And since you have the GT120. So, unless you want a single card solution that require boot screen. Then I won't go for the "old" GTX680 as well. Why pay the same to get the old thing? No DP1.4, No HDMI 2.0, No HEVC support, low power efficiency. It's biggest advantage is just able to show boot screen, but that's almost completely useless in daily work. And your GT120 is pretty much the Mac EFI for any graphic card already.

In this case, I will go for the reference RX580. Sapphire PULSE RX580 8GB was the best choice (most compatible). However, it seems Sapphire give this line a silent update, and the new PULSE RX580 are no longer work as good as the old one (e.g. able to correctly ident itself in system info. Or automatically apply the correct the framebuffer in MacOS, etc). And since there is no guarantee that you can get the "good" version of the PULSE anymore. I may simply go for the cheapest reference card. 8GB still preferable, but it you can't justify the cost difference, then 4GB should also work equally good in your case.
 
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Don't get a GTX 1060. While I have yet to test it in HS, I do know that it's horribly unstable within Sierra. Mine (and those of many others) would experience graphical glitches upon the Mac Pro awaking from sleep. Said glitches would render my computer useless, until I logged out and then back in again. General performance anyway was not as good as I thought it would be.

I switched to an RX 580 and am loving it. I would like to pop the GTX 1060 back in to try it out within High Sierra; however, I would never switch back to it.
 
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PowerMac G4 MDD said:
Don't get a GTX 1060. While I have yet to test it in HS, I do know that it's horribly unstable within Sierra. Mine (and those of many others) would experience graphical glitches upon the Mac Pro awaking from sleep. Said glitches would render my computer useless, until I logged out and then back in again. General performance anyway was not as good as I thought it would be.

I switched to an RX 580 and am loving it. I would like to pop the GTX 1060 back in to try it out within High Sierra; however, I would never switch back to it.
Click to expand...

Hmm good to know. I ordered a GTX 1060 6GB yesterday. Upgrading from the stock ATI 5870 so it should be a decent bump. I wasn't aware that the 10 series cards were iffy with Mac OS. I thought the nvidia drivers would sort everything out and it would be pretty plug and play. Other than sleep mode, how was the card? I don't ever use sleep mode so that doesn't matter to me. Also, do you get a boot screen with the 1060? I've seen conflicting reports online. I ordered from amazon so it would be easy to return if it doesn't work out. Thanks!
 
simplymuzik3 said:
Hmm good to know. I ordered a GTX 1060 6GB yesterday. Upgrading from the stock ATI 5870 so it should be a decent bump. I wasn't aware that the 10 series cards were iffy with Mac OS. I thought the nvidia drivers would sort everything out and it would be pretty plug and play. Other than sleep mode, how was the card? I don't ever use sleep mode so that doesn't matter to me. Also, do you get a boot screen with the 1060? I've seen conflicting reports online. I ordered from amazon so it would be easy to return if it doesn't work out. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Other than the sleep issue, it worked fine; however, the card's performance was nothing like I thought it would be, given the drivers being so lame. I only play two games within OSX, and it was a bit annoying having one stutter and skip now and then. My RX 580 is a MUCH better performer in both OSX and Windows.

If you have issues with it, though, it's nice that it was purchased from Amazon: you can definitely easily return it, as you mentioned.
 
DaVinci Resolve 14 supports Metal, so no reason to get a CUDA card just for that. The RX 580 PULSE should be a perfect match.
 
simplymuzik3 said:
Hmm good to know. I ordered a GTX 1060 6GB yesterday. Upgrading from the stock ATI 5870 so it should be a decent bump. I wasn't aware that the 10 series cards were iffy with Mac OS. I thought the nvidia drivers would sort everything out and it would be pretty plug and play. Other than sleep mode, how was the card? I don't ever use sleep mode so that doesn't matter to me. Also, do you get a boot screen with the 1060? I've seen conflicting reports online. I ordered from amazon so it would be easy to return if it doesn't work out. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I recently got a CMP 5,1, which was sold to me with a 1050Ti. I loved how the card was so small and power efficient, but I had all the same issues that PowerMac G4 MDD was talking about. I swapped the 1050 for an RX 580 (MSI in my case), and I have had zero issues.
 
Kris Kelvin said:
DaVinci Resolve 14 supports Metal, so no reason to get a CUDA card just for that. The RX 580 PULSE should be a perfect match.
Click to expand...
CUDA is still way ahead. As I posted, earlier in this thread or on one of the other RX580 threads, I get 50% transcoding speed increase with the GTX980Ti over the RX580. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with my RX580 and how it's supported by the OS, but when it comes to CUDA and raw power, it's not the card. At the moment, I switch GPUs when I have some Davinci needs -not that often, but usually for several days in a row, transcoding 4K rushes into HD proxies- and 50% extra speed does make a big difference when there are 100 hours to transcode...
 
pierrox said:
I get 50% transcoding speed increase with the GTX980Ti over the RX580
Click to expand...

That's reasonable; the GTX 980 Ti is simply faster than the RX 580 (more shaders, more memory bandwidth). It's not really a CUDA vs Metal thing. If you need raw processing power and don't care about compatibility issues, Nvidia is the way to go. For an easy to use, balanced, quiet solution, the RX 580 PULSE is king of the hill right now.
 
pierrox said:
Since Davinci Resolve lets you choose between CUDA, Open CL and Metal, how do you explain that even a GTX1080Ti drops its performance to the level of the RX580 as soon as you don't use CUDA but one of the other options?
Click to expand...

My 1080Ti perform almost identical with all 4 Auto, OpenCL, Metal, and CUDA options in Davinci Resolve (video export). OpenCL may be tiny bit slower. Metal clearly use more power, but CUDA is the only options that export problematic videos (seriously interlaced for unknown reason). Auto is the best in my case.
 
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