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Super interesting RX580 Variant! Less Power More Performance!!!!

calmasacow

calmasacow

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 13, 2012
53
8
Houston, TX
so I recently got this DELL OEM RX580 card "See discussion HERE" I I had read that this card was Modded by Dell to operate on reduced power as to reduce the chance of problems and RMA requests. Most of the information I cam across led me to believe that it was a 160watt card so I was still very concerned about it. I had in it in my MacPro 5,1 but I didn't want to really push it until I was sure about the power usage as I had already blown a board because of this before.

I put the card in a windows Machine and pulled up the Bios Editor and low and behold what did I see?

screenshot-2018-10-07-23-27-41-copy-png.793050


Can this be??? and RX580 that uses 110 Watt max???

ok so now I know it is safe. So I decided to put it back in the MacPro and then do some benchmarks. I thought well if it is running on reduced power this probably means reduced performance right? Well, as it turns out not exactly! Ok before we get started in OSX this card is shown as a Radeon RX480 8GB. from everything I have read this has something to do with the Device ID of the cards being the same. this is a known thing. Annoying but known. If anyone knows how to correct this and make it show RX580 I would love to know how.

so if you look in the Geekbench browser and lookup the the score you will find:

A standard RX580 Series score is: 128239

and the DELL Reduced power RX580 card: 131408

Very interesting. But perhaps an anomaly. So let's try something else. LuxMark Perhaps.

I found a few MacPro RX580 Luxmark scores online and average was about 12611

the DELL Reduced Power RX580 card score: 14047!!!

What is going on here? does reducing the power perhaps slow the car speed? I know that in a lot of the benchmarks I saw the typical RX580 reports GPU, 36, 1380 MHz

the Dell reduced power card card reports GPU, 36, 300MHz! that is a very drastic reduction. But somehow it has resulted in a higher score on the benchmark!

so what about FPS in 3D applications I found a reference for Engine Heaven

where the STANDARD RX580 shows as R9 XXX (8192MB)

and produces a FPS of 55.8 and a score of 1406

min 11.4 and a max 97.4 in Windowed 1080p with 2xAA and Tessellation disabled.

I don't know what the desktop resolution was for this

My desktop resolution is 4K

So the Dell Low Powered RX580 shows up as Radeon RX480 (256MB) wtf???? but anyway

in Windowed 1080p with 2xAA and Tessellation disabled mode I get :

FPS: 55.6
Score: 1400
Min: 10.8
Max: 99.2

Very interesting. Almost identical for a lot less power draw!

and it gets better!

if I put it into fullscreen mode the score Jumps up!

FPS: 62.6
Score: 1577
Min: 27.0
Max: 117.3

BTW I got the card for $180 and free shipping on eBay!
 
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Sounds like a bum deal to me.
With all the anomalies and miss reading of the card specs, I think you will be looking at problems from apps/mac os.
Can’t remember the last gpu for macpro that was 256mb. Some apps me refuse to work if they need say 1gb gpu.
In your system report does it say metal supported?
If not Mojave will not work.

Edit: apologies, have just read your other post and see you are on mojave!
That card looks like an rx480, afaik all 580’s have 8 pin.
 
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calmasacow said:
so I recently got this DELL OEM RX580 card "See discussion HERE" I I had read that this card was Modded by Dell to operate on reduced power as to reduce the chance of problems and RMA requests. Most of the information I cam across led me to believe that it was a 160watt card so I was still very concerned about it. I had in it in my MacPro 5,1 but I didn't want to really push it until I was sure about the power usage as I had already blown a board because of this before.

I put the card in a windows Machine and pulled up the Bios Editor and low and behold what did I see?

screenshot-2018-10-07-23-27-41-copy-png.793050


Can this be??? and RX580 that uses 110 Watt max???

ok so now I know it is safe. So I decided to put it back in the MacPro and then do some benchmarks. I thought well if it is running on reduced power this probably means reduced performance right? Well, as it turns out not exactly! Ok before we get started in OSX this card is shown as a Radeon RX480 8GB. from everything I have read this has something to do with the Device ID of the cards being the same. this is a known thing. Annoying but known. If anyone knows how to correct this and make it show RX580 I would love to know how.

so if you look in the Geekbench browser and lookup the the score you will find:

A standard RX580 Series score is: 128239

and the DELL Reduced power RX580 card: 131408

Very interesting. But perhaps an anomaly. So let's try something else. LuxMark Perhaps.

I found a few MacPro RX580 Luxmark scores online and average was about 12611

the DELL Reduced Power RX580 card score: 14047!!!

What is going on here? does reducing the power perhaps slow the car speed? I know that in a lot of the benchmarks I saw the typical RX580 reports GPU, 36, 1380 MHz

the Dell reduced power card card reports GPU, 36, 300MHz! that is a very drastic reduction. But somehow it has resulted in a higher score on the benchmark!

so what about FPS in 3D applications I found a reference for Engine Heaven

where the STANDARD RX580 shows as R9 XXX (8192MB)

and produces a FPS of 55.8 and a score of 1406

min 11.4 and a max 97.4 in Windowed 1080p with 2xAA and Tessellation disabled.

