MP 7,1 Will there be another 7,1 graphics card? Or no?

[cobra521]

I'm currently looking at getting a much faster graphics card for my 7,1. I have the base 580X card at the moment. I'm mostly interested in increasing the performance of FCP-X and Resolve for 4K video processing.

My card of choice at the moment is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II MPX.

I know there are a couple of less expensive cards available from Apple now, but the least expensive one isn't really much of a step up, and the next one up (W5700X) seems to have sleep/wake/stability problems.

Is there any realistic possibility that Apple will introduce a new graphics card for this Mac, or would it be more practical for me to bite the bullet and get this one?

Experience? Opinions?

Tom

 

[h9826790]

I'm currently looking at getting a much faster graphics card for my 7,1. I have the base 580X card at the moment. I'm mostly interested in increasing the performance of FCP-X and Resolve for 4K video processing.

My card of choice at the moment is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II MPX.

I know there are a couple of less expensive cards available from Apple now, but the least expensive one isn't really much of a step up, and the next one up (W5700X) seems to have sleep/wake/stability problems.

Is there any realistic possibility that Apple will introduce a new graphics card for this Mac, or would it be more practical for me to bite the bullet and get this one?

Experience? Opinions?

Tom

You can go for many PC cards, both the macOS and the 7,1 are designed to let us use them.

Or there is any special reason that you must use the MPX cards?

 

[cobra521]

h9826790,

I use the Thunderbolt ports in the 580X. Not sure how the sleep/wake/stability would be if I added a PC graphics card. Not interested in doing without the Thunderbolt ports either.

No idea if the video editors would use the PC card if the 580X is still present.

Can you clarify?

Tom

 

[DrEGPU]

The Radeon VII still seems to be holding its own. So much so, they released an slightly updated (at a more than slight price increase) Radeon PRO VII.

 

[casperes1996]

You can go for many PC cards, both the macOS and the 7,1 are designed to let us use them.

Or there is any special reason that you must use the MPX cards?

As a bit of an authority on GPUs within macOS; Do you know if RDNA2 cards are supported yet? Because then the 6900XT is actually the same MSRP as the MPX W5700X

 

[casperes1996]

h9826790,

I use the Thunderbolt ports in the 580X. Not sure how the sleep/wake/stability would be if I added a PC graphics card. Not interested in doing without the Thunderbolt ports either.

No idea if the video editors would use the PC card if the 580X is still present.

Can you clarify?

Tom

What for are you using the Thunderbolt port? Display or other connectivity? If it’s other connectivity an alternative solution, using a “regular” GPU may still provide much better performance at a given price point, and another PCIe slot could be used for an I/O card or the I/O could potentially just be relocated to other ports (maybe with hub or adapters)

 

[cobra521]

casperes1996,

I'm using the Thunderbolt ports for two 4K displays, a CalDigit3 hub and backup ports for iPhone/iPad and Macbook Pro. I occasionally have most of those items connected at the same time.

DrEGPU,

I looked for the Radeon Pro VII but could only find PC cards - not Apple cards. Is that correct?

Tom

 

[casperes1996]

I'm using the Thunderbolt ports for two 4K displays, a CalDigit3 hub and backup ports for iPhone/iPad and Macbook Pro. I occasionally have most of those items connected at the same time.

I would assume the displays are capable of Display Port or HDMI as well, so if you wanted to it'd be possible, but of course that's up to you

I looked for the Radeon Pro VII but could only find PC cards - not Apple cards. Is that correct?

That is correct; The only MPX modules Apple sells are the ones you can pick when configuring a new Mac Pro
If memory serves the Radeon VII is a lower CU count version of the Radeon II Apple sells though.

There were some Rumours at some point about Apple making RDNA2 based MPX modules but none have showed up

 

[cobra521]

"There were some Rumours at some point about Apple making RDNA2 based MPX modules but none have showed up"

That is what I was hoping would still be in the works. It hasn't appeared lately as a speculation, so I'm assuming it is probably not going to happen...

 

[casperes1996]

That is what I was hoping would still be in the works. It hasn't appeared lately as a speculation, so I'm assuming it is probably not going to happen...

I kinda still expect it will once AMD fleshes out the RDNA 2 lineup more and stock becomes less limited, but I don't know

 

[MarkC426]

Based on this article, there is a good chance of new gpu's.

Apple Working on Two New Mac Pro Desktops, One of Which Will Be Reminiscent of Power Mac G4 Cube

Apple is developing two versions of the Mac Pro to succeed the Mac Pro that was first released in December 2019, according to a new report from...

www.macrumors.com

 

[cobra521]

Mark,

Thank you for the link. Fingers crossed for that, but not holding breath...

Tom

 

[SecuritySteve]

I'm currently running an off-the-shelf 5700 XT SE. I have no sleep issues or any other graphical problems. You should not fear using non-Apple cards in the 7,1 as long as macOS supports them.

The 6000 series cards should be supported in an upcoming update to macOS for both 7,1 usage and eGPU usage. Apple and AMD have just been slow to release the driver update for Big Sur.

 

[cobra521]

Steve,

Sounds promising!

