Came here to see if anyone had installed the new OSX beta - fingers crossed you see some improvement. I suspect there are a few of us watching.Awesome; well if you're going to that length let me knowI want to keep this card & system (bought it with a new Mac Pro) but I've got a limited timeframe for the return/exchange window. I'd rather not, as it's at the right price point and the newer architecture is nice to have for video encoding/decoding and DSC running my dual XDR's but ... perhaps with this setup I should be running the 32GB Vega II anyhow? Ugh ... thousands more on this thing *face palm*. Absolutely awesome system overall though.
I can't imagine Apple would just leave the system in this state though.
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MP 7,1 W5700X Release
- Thread starter darkmatter343
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Honestly, I can't imagine the Vega II is terribly useful unless you already know you need it. And even then, if you weren't using the XDRs, then I'd probably just grab a WX 8200 instead, if the Navi cards are out of the picture.
No, but it's more a question of "how long".
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BTW, I hit the perf problems immediately after booting up the machine with the W5700X installed. I don't even bother with the OpenGL/OpenCL tests. When I'm working with the GPU in code, I'm on Metal, and the apps I use have pretty much all migrated as well.
MetalBench was showing an average of 600Mrays/sec. To give you an idea, an iMac with a M295X in it gets 1100Mrays/sec. Yeesh.
Affinity Photo felt a lot like using it on the Mac Mini's iGPU. Usable, but chugs on larger projects and can't keep up with my monitor's high refresh rate (although that's a minor issue).
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So far, some differences I noticed on Beta 3:
GB5: Reliably shows ~70000 as the benchmark after multiple runs.
MetalBench: ~4000Mrays/sec on average after running it for many minutes while typing up this post.
MacPro Fans: In the crippled state, the card never gets hot enough to spin up the Mac Pro fans above their base speed. But in this case, MetalBench was able to get the fans to spin up after a couple minutes. About as loud as the Mac Mini, but with a lower tone.
Affinity Photo Large Projects: These are my go-to tests to see how Affinity Photo is impacted by the GPU. Much improved and makes my Vega 56 eGPU setup feel slow. Good. This is what it's supposed to be doing. Although there are some specific cases where the 12-core CPU can actually hold its own against the W5700X due to PCIe latency for compute. Interesting.
Although the thing that shows how even this is a bit overkill is that my smaller Affinity Photo projects that don't use a lot of masking can easily keep up with a 120Hz refresh rate that my monitor supports when positioning layers/etc without breaking a sweat on the canvas. Even my big projects with masking get up in the 80+Hz range. Good.
Keep in mind this is preliminary, I need to keep an eye on it for a bit. But at least so far this is more along the lines of what I paid for.
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Awesome Krevnik ... thanks for testing that. I'm sure by release of the update, things will be looking much better.
That's looking positive to me.
Also as far as the Vega II or as you mentioned the WX8200 - I'll only ever install the Apple MPX modules in this machine. Don't have any desire to stray elsewhere for several reasons. I'd pay the extra money for stability and peace of mind with the Vega II if needed. I do every once in a while, tax the GPU with video rendering and *gasp* the odd RTS or two so it wouldn't completely go to waste haha
The W5700X really is the sweet spot for me though. I'm counting on the 10.15.5 being the full-ticket. Mine has stabilized on the limited testing I've done in a previous post; I should boot up Affinity Photo with a large project and check now as well as try out metal bench.
Edit: didn't run MetalBench, but I did do a test in Affinity Photo with the largest PSD/afphoto file I have anyhow at just over 200MB in size. Seemed nice and smooth without the major lag I felt before re-installing. Hmmm
Maybe the 10.15.4 patch release was botched a bit?
That's looking positive to me.