I don't know what the desktop resolution was for this

My desktop resolution is 4K

So the Dell Low Powered RX580 shows up as Radeon RX480 (256MB) wtf???? but anyway

in Windowed 1080p with 2xAA and Tessellation disabled mode I get :

FPS: 55.6
Score: 1400
Min: 10.8
Max: 99.2

Very interesting. Almost identical for a lot less power draw!

and it gets better!

if I put it into fullscreen mode the score Jumps up!

FPS: 62.6
Score: 1577
Min: 27.0
Max: 117.3

BTW I got the card for $180 and free shipping on eBay!
Click to expand...

I got this card. It is actually a rebranded RX-480. It will show up as RX-480 in OSX. In Windows GPU-Z shows it as RX-580. I played with the part number in the rom to make it show as RX-580 in OSX and attach orinoco framebuffer which it does. The problem is in Windows the driver fails to load. PM me I can send you the the modified ROM so you can test it. The thing is showing as RX-580 I beleive is purely cosmetic. Anyway due to the power limit it looks like it is hard to get it negotiate at 5GT/s. Actually I am trying to get and flash it with a proper GOP firmware from AMD so I can get a boot screen with DUET or Next Loader.
 
startergo said:
I got this card. It is actually a rebranded RX-480. It will show up as RX-480 in OSX. In Windows GPU-Z shows it as RX-580. I played with the part number in the rom to make it show as RX-580 in OSX and attach orinoco framebuffer which it does. The problem is in Windows the driver fails to load. PM me I can send you the the modified ROM so you can test it. The thing is showing as RX-580 I beleive is purely cosmetic. Anyway due to the power limit it looks like it is hard to get it negotiate at 5GT/s. Actually I am trying to get and flash it with a proper GOP firmware from AMD so I can get a boot screen with DUET or Next Loader.
Click to expand...

what is teh advantage of having the orinoco framebuffer? Also does modding the rom make HDMI audio work?
 
calmasacow said:
what is teh advantage of having the orinoco framebuffer? Also does modding the rom make HDMI audio work?
Click to expand...

Radeon RX 580:
Name: ATY,Orinoco
Type: Display Controller
Driver Installed: Yes
MSI: Yes
Bus: PCI
Slot: Slot-1
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x67df
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1028
Subsystem ID: 0x1701
Revision ID: 0x00c7
Link Width: x8
Link Speed: 5.0 GT/s

One thing I noticed is it gave me 5.0 GT/s (versus my old 2.5 as RX-480), but but but Link Width dropped to 8 (from 16).

As far as the HDMI audio goes both as RX-480 or RX-580 it is detected:

pci1002,aaf0:
Type: Audio Device
Driver Installed: No
MSI: No
Bus: PCI
Slot: Slot-1
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0xaaf0
Subsystem Vendor ID: 0x1028
Subsystem ID: 0xaaf0
Revision ID: 0x0000
Link Width: x8
Link Speed: 5.0 GT/s

I have no way of testing it though. The rom is attached. You can test it if you like. What are your readings right now in system profiler under PCI?
 

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HDMI Audio is detected but no driver is installed for it. Same situation as always. The framebuffer has no bearing on that.
 
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110W (Powertune) + 30% (Powerplay) = 143W

This is the real power limit (and power draw in macOS) of the card. So, with a little bit buffer, this is a 150W card, not really 110W. And AFAIK, this is actually the reference RX480 with the RX580 firmware. As you said, this card even ident itself as RX480 in macOS.

And no, its not faster than normal RX580. Anyway, I make a post about some RX580 study result.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sapphire-pulse-rx580-8gb-vbios-study.2133607/

When the card downclock a bit. It may draw way less power with a "good" voltage pointer in the ROM.

I bet what Dell did to the card is basically what I did to my Sapphire PULSE RX580 8GB.

That 300MHz is a bug in the latest macOS. Which only shows the card's idle clock speed.
10.14 PB5.png
 
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it's a good card be happy, RX 580's are just RX 480's with a new bios so win.

the only real change with most the RX580 was better power delivery systems and bigger coolers, higher cloocks at the cost of massive power use.

iv set my RX 580 to 1300mhz and im relay happy, less power used = fans stay super silent under load and it's relay fast compared to my old card (GTX 770 4GB)
when editing video in resolve it's much much faster and in windows i can play games with max settings at 1080p :D
 
So does anyone know simple way to get the HDMI audio working on this thing? I have only found pointers to hackentosh driver threads that are frankly an effing mess. that said I am super happy with this card. it has been working pretty damn good. Performance in Fortnite sucks but I think that has more to do with unreal engine performance on Mac. I'm not the only on that appears to have the issue of it being horrible performance for about the first 3-4 minutes after lunching the game. but then it levels out and is playable even if it is at lower settings. what is funny is I have see videos for the new MacBook Pro and they say oh you can even play games. and they show someone playing fortnite with what is at least 1080p and medium or better settings and it is smooth as butter. Wich is total ******** I have that MacBook and the performance is ******* in fornite. honestly it is about the same as my 5,1 macPro with this card.
 
