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So what’s the cheapest graphics card for Mojave on a 5,1?
- Thread starter Partridge
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I believe that prompt only base on the Mac model number, but not real Mojave capability.
Can’t you disable that notification?
Just FYI for anyone finding this thread, I used a Geforce 710 to upgrade successfully to Mojave (I bought a Mac Mini 2018 so I'm prepping this Mac Pro for selling). Specifically, I bought the MSI Gaming Geforce 710 2gb GDDR3 2GD3H card - https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GT-710-2GD3H-LP/dp/B01AZHOX5K
It has VGA D-sub, DVI-I, and HDMI (1.4) ports (that means it only supports 3840x2160 @ 30hz). Note that MSI sells two versions of the card, one with fan and one without - the 710 is low power enough that you don't need active cooling. Didn't do too much poking around but I did not see any weird artifacts or glitches in Mojave.
As long as you don't need high-speed 3D or 4kp60, this is a much cheaper option than the Geforce 680, Radeon 560, etc. I looked for ages and most of those cards were going for $100+ on ebay (although I was being impatient and only looking for "Buy It Now" auctions).
It has VGA D-sub, DVI-I, and HDMI (1.4) ports (that means it only supports 3840x2160 @ 30hz). Note that MSI sells two versions of the card, one with fan and one without - the 710 is low power enough that you don't need active cooling. Didn't do too much poking around but I did not see any weird artifacts or glitches in Mojave.
As long as you don't need high-speed 3D or 4kp60, this is a much cheaper option than the Geforce 680, Radeon 560, etc. I looked for ages and most of those cards were going for $100+ on ebay (although I was being impatient and only looking for "Buy It Now" auctions).
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So, for testing purposes I put a Radeon RX 580 8GB in a 4,1 flashed to 5,1, and it seems to be working fine. However, it does NOT show boot screen and therefore it less than ideal.
Going forward I will need to upgrade a total of 24 more identical machines, hopefully this upcoming summer, to support Mojave (school environment). Therefore price is going to be the major concern, but it would also be highly beneficial to find a card that "just works", so that during setup, troubleshooting, etc. I can easily work on these machines without swapping video cards. Ideally this would be something that does not require manufacturer drivers.
Does anyone know of a suitable card?
Going forward I will need to upgrade a total of 24 more identical machines, hopefully this upcoming summer, to support Mojave (school environment). Therefore price is going to be the major concern, but it would also be highly beneficial to find a card that "just works", so that during setup, troubleshooting, etc. I can easily work on these machines without swapping video cards. Ideally this would be something that does not require manufacturer drivers.
Does anyone know of a suitable card?
eVGA GTX 680, even the PC versions can be flashed, by yourself, to Mac Edition firmware.
[doublepost=1555524516][/doublepost]Step-by-Step Instructions for Flashing GTX680
if you can live without boot screens
then the cheapest OOB hassle free card would be a Radeon RX 560
followed by a GeForce GT 710
Why does a school environment need Mac Pros? I would replace them with Mac minis and keep a couple eGPUs on hand when you need extra graphics power.
Are you buying 24 minis and “a couple of eGPUs” for his school?
The school board could work out a discount with Apple and with the sale of the MPs it would probably work out pretty even. The power savings over the long term would be icing on the cake.
[doublepost=1555529718][/doublepost]Also, a separate, but related point is that if anyone is planning to sell their MP, I think now would be the time to do it before WWDC. If the 7,1 is anything close to what people want I think the older models will experience a sharp drop in value especially if Apple announces 10.15 won’t support the 5,1.
Are you even allowed to purchase USED equipment or hack/modify used equipment to make it work for this purpose? Some states/local have laws restricting this type of electronic modification when being used in school environment. Donations are often put to use in restricted settings or mandated they be wiped, sometimes with data/storage physically replaced. Seeking 20+ older GPUs on the used/second hand market to flash is going to be a task with little return/benefit, let alone long-term reliability. Extremely difficult to even find one brand new GTX 680 (guessing impossible to find 20+ these days).