Also as far as the Vega II or as you mentioned the WX8200 - I'll only ever install the Apple MPX modules in this machine. Don't have any desire to stray elsewhere for several reasons. I'd pay the extra money for stability and peace of mind with the Vega II if needed. I do every once in a while, tax the GPU with video rendering and *gasp* the odd RTS or two so it wouldn't completely go to waste
hahaThe W5700X really is the sweet spot for me though. I'm counting on the 10.15.5 being the full-ticket. Mine has stabilized on the limited testing I've done in a previous post; I should boot up Affinity Photo with a large project and check now as well as try out metal bench.
Edit: didn't run MetalBench, but I did do a test in Affinity Photo with the largest PSD/afphoto file I have anyhow at just over 200MB in size. Seemed nice and smooth without the major lag I felt before re-installing. Hmmm
Maybe the 10.15.4 patch release was botched a bit?
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What’s interesting is that I saw the same firmware update message on 10.15.4. I don’t have any Thunderbolt displays. I wonder if it was maybe firmware on the TB3 controllers themselves in the W5700X?
But generally this sort of thing shouldn’t be the problem, and folks have reported reboots helping temporarily.
We will see, fingers crossed.
That said, this was the first time I’ve heard my Mac Pro fans since the start of March.
and *gasp* the odd RTS or two so it wouldn't completely go to waste
I have a Mini ITX gaming PC I built last summer for that. So I mostly just want a good workstation card that will last a good long while.
Talking to myself: Reinstalling 10.15.4 via the Combo Update seems to have fixed this for me.
Strange behavior of W5700X in macOS 10.15.4. continuous:
Geekbench 5 Metal approx 70.000 (ok) -> after wake up from sleep (over night) Geekbench 5 Metal down to approx 20.000 and in Unigine Valley only <10fps. After re-boot back to full performance.
I re-installed 10.15.4. Supplemental Update. Initially performance ok like expected. After sleep Geekbench 5 Metal down to 45.000. Now in addition LG 5k does not wake-up with Mac when connected with W5700X. Wake up of monitor works only when connected via TB3 port on I/O card
Hopefully macOS 10.15.5. will arrive during 14 days return window...
Geekbench 5 Metal approx 70.000 (ok) -> after wake up from sleep (over night) Geekbench 5 Metal down to approx 20.000 and in Unigine Valley only <10fps. After re-boot back to full performance.
I re-installed 10.15.4. Supplemental Update. Initially performance ok like expected. After sleep Geekbench 5 Metal down to 45.000. Now in addition LG 5k does not wake-up with Mac when connected with W5700X. Wake up of monitor works only when connected via TB3 port on I/O card
Hopefully macOS 10.15.5. will arrive during 14 days return window...
I've let my Mac Pro sleep a couple times now, including overnight. Still getting 70k from GB, and 4000M rays/sec from Metal Bench. No other slowdowns noticed at this point.
Fingers still crossed.
Fingers still crossed.
So it seems that 10.15.5 will actually fix the problems with the card and hopefully it will just get better and better.
Do you use FCPX? can you verify if the exports of 10 bit H.265 has improved in the beta or still takes a lot of time. Greetings!
mine came today. I plugged it straight in, as I'm mid project. and instantly noticed a lot of sticking, doing simple things. Like there is a bottle neck somewhere. It's odd. A lot of hangs, mouse missing in Adobe, but I think that's also a systemwide thing. Not spotted any drastic performance hits, or gains as of yet.
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did you fix this: I have the exact issue. I've hit restart. and Nothing at all happens.
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Sorry, no. I mostly use do CAD and Photography, and don't have a FCPX license.
The macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Combo Update is a downloadable update for any version of 10.15 prior to 10.15.4 that includes all the updates from 10.15.1 to 10.15.3.
Manuals, Specs, and Downloads - Apple Support
Manuals, technical specifications, downloads, and more for Apple software and hardware
support.apple.com
Download macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Combo Update - Apple Support
macOS Catalina 10.15.4 introduces iCloud Drive folder sharing, Screen Time communications limits, Apple Music time-synced lyrics view, and more. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.
The Thunderbolt Accessory Firmware Update is for the Thunderbolt/USB-C controllers inside the W5700X. Mine updated from 49.04 to 55.02.