I def have had HDMI audio working on my RX580 using the "HDMIAudio" kext that is here on MacRumors. Just search for that thread, it has clear instructions on how to add the kext/extension, as well to remove it if needed. It is also listed in the cMP upgrade guide. It's unsigned so I have had to do it multiple times since switching into different boot volumes seems to disable it, which sounds like that is normal behavior of an unsigned kext/extension
 
skizzo said:
I def have had HDMI audio working on my RX580 using the "HDMIAudio" kext that is here on MacRumors. Just search for that thread, it has clear instructions on how to add the kext/extension, as well to remove it if needed. It is also listed in the cMP upgrade guide. It's unsigned so I have had to do it multiple times since switching into different boot volumes seems to disable it, which sounds like that is normal behavior of an unsigned kext/extension
Click to expand...

There is a 100% working way on my cMP.

1) Keep SIP disabled

2) Install HDMIAudio kext V1.1

3) patch the Apple AppleHDAController.kext (post #677), you MUST replace the Hex with the ID that associated with your GPU. e.g. for my RX580 which is 02 10 f0 aa

4) find the port that can deliver audio (post #748)
 
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h9826790 said:
There is a 100% working way on my cMP.

1) Install HDMIAudio kext V1.1

2) disable SIP

3) patch the Apple AppleHDAController.kext (post #677), you MUST replace the Hex with the ID that associated with your GPU. e.g. for my RX580 which is 02 10 f0 aa

4) find the port that can deliver audio (post #748)
Click to expand...


Wait Do I have to run with SIP "OFF" or can I turn it back on once I get it working?

I had seen that thread but it sounded like it was loaded with problems where people were having to reinstall it all the time.
[doublepost=1539224441][/doublepost]So I have a Pulse on the way. the one in the images attached. is it safe to run one of these with the Y cable? dual mini 6 pin to full size 8 pin? is anything else required?
 

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calmasacow said:
Wait Do I have to run with SIP "OFF" or can I turn it back on once I get it working?

I had seen that thread but it sounded like it was loaded with problems where people were having to reinstall it all the time.
[doublepost=1539224441][/doublepost]So I have a Pulse on the way. the one in the images attached. is it safe to run one of these with the Y cable? dual mini 6 pin to full size 8 pin? is anything else required?
Click to expand...

I think it is rated at 225W so 3x75W=225. At extreme loads the card can pull more, but the 6 pin ports can safely deliver 125W each in extreme cases so you should be OK with the current cables setup.
 
calmasacow said:
Wait Do I have to run with SIP "OFF" or can I turn it back on once I get it working?

I had seen that thread but it sounded like it was loaded with problems where people were having to reinstall it all the time.
[doublepost=1539224441][/doublepost]So I have a Pulse on the way. the one in the images attached. is it safe to run one of these with the Y cable? dual mini 6 pin to full size 8 pin? is anything else required?
Click to expand...

SIP have to stay OFF. (Or at least let it load unsigned kext)

That’s the only cable you need to power the card properly.
 
h9826790 said:
There is a 100% working way on my cMP.

1) Keep SIP disabled

2) Install HDMIAudio kext V1.1

3) patch the Apple AppleHDAController.kext (post #677), you MUST replace the Hex with the ID that associated with your GPU. e.g. for my RX580 which is 02 10 f0 aa

4) find the port that can deliver audio (post #748)
Click to expand...

thanks for the tip. however I have never done hex editing and must admit I am a bit intimidated I would edit something I cannot fix or backup properly. Is there a way to preserve the original extension prior to edits so I could revert back to it? (perhaps just as simple as copying the file to another folder and then moving it back if needed?) could you recommend the hex editor program you use to do this? Please note I do not have Windows on my cMP so I would need to do that under OSX. And about which port that delivers HDMI audio. Personally I had it working out of both DP ports, and both HDMI ports when using the HDMIAudio extension. Does this way you are mentioning here only work out of one, or certain ports?
 
You can patch your AppleHDA.kext using this (Contact Mirone for help):
https://github.com/Mirone/AppleHDAPatcher
And then keep it in a safe place should an OSX upgrade overrides it.
Disable SIP
Repair permisions:
sudo diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`
Rebuild caches:
sudo kextcache -i /
 
so after spending some time looking into these methods they are still a bit over my head. it looks like even more advanced users on this forum had a bit of an adventure doing this. appreciate the advice, but I have the feeling I am going to screw something up. for the time being I am still satisfied with installing the HDMIAudio kext when I need to use it
 
ok so I just installed a Sapphire Pulse RX580 and now I'm getting less performance than the Dell low power card. WTF?


Seriously LuxMark went down to 13557 from 14047
 
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