APPLE recommends Sapphire Pulse RX 580 8GB GPUs in the MacPro5,1. Have a hard time seeing any IT folks, especially in a school environment, NOT abiding by that recommendation. It is easy justification and documentation.
Sapphire Pulse RX 580 8GB is currently at $200/unit on Amazon and B&H, but has dipped below that in the past few months. If you're on a contract with a vendor or supplier, make them match that price or beat it.
25 (24, actually, come to think of it) were donated to the school by a college a couple summers back. They are absolutely fantastic 8-core machines with plenty of memory. I built a dirt-cheap BYO fusion drive in every one of them. The financial realities of many districts and schools don't allow whole-sale replacement of many units in a year. That donation of MacPros allowed us to replace 2006-model iMacs, that the school was still using up to that point! Getting 24 Minis is so, so, so far beyond our financial realities that it's not even funny.
These Pros should last the school many, many years into the future, and will probably be force-retired by asshats at Apple due to software incompatibilities long before their hardware actually fails. They are vast overkill for our needs, do doubt. But they were free. However, if you are offering to donate those Minis and eGPUs I'm all ears!
[doublepost=1555590945][/doublepost]
Hmmm. That's not too bad for those cards 580 cards. I didn't realize they had dropped that far. I guess if I could live with no boot screen that's within the realm of possibility. (I agree that it would be good to go with something directly supported by Apple, that would be ideal of course. But still hoping there is something reasonably priced that gets a boot screen).
[doublepost=1555591419][/doublepost]
OK, so I'm seeing the Radeon RX 560 at right around the $99 range. That's really the kind of price-point I was hoping for. Do we know that card works well? I see it is on Apple's "might work" list. EDIT: Oh, wait, I see at least one model is on their supported list. I did not know that. A good sign. Thanks for the heads-up on that!
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https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208898
These specific third-party graphics cards are Metal-capable and compatible with macOS Mojave on Mac Pro (Mid 2010) and Mac Pro (Mid 2012):
- MSI Gaming Radeon RX 560 128-bit 4GB GDRR5
- SAPPHIRE Radeon PULSE RX 580 8GB GDDR5
- SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition
- NVIDIA Quadro K5000 for Mac
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition
GTX 680 Mac Edition was last sold as new in 2013, sketchy at best to know if you're getting an authentic EVGA model or not, and prices anywhere from $200-800+/unit from 3rd party resellers. The 7950 Mac Edition was also sold around this time and rare to find on sale anywhere as new these days, but have seen (insane) prices over $500/unit recently from resellers. K5000 even used is likely well out of your price range for school budgets. Could never recommend a school paying this kind of money for this old, outdated tech.
You can find recommended RX560's for about $30-50 cheaper than RX580's, however I would caution against buying those. You will see reports of them working in MP5,1 on this forum and elsewhere... and they currently do. However, there are HDCP restrictions in place for eGPU implementations of RX560 (with MBP/iMac/Mini) that could trickle down to issues with these GPUs in the longterm when used via PCIe. Not guarantee it will happen, but there is a chance. If you're hoping to just setup and leave for the next 5+ years, the RX580 should be a better investment for very little overall price difference. Just make sure you pickup dual mini 6-pin to standard 8-pin power cables for each of the GPUs.
Good point. If I can save $100 a card, it might be worth it, but not if I'm only saving $50 a card.
