MP 1,1-5,1 What do I really have here?

[Beitie]

Hey everyone,

I'm a little confused on what I really have here. So recently I bought a Mac Pro 5,1 system that has a single Xeon 3.46 GHz CPU. I was told that it had an AMD Radeon GPU, but I'm forgetting what model was listed when I bought it a little over a month ago.

Now I'm sure most of you are thinking, how can this be a question? Why doesn't he just look in the "About This Mac" and figure it out?

Well, to make this story longer, when I first set this up, I was using a LG 27" 4K display, that the Mac would only run in 1080p 30 Hz.

Long story short, I'm now using a 30" Apple Cinema display that is finally running at the 2560 x 1600 pixels.

However, when changing the displays, I'm now getting a totally different readout on my "About This Mac" GPU.

When using the LG 4K display I would get:



Now after getting the Apple Cinema Display, I'm getting:



I'm running the DOSDude1 patched version of Catalina. I'm considering rolling back to High Sierra because I really just don't know what I really have right now, and it kind of feels like there is no hardware acceleration currently.

As for the GPU card, here's some pictures of it:





Any help would be appreciated. I'm great with hardware, and I can make my way around with the software side of things, but I'm still pretty new to all this Mac stuff.

 

[tsialex]

Hey everyone,

I'm a little confused on what I really have here. So recently I bought a Mac Pro 5,1 system that has a single Xeon 3.46 GHz CPU. I was told that it had an AMD Radeon GPU, but I'm forgetting what model was listed when I bought it a little over a month ago.

Now I'm sure most of you are thinking, how can this be a question? Why doesn't he just look in the "About This Mac" and figure it out?

Well, to make this story longer, when I first set this up, I was using a LG 27" 4K display, that the Mac would only run in 1080p 30 Hz.

Long story short, I'm now using a 30" Apple Cinema display that is finally running at the 2560 x 1600 pixels.

However, when changing the displays, I'm now getting a totally different readout on my "About This Mac" GPU.

When using the LG 4K display I would get:



Now after getting the Apple Cinema Display, I'm getting:



I'm running the DOSDude1 patched version of Catalina. I'm considering rolling back to High Sierra because I really just don't know what I really have right now, and it kind of feels like there is no hardware acceleration currently.

As for the GPU card, here's some pictures of it:





Any help would be appreciated. I'm great with hardware, and I can make my way around with the software side of things, but I'm still pretty new to all this Mac stuff.

Don't ever test a Mac with hacked installs, do a clean install of Mojave, be sure that everything is working fine.

If you don't have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0 yet, follow the steps on the first post of this thread to upgrade it:

MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave (BootROM upgrade instructions thread)

Please fully read this first post, you will probably find that you have one or more problems described into the various notes below. Mojave will only install if you have upgraded your BootROM to the current release and your Mac Pro have a Metal capable GPU*. If you are trying to install Mojave...

forums.macrumors.com

Btw, HD 7950/R9 280 and HD 7970/R9 280X are the same GPU, AMD renamed it, the mismatch are caused by dosdude patches.

 

[flowrider]

To the OP - You may want to hide the SN of your machine.

Lou

 

[Beitie]

Don't ever test a Mac with hacked installs, do a clean install of Mojave, be sure that everything is working fine.

If you don't have BootROM 144.0.0.0.0 yet, follow the steps on the first post of this thread to upgrade it:

MP5,1: What you have to do to upgrade to Mojave (BootROM upgrade instructions thread)

Please fully read this first post, you will probably find that you have one or more problems described into the various notes below. Mojave will only install if you have upgraded your BootROM to the current release and your Mac Pro have a Metal capable GPU*. If you are trying to install Mojave...

forums.macrumors.com

Btw, HD 7950/R9 280 and HD 7970/R9 280X are the same GPU, AMD renamed it, the mismatch are caused by dosdude patches.

Thanks for the info. That makes a lot more sense that they are the same. I do have the 144.0.0.0.0 Rom, so I'm good on that. From what I was reading, I can't install Mojave since this card isn't a Metal supported card, is that correct?

To the OP - You may want to hide the SN of your machine.

Lou

Done.

 

[tsialex]

Thanks for the info. That makes a lot more sense that they are the same. I do have the 144.0.0.0.0 Rom, so I'm good on that. From what I was reading, I can't install Mojave since this card isn't a Metal supported card, is that correct?


