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Upgrade Mac pro display card

T

Terrence1828

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 11, 2018
7
0
Hello everyone,help please

I have 2009 Mac pro 4.1 up to 5.1,spec is 3.33Ghz x2 and 1333 ecc 128GB Ram,HD5770 Org.
Mac os on 10.12.6 high sierra
Also looking mojave os update
Use photoshop and final cut pro x (4k)

I would like upgrade my display card,speed up for editing.

Thinking RX580 8G or Vega 56 or 64,
Which band and model is better match on high sierra and mojave?
Some need flash bios?
Which one will be perfect match?

I have study information here,
May be Sapphire PULSE RX580 8G or PULSE Vega 56 is good choice?

They are performance on Final cut pro x brucex is very big difference？

Please leave your comment
Please hare information
Thanks both
 
RX580 Pulse 8gb.
Works out of the box, no drivers needed.
I think with the Vega cards you would need more power from somewhere.
 
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https://support.apple.com/macos/mojave

"Mac Pro models introduced in late 2013, plus mid 2010 or mid 2012 models with recommended Metal-capable graphics processor, including MSI Gaming Radeon RX 560 and Sapphire Radeon PULSE RX 580."

Until more is known about NVIDIA support for 10.14, personally find it hard to recommend people buy anything but one of the two Mojave recommended GPUs right now. Have a NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE 8GB with 10.13.6 and a Sapphire PULSE RX 580 8GB on standby for Mojave.

All you need is a dual mini 6-pin to standard 8-pin power cable, like this one (some cheaper elsewhere):
https://www.moddiy.com/products/App...tandard-PCI%2dE-8%2dPin-Video-Card-Cable.html
 
MarkC426 said:
RX580 Pulse 8gb.
Works out of the box, no drivers needed.
I think with the Vega cards you would need more power from somewhere.
Click to expand...
More power is ok ,actually Rx580 pulse like good choice.
[doublepost=1536691187][/doublepost]
bsbeamer said:
https://support.apple.com/macos/mojave

"Mac Pro models introduced in late 2013, plus mid 2010 or mid 2012 models with recommended Metal-capable graphics processor, including MSI Gaming Radeon RX 560 and Sapphire Radeon PULSE RX 580."

Until more is known about NVIDIA support for 10.14, personally find it hard to recommend people buy anything but one of the two Mojave recommended GPUs right now. Have a NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE 8GB with 10.13.6 and a Sapphire PULSE RX 580 8GB on standby for Mojave.

All you need is a dual mini 6-pin to standard 8-pin power cable, like this one (some cheaper elsewhere):
https://www.moddiy.com/products/Apple-Dual-Mini-PCI%2dE-6%2dPin-to-Standard-PCI%2dE-8%2dPin-Video-Card-Cable.html
Click to expand...
Sure , parts already got it , also i m thinking nvidia 1080 ti or waiting 2080 ti ,if high level ,is vega 56,64 is good for editing choice?and match mac os ,no need web driver.....
What metal ...what opcl
 
Rx580 pulse will beat a 1080 in FCX we have no idea if a 2080TI will ever work on osx so if you can wait then do, think there was a year or so wait for GTX 10xx cards on osx and only 1080Ti/1080/1070 work?

you may also want to update to osx10.13 for the Rx580 as drivers have improved

even the RX560 will be faster than your HD5770, if you do some google looking the RX480/RX580 competes well in apps like davinci resolve.

dont get the RX 580 4GB card go for the 8GB ^^
 
h9826790 said:
More power is OK, but this is far from OK

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...u-macos-support.2083168/page-31#post-26437217
Click to expand...

As with everything recently, I only recommend people take a serious look at the Sapphire PULSE RX 580 8GB right now for 5,1 (or 4,1>5,1) usage until more is known. Yes there are other cards that work, but will they always work? Personally would not look at RX 560 models, but if their budget is tight guess it's worth exploring. Hoping (and expecting) the GTX 1080 (and other non-EFI NVIDIA GPUs) will work with Mojave NVIDIA Web Drivers.

TB1 & TB2 worked with eGPU, then suddenly it was dropped for TB3 only with final release. Nothing is set in stone, unfortunately and this is still in Beta. With a machine this old we're supposed to feel "lucky" it is still supported for Mojave. It's hard to beat an official GPU recommendation for a 2010/2012 machine that just costs $225-250 to upgrade for full compatibility. Almost a drop in the bucket for a $3K+ machine that has years of service time.
 