GT-640 single slot, 2 DVI 1 mini HDMI (35$ on ebay unflashed and 129 flashed). You can get GT-740 too they are the same footprint some are 4GB as long as it is Kepler.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-GeFor...593098?hash=item3fb9d39dca:g:~8IAAOSwze5b0NPX
[doublepost=1555606320][/doublepost]GT-640 single slot, 2 DVI 1 mini HDMI (35$ on ebay unflashed and 129 flashed). You can get GT-740 too they are the same footprint some are 4GB as long as it is Kepler.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-GeFor...593098?hash=item3fb9d39dca:g:~8IAAOSwze5b0NPX
https://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-GeFor...593098?hash=item3fb9d39dca:g:~8IAAOSwze5b0NPX
[doublepost=1555606320][/doublepost]GT-640 single slot, 2 DVI 1 mini HDMI (35$ on ebay unflashed and 129 flashed). You can get GT-740 too they are the same footprint some are 4GB as long as it is Kepler.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/EVGA-GeFor...593098?hash=item3fb9d39dca:g:~8IAAOSwze5b0NPX
Interesting. I don't really have a problem with flashing (had to do that repeatedly to wedge good cards into my old, personal, MP 1,1). Overall I would prefer plug-and-play of course.
Any chance there a good set of instructions specific to that card, like there is for GTX-680 mentioned above?
Check the specs on those RX 560s, though: when I've seen them at $100 it's always been the version with 2GB of VRAM, which I think will not work with Mojave. I have a 4GB RX 560, it's been great right out of the box, by the way, but I paid something like $144 for it recently.
GT640/GT740 Mac EFI firmware are not public and need bigger SPI flashes to be installed. It's not a flash yourself GPU.
Also, to counter bsbeamer's point about RX 560 HDCP compatibility, note that some of the recently released 2019 iMac models have an RX 560 in them, which should encourage support from Apple going forward.
OK, thanks. That's all been very helpful. That gives me some very good starting points to get going forward with. The $99 cards are indeed 2GB cards - but Mojave definitely runs on machine with 2GB of dedicated VRAM. Purchase won't happen until sometime in July, but maybe I can beg and grovel sufficiently to get a single one of those $99 units to test sooner than that. If that works well it seems like it might be a good solution (unless the 580s drop far enough by summer).
I'll add, I tested some NVIDIA stuff in Mojave with the GTX 680 2GB a few weeks ago and it straight up feels slow compared to the RX580 8GB. Mojave's Metal requirement is because the OS uses the GPU for several of the UI elements. It will "work" but don't skimp, especially when the prices are less than $40/machine difference.
Here is the posting where tsialex cautioned against 2GB cards:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-pre-purchase-questions.2171817/#post-27153369
That's all I know about it, but perhaps tsialex can expand upon this. Or maybe what he really meant was "technically it can work, but it will be dog slow and you won't like it."
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-pre-purchase-questions.2171817/#post-27153369
That's all I know about it, but perhaps tsialex can expand upon this. Or maybe what he really meant was "technically it can work, but it will be dog slow and you won't like it."
RX 550/560/570 with 4GB of VRAM generally work, lot's of reported working ones here, while just one Sapphire RX 560 2GB confirmed working (@Mackata has one) and no RX 550 2GB ever reported working with a Mac Pro.Here is the posting where tsialex cautioned against 2GB cards:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mac-pro-5-1-pre-purchase-questions.2171817/#post-27153369
That's all I know about it, but perhaps tsialex can expand upon this. Or maybe what he really meant was "technically it can work, but it will be dog slow and you won't like it."
Thanks again. And that's a good point above about the mini having the 560 being a good sign.
I'm also starting to see 560 cards with 4gb of ram going for sub $130. One advantage I'm seeing is that many of the 560 cards don't require a power-cable. In the end this is probably going to come down to pricing when I actually go to place the order (across that many machines, it adds up very quickly). Realistically, if I can verify the 560s work well, and I can save even $70 per machine, that's right around enough savings to pay for two entire base-level MacBook Airs we can add to our pool of laptops (Apple still sells the non-retina version for the edu market, thank goodness). I know it seems crazy to penny-pinch like that, but it's reality. Heck, we ran the entire school on purely SOHO level networking equipment for, a good 10 years before we could finally invest in a fantastic set of Ubiquiti equipment (thanks to suggestions from people on the forums here.)