Do you still have the original MPX card in the 7,1 so its Thunderbolt ports are still available? Or have you made other changes to somehow replace those Thunderbolt ports?

Tom

 

[SecuritySteve]

Steve,

Sounds promising!

Do you still have the original MPX card in the 7,1 so its Thunderbolt ports are still available? Or have you made other changes to somehow replace those Thunderbolt ports?

Tom

I have the original 580X MPX directly beneath the 5700 XT SE. I'm not using those ports, but they are there. I've often toyed with the idea of using the 580X MPX as an offload-GPU for one of my computationally intensive projects somewhere down the road, but otherwise it sits there unused.

 

[cobra521]

Steve,

That's good. I'd prefer to do that so the Thunderbolt ports can still be usable.

Do you know whether FCP-X and/or Resolve are smart enough to use the 5700 XT instead of the 580 MPX, or whether they can be set to do that?

Tom

 

[casperes1996]

Steve,

That's good. I'd prefer to do that so the Thunderbolt ports can still be usable.

Do you know whether FCP-X and/or Resolve are smart enough to use the 5700 XT instead of the 580 MPX, or whether they can be set to do that?

Tom

DaVinci has GPU selection in its preferences, including picking several GPUs.

Final Cut similarly has a GPU selector and may or may not automatically utilise several GPUs as well depending on the specific setup.
Some tasks will only be performed on the GPU the monitor(s) is attached to

 

[MarkC426]

DaVinci has GPU selection in its preferences, including picking several GPUs.

Note: this is only available in the commercial version. The free version is limited to one gpu.

 

[casperes1996]

Note: this is only available in the commercial version. The free version is limited to one gpu.

Yep, indeed. Just assumed we were talking about the Studio version given we're comparing against Final Cut which is also a paid product, but good to add the information

 

[profdraper]

I'm currently looking at getting a much faster graphics card for my 7,1. I have the base 580X card at the moment. I'm mostly interested in increasing the performance of FCP-X and Resolve for 4K video processing.

My card of choice at the moment is the AMD Radeon Pro Vega II MPX.

I know there are a couple of less expensive cards available from Apple now, but the least expensive one isn't really much of a step up, and the next one up (W5700X) seems to have sleep/wake/stability problems.

Is there any realistic possibility that Apple will introduce a new graphics card for this Mac, or would it be more practical for me to bite the bullet and get this one?

Experience? Opinions?

Tom

Depends on your use & expectations. In my case, editing and rendering 4k film. Needed a Pro Vega DUO to pull it up to comparative or better performance than an RTX 2080Ti on my Win workstation & that gap has widened even further with 3090 etc. A single Pro Vega came nowhere near that. So then the issue is the outrageous price to do so, but there you go with Apple as usual & as wedded to only AMD. Hopefully at some point there may be some good big Navi choices (& in MPX) but is slow in coming. In my view the MPX chassis itself is worthwhile in terms of heat, noise, IO and the rest. Apple Silicon may change all of these factors, but likely another couple of years away I imagine.

 

[Stephen.R]

I have the original 580X MPX directly beneath the 5700 XT SE. I'm not using those ports, but they are there. I've often toyed with the idea of using the 580X MPX as an offload-GPU for one of my computationally intensive projects somewhere down the road, but otherwise it sits there unused.

Sorry to reply to an old comment, but are your display(s) connected directly to the 5700's ports?
I realise a non-MPX 5700 won't route video to the TB3 ports, but it wasn't 100% clear to me if you're using the 5700 primarily for rendering of video files or something similar, but letting the stock 580 drive displays via TB3, or if you're using the DP/HDMI ports directly on the 5700?


I'm (still) considering a 7,1 upgrade from a maxed out 2018 Mini. When first considering it (ages ago) I'd figured the MPX 5700 was the best option, purely because of the additional TB3 ports it would provide. Since then I've added an RX 5700 XT in a Node Titan eGPU case. As my displays are DP anyway, it occurred to me last night I could save a bunch of cash by just having it shipped with the 580x, and then using my existing 5700 to drive my displays directly. When looking for into on this, I saw that one of the Catalina updates added boot support for generic 5700's, but it implied there was a crash-on-wake issue if the factory MPX wasn't removed. It sounds like you don't have this issue? Have you ran it at all without the 580x?

If a generic 5700 works reliably (i.e. boot screen + no crashes on wake), the lack of additional TB3 ports is less likely to be an issue, as I can just move existing TB3 connected SSDs internally on PCIe cards, and run the displays directly from the DP ports on the 5700.

 

[SecuritySteve]

I am using the Display Port directly on my 5700. I haven't removed the 580X ever, and as an update my later plans are for that GPU to run a second and third monitor on the side while the 5700 runs the main display as soon as I can afford the desk space in my new house.

I have never had a crash on wake issue. The card works absolutely flawlessly, no compromises at all.

 

[Stephen.R]

I am using the Display Port directly on my 5700. I haven't removed the 580X ever, and as an update my later plans are for that GPU to run a second and third monitor on the side while the 5700 runs the main display as soon as I can afford the desk space in my new house.

I have never had a crash on wake issue. The card works absolutely flawlessly, no compromises at all.

Great to hear, thanks for the update!