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I have a Saphire RX580 Pulse 8gb (mine had an overclocked sticker on it) in my MacPro4,1 flashed to a 5,1. So far, under High Sierra, it has worked wonderfully with a few caveats:

  1. I boot into my BootCamp partition using System Preferences -> Startup Disk. Booting back into OS X is another matter, however (since I let the High Sierra installer convert my macOS partition to APFS). I presently have to zap the PRAM which then defaults to booting from my macOS partition. There are other ways to get around this problem.
  2. The DVI connector output pink video on mine (might be a cabling issue). I use the two HDMI connectors anyway, so this wasn't a problem.
  3. As others have reported, the first time I booted up in macOS, the video would stutter / pause every couple seconds. I left the computer running overnight and this went away (hasn't come back).

Regarding flashing the PCI Option ROM on the card in order to get a boot screen (someone please correct me if I have this wrong):
  1. Mac Pros use EFI to boot--not the old PC BIOS. The exception to this is that they can emulate legacy BIOS for booting Windows via BootCamp.
  2. The option ROM which comes on the card contains two firmware images: First, the legacy BIOS image, and second, the UEFI image which exposes the pre-boot capabilities of the card to the rest of the UEFI system via the Graphics Output Protocol (GOP).
  3. The EFI system on the Mac Pro is version 1.10 (in later versions, EFI was renamed to UEFI). It uses Universal Graphic Adapter (UGA) instead of GOP. All the graphics cards which shipped with a Mac Pro used UGA.
  4. Some people had success buying PC graphics cards which only had a legacy BIOS firmware image in the option ROM, appending (you also had to change some signatures and configuration bits) the EFI/UGA image from the corresponding original Mac Pro card, and flashing that back onto the card.
  5. There is no corresponding original Mac Pro graphics hard which matches the Sapphire RX580 Pulse, so no EFI/UGA image exists.
  6. macvidcards.com may have written their own EFI/UGA firmware image from scratch for some cards they flash (I'm not sure about this). So, perhaps they'll write one for the Saphire RX580 Pulse 8gb (just conjecture).
 
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So BootCamp tools to select MacOS doesn't work?
watkipet said:
  1. I boot into my BootCamp partition using System Preferences -> Startup Disk. Booting back into OS X is another matter, however (since I let the High Sierra installer convert my macOS partition to APFS). I presently have to zap the PRAM which then defaults to booting from my macOS partition. There are other ways to get around this problem.
Click to expand...
 
So , thst mean get sapphire pulse RX580 is good choice in mac pro ,at this moment.
because os 10.13.6 system already have driver ,boot screen have apple Logo and can go boot menu.no need flash display card bios.Other brand even can use,but bios will be not match.
 
saulinpa said:
So BootCamp tools to select MacOS doesn't work?
Click to expand...

Correct. As I understand this, it's because BootCamp doesn't have an APFS driver (it does have an HFS+ driver). I'm not exactly sure why this matters--but I'm still learning more about that.

Another way around this is to make a basic High Sierra installation on a thumb-drive or another partition. You'll be able to select that one from Windows--then from there you can boot into your regular macOS APFS partition.
[doublepost=1536782932][/doublepost]
Terrence1828 said:
So , thst mean get sapphire pulse RX580 is good choice in mac pro ,at this moment.
because os 10.13.6 system already have driver ,boot screen have apple Logo and can go boot menu.no need flash display card bios.Other brand even can use,but bios will be not match.
Click to expand...

That's all correct except that you won't have a boot screen with the Apple Logo (or File Vault or the ability to pick the startup partition from the boot screen).
 
I own a Mac Pro 1,1 2006. I just bought a Radeon Sapphire Toxic HD5850 2GB Graphic card. I'm waiting for the power cables to arrive by mail. I'm just wondering if anyone can tell me if this card is compatible with a Mac Pro 1,1? Has anyone found this to work on there 1,1 if so please let me know. If it doesn't work on my computer I should have no problem selling it on eBay.
 
Terrence1828 said:
So , thst mean get sapphire pulse RX580 is good choice in mac pro ,at this moment.
because os 10.13.6 system already have driver ,boot screen have apple Logo and can go boot menu.no need flash display card bios.Other brand even can use,but bios will be not match.
Click to expand...