Done.

AMD cards have METAL support since AMD 7xxx series. Your card is from the first generation of AMD cards, GCN 1.0, that supports METAL.
[automerge]1586016641[/automerge]
Your GPU has the correct info on the back cover label, it's probably a HD 7970/R9 280X.

 

[Snow Tiger]

It's good your Mac's boot ROM version is 144.0.0.0.0 - it's the best firmware for the Nehalem cMPs .

Load a copy of Mojave downloaded from an Apple server - it's officially supported with a fairly recent metal capable GPU , like yours .

It seems as if you have an AMD 7970 - that's a fairly beefy GPU even after all these years and should allow you to install Mojave .

It's best to have an older EFI GPU ( like a factory GT 120 or an ATI 5770 ) on hand just for diagnostics and loading of older macOS versions . You should remove this when done .

Placing a GPU on a carpet might not be such a smart thing to do - ESD concerns here . You could damage your nice graphics card .

 

[Beitie]

Okay, so the GPU card is the R9 280x for sure. I checked the back plate.

I'm pretty sure the previous owner flashed this card to be EFI/mac supported, because before I purchased it, I tested it and saw that the boot screen worked and showed up.

However, now I can not get into the bootscreen at all. Are there specific ports that I need to use for this to work? I'm currently using the Dual DVI-I/D port. Though I have tried all of them.

I've also tried clearing the NVRAM.

Could this also be something to do with running the Catalina Patch?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[tsialex]

Okay, so the GPU card is the R9 280x for sure. I checked the back plate.

I'm pretty sure the previous owner flashed this card to be EFI/mac supported, because before I purchased it, I tested it and saw that the boot screen worked and showed up.

However, now I can not get into the bootscreen at all. Are there specific ports that I need to use for this to work? I'm currently using the Dual DVI-I/D port. Though I have tried all of them.

I've also tried clearing the NVRAM.

Could this also be something to do with running the Catalina Patch?

Any help would be appreciated.

Your monitor is 4K or have a ultra-wide non standard resolution? Sapphire HD 7950 Mac Edition don't support DP1.2 or 4K for pre-boot configuration support, all flashed cards use the same Mac EFI from it. Some flashed cards outputs differ from the personality used by the Mac edition card and some outputs don't work at all.

Test with a standard HD monitor, that don't need dual-DVI output, connected to the first DVI output.

While pre-boot configuration support don't have anything to do with macOS, it happens before loading the SO, don't use patched installs to test a Mac.

 

[Beitie]

Yes, my goal is to get the Native edition of Mojave on the 5,1.

I'm currently using an Apple HD Cinema screen using the DVI port. I've also tired my LG 4K using the HDMI port (this typically boots at 1080 due to the lack of 4K boot support).

I'll have to ask family to try other monitors. I was hoping that the Cinema display would work since it's an Apple period correct product.

 

[tsialex]

Yes, my goal is to get the Native edition of Mojave on the 5,1.

I'm currently using an Apple HD Cinema screen using the DVI port. I've also tired my LG 4K using the HDMI port (this typically boots at 1080 due to the lack of 4K boot support).

I'll have to ask family to try other monitors. I was hoping that the Cinema display would work since it's an Apple period correct product.

A real Sapphire HD 7950 Mac Edition GPU have correct pre-boot configuration support even with the 30" Cinema Display, no problem.

Since you have a flashed card, you can have personality problems.

 

[Beitie]

Is it typical that I can see the Apple progress screen, but not the Bootscreen?

 

[tsialex]

Is it typical that I can see the Apple progress screen, but not the Bootscreen?

If you see only the progress screen after a minute or so, you have a non-Mac EFI GPU that only starts to work after the drivers are loaded.

If you power on and press/hold option and see the Boot Selector, you have a flashed GPU, if not you have a standard PC GPU.

 

[Beitie]

I finally got it all figured out. Somehow I must have hit the BIOS switch on my graphics card. Just to see if that was the issue, I pressed it again and started up the Mac. I was able to get my proper boot screen!

So now I have Mojave installed on my NVMe drive, and things are running good. Thank to tsialex, your help has helped me work through this, and I do appreciate it.