You can see the status of the last firmware updater run by running
It appears to set some nvram variables that run an updater EFI executable at the next boot.
You can see the status of the last firmware updater run by running
/usr/libexec/FirmwareUpdateLauncher -r. (Append -v to produce more verbose output.)It appears to set some nvram variables that run an updater EFI executable at the next boot.
After installing this, I experienced several panics. The system became totally unresponsive. Wouldn’t launch anything. In fact I lost power to keyboard and mouse. Eventually it crashed. Wtf. This is not what I expect from installing a 1k gpu.The macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Combo Update is a downloadable update for any version of 10.15 prior to 10.15.4 that includes all the updates from 10.15.1 to 10.15.3.
Manuals, Specs, and Downloads - Apple Support
Manuals, technical specifications, downloads, and more for Apple software and hardwaresupport.apple.comDownload macOS Catalina 10.15.4 Combo Update - Apple Support
macOS Catalina 10.15.4 introduces iCloud Drive folder sharing, Screen Time communications limits, Apple Music time-synced lyrics view, and more. The update also improves the stability, reliability, and security of your Mac.support.apple.com
If only there was a special sarcasm-conveying quote mark, nearly every 7,1 bug, graphical glitch, fan ramp during sleep, needing to plug displays into odd places, needing to unplug all cables to open case, non-locking wheels, clueless post-purchase support etc could be addressed with just...
"Professional Workstation"
Degradation of W5700X graphics performance continued after reinstall of 10.15.4 Supplemental Update. After wake-up from sleep GeekBench Metal continuous to fall from ~70.000 to ~20.000, and to ~14.000 after multiple runs, Unigini Valley falls to below 10 FPS, and even FCP caused a cold re-boot during export.
Before re-packing the card for sending it back I thought to give @Krevnik's hint a trial. I installed 10.15.5 Public Beta 2. And voila - so far the performance seams to be stabile. GeekBench Metal stays at ~70.000 after multiple runs and after wake-up. Only strange (beta?-)behavior I noticed so far is a crash of the PCI-Card utility in System Information with a GPU related error message.
So far so good. I will keep the card while waiting for 10.15.5. Final. It looks like Apple released the card to early or didn't synchronized hardware and software availability. Not a good sign for a combo advertised as "professional".
Before re-packing the card for sending it back I thought to give @Krevnik's hint a trial. I installed 10.15.5 Public Beta 2. And voila - so far the performance seams to be stabile. GeekBench Metal stays at ~70.000 after multiple runs and after wake-up. Only strange (beta?-)behavior I noticed so far is a crash of the PCI-Card utility in System Information with a GPU related error message.
So far so good. I will keep the card while waiting for 10.15.5. Final. It looks like Apple released the card to early or didn't synchronized hardware and software availability. Not a good sign for a combo advertised as "professional".
I can confirm the crash. I've gone ahead and reported it via the Feedback Assistant tool. Definitely looks like a beta regression.
Glad to know I'm not the only one seeing the better performance on 10.15.5.
Which is weird. Because in my experience , they're usually better at this sort of thing than what happened here with the W5700X.
Just got my W5700X and just for kicks, tried running all three of my XDR's off the ports on the card. It works! All three are seeing 6k resolution.
*Edit*
Here is a picture of the graphics card panel in system report. It appears one of my display is on a lower firmware, not sure if that is an issue.
*Edit*
Here is a picture of the graphics card panel in system report. It appears one of my display is on a lower firmware, not sure if that is an issue.
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Are you able to connect one display to the top and one display to the I/O card and one display to the GPU? I am wondering if the DisplayPort routing is done in pairs (both to a single Thunderbolt controller) or seperately.
Physically, electrically, and RAM wise, you should be able to connect 6 XDR displays but Apple says only 3 are supported so there may be a pixel/bandwidth/DSC limit (Apple said the Vega II only support two XDRs but people have gotten 3 to work at 6K).