Hi, Just installed a RX580 in my MP 3.33x6 32Go High Sierra, and I am disappointed by the performance, I cut a lot in FCPX in HD, and honestly I don't see much difference with my old 5870. I was expecting much more flawless speed execution. May be rendering is a bit faster, but not a game changer as I was expecting... All this for this !
 
carambo said:
Hi, Just installed a RX580 in my MP 3.33x6 32Go High Sierra, and I am disappointed by the performance, I cut a lot in FCPX in HD, and honestly I don't see much difference with my old 5870. I was expecting much more flawless speed execution. May be rendering is a bit faster, but not a game changer as I was expecting... All this for this !
Click to expand...

Were you editing ProRes, or H264?
 
Just install an NVMe SSD, you don't need to consider anything else for an upgrade.
 
carambo said:
Sure, did you experience the same coming from the 5870 ?
Click to expand...

I upgrade from 4870 -> 7950 -> RX580.

Each step can feel the performance difference.

Of course, only when it's GPU limiting (e.g. export won't make any difference due to CPU limiting). I but do quite a bit 4K editing, plus occasionally use some demanding functions (e.g. optical flow), may be that's why I can notice the difference.
 
I agree Sapphire Pulse RX 580 is the best choice right now. Pulse RX Vega 56 is also a good choice if you are able to power it properly, but note that Apple is not officially supporting it in the Mac Pro. It works well though. I would still buy it over the RX 580 if given the choice since it's much faster, especially since you can get one for $399.99.
 
h9826790 said:
I upgrade from 4870 -> 7950 -> RX580.

Each step can feel the performance difference.

Of course, only when it's GPU limiting (e.g. export won't make any difference due to CPU limiting). I but do quite a bit 4K editing, plus occasionally use some demanding functions (e.g. optical flow), may be that's why I can notice the difference.
Click to expand...

Hi there! Are you able to edit 4k footage in FCPX with your RX580 smoothly? I have a MacPro5,1 at home and at work. At home I still have the 5770 card that came with the machine, while at work I have a 7950. Neither are able to edit 4k footage smoothly from my iPhone XS without converting to proxy footage. The 7950 will play about the first second smoothly, then it's all like 12fps looking nonsense from there on out. Both MacPro5,1 machines have separate SSD RAIDs and HD RAIDs for boot/user data and I notice the bitrate of these 4k files is only 12MB/s so I don't think more disk speed will help me... although I'm going to do that too to speed up my Lightroom stuff.
 
RaoulDuke42 said:
Hi there! Are you able to edit 4k footage in FCPX with your RX580 smoothly? I have a MacPro5,1 at home and at work. At home I still have the 5770 card that came with the machine, while at work I have a 7950. Neither are able to edit 4k footage smoothly from my iPhone XS without converting to proxy footage. The 7950 will play about the first second smoothly, then it's all like 12fps looking nonsense from there on out. Both MacPro5,1 machines have separate SSD RAIDs and HD RAIDs for boot/user data and I notice the bitrate of these 4k files is only 12MB/s so I don't think more disk speed will help me... although I'm going to do that too to speed up my Lightroom stuff.
Click to expand...

There is no HEVC hardware decode for cMP (RX580 have it, but Apple didn't activate that for us. It's intentional, I've confirmed that from Apple staff via bug reports). So, upgrade to RX580 won't help, because the decoding part still perform by CPU.
 
h9826790 said:
There is no HEVC hardware decode for cMP (RX580 have it, but Apple didn't activate that for us. It's intentional, I've confirmed that from Apple staff via bug reports). So, upgrade to RX580 won't help, because the decoding part still perform by CPU.
Click to expand...

Well boy howdy doesn't that ever suck! Thanks for the info though!
 
h9826790 said:
There is no HEVC hardware decode for cMP (RX580 have it, but Apple didn't activate that for us. It's intentional, I've confirmed that from Apple staff via bug reports). So, upgrade to RX580 won't help, because the decoding part still perform by CPU.
Click to expand...
Yes, but also the h264 is slow. I have a maxed out 4.1 ->5.1 with rx580 and when I edit 4k some fotage is fine but some eg. from a DJI drone with higher bit rate, wont play smoothly and FCPX has to render it before any playback.
 
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