MP All Models AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT / 6900 XT for macOS?

[Gustav Holdoff]

The Mac Pro 7,1 gives you the boot screen with non apple GPUs becuase it's in the T2 chip on the logic board, no more flashing the ROM to get the boot screen. Syncretic's patch was just a small mod so the 5,1 could boot with the card in it, but did not give you the bootscreen. Sometimes AMD Adrenaline spits out this card does not exist error "oops something went wrong" whn trying to update the drive to the latest version, even with my rx6900xt that is stock bioos, if that is the error you are referring to. I can't remember what I had to do to get Adrenalin updated but might have just left the older version as it's been a while since I messed with it but sometimes you just can't update it because of a windows AMD update mismatch, something like that and you have to delete the drivers to get it to update. You can always flash your rom back to the original but I don't think it is the issue.

Just for information
Based on my personal experience: I transferred all the hardware - pci nvme, 4nvme raid adaptor card (no owc) and flashed by syncretic's patch radeon pro W6800.
what difficulties did I encounter: on mac os all nvme are shown as external, and on windows I got 10 unrecognized controllers (although at first there were more than 100 - I searched for equipment and drivers on the Internet and installed them manually)
And after I reversed to native bios for radeon pro W6800 - 6 errors were eliminated.
PCI Data Acquisition and Signal Processing Controller error and SM Bus Controller driver error and some other 4 errors eliminated, therefore, I conclude that the gpu patch affected the correct installation of windows drivers
some 4 unknown drivers remained - I will look for them later.
Based on my actions, it became clear that syncretic patch gpu, despite the fact that it helps to launch 6000-x gpu on old mac pro, still leads to errors on mac pro 7.1 on windows.
As for bootscreen - AMD radeon pro W6800 supports bootscreen on my mac pro 7.1

 

[macsoundsolutions]

Just for information
Based on my personal experience: I transferred all the hardware - pci nvme, 4nvme raid adaptor card (no owc) and flashed by syncretic's patch radeon pro W6800.
what difficulties did I encounter: on mac os all nvme are shown as external, and on windows I got 10 unrecognized controllers (although at first there were more than 100 - I searched for equipment and drivers on the Internet and installed them manually)
And after I reversed to native bios for radeon pro W6800 - 6 errors were eliminated.
PCI Data Acquisition and Signal Processing Controller error and SM Bus Controller driver error and some other 4 errors eliminated, therefore, I conclude that the gpu patch affected the correct installation of windows drivers
some 4 unknown drivers remained - I will look for them later.
Based on my actions, it became clear that syncretic patch gpu, despite the fact that it helps to launch 6000-x gpu on old mac pro, still leads to errors on mac pro 7.1 on windows.
As for bootscreen - AMD radeon pro W6800 supports bootscreen on my mac pro 7.1

Interesting, I think I had my Syncretic's patched Sonnet rx6800xt in my 7,1 taken from my 5,1 when I first got it, but the card had become really loud so I stopped using it for gaming and guess I need to re paste it. Hard to remember at this point how long I had it in the 7,1 cause i got the reference 6900xt soon after and it was so much quieter. Pretty sure the 6800XT worked fine but it was over 10 months boot screen not an issue etc but I only use Windows for gaming. All my drives were APFS except the windows drive.

 

[MacZonePro]

Anyone have recommendations for a tool to flash AMD Radeon Pro W6600, the amdvflash tool hasn't been updated since 2022 and doesn't recognize it. the GPU-Z tool can read it and download the vbios, I have patched the download. Cannot figure out how to flash with the patched vbios.

 

[MacZonePro]

Anyone have recommendations for a tool to flash AMD Radeon Pro W6600, the amdvflash tool hasn't been updated since 2022 and doesn't recognize it. the GPU-Z tool can read it and download the vbios, I have patched the download. Cannot figure out how to flash with the patched vbios.

Apparently either amdvflash or Windows won't properly recognize the card unless a display is connected. I suspect windows is not loading the drivers when no display connected. Successfully flashed after connecting to a display.

 

[Romandini]

TOXIC AMD Radeon™️M RX 6900 XT Extreme Edition. What is the likelihood that this card will be compatible with the Mac Pro 2019?"

 

[tsialex]

TOXIC AMD Radeon™️M RX 6900 XT Extreme Edition. What is the likelihood that this card will be compatible with the Mac Pro 2019?"

There are two very different things at play here.

First is if the device-id of the GPU is supported by Apple drivers, only 73BF is supported:

Navi 21:

• 6900 XT device-id 73BF = supported,
• 6900 XTH device-id 73AF = not supported,
• 6950 XT device-id 73A5 = not supported,

Second is if the card can be fitted and powered by the Mac Pro.

Before buying anything, check both. If you buy a 6900 XTH or a 6950 XT, you'll need to re-flash it with a compatible 6900 XT firmware or spoof the device-id via OpenCore.

 

[Romandini]

It turns out that you can't hold on?

 

[Romandini]

Sapphire TOXIC RX 6900 XT Extreme Edition Specs

AMD Navi 21, 2525 MHz, 5120 Cores, 320 TMUs, 128 ROPs, 16384 MB GDDR6, 2000 MHz, 256 bit

www.techpowerup.com

 

[tsialex]

It turns out that you can't hold on?

Again, only 6900 XT with device-id 73BF is supported.

Since this card is not one with device-id 73BF, you have your answer already.

 

[Romandini]

Is there a firmware file, and what is the likelihood of installing everything without issues?"

 

[tsialex]

Is there a firmware file, and what is the likelihood of installing everything without issues?"

Obviously you have to do your homework and find a GPU firmware that work with your card, have the same memory and etc. No one can do it for you.

If you flash an incorrect GPU firmware, you could brick the card until you re-flash with a correct one.

Most likely you'll need to test several firmware files until you find the correct one. So, you'll brick the card sometimes until you get it right, be prepared.

Read about from people that did it, this is not news here and on the thread below:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/amd-6950xt-spoofed-on-mac-pro-7-1-edit-working.2396040/post-32319746

 

[Romandini]

can I get a bios for installation on this site? https://www.techpowerup.com/

 

[Romandini]

There are good questions, for example, not extra. But specifically, the limited edition as shown in the screenshot has 73BF, so it should be quite suitable, right?"

 

[dim-deep]

By design, the Mac Pro EFI BootROM uses UGA (an older standard) for screen output. Mac-compatible cards provide UGA, which lets you see the native boot picker and the early boot screens (before MacOS loads). Without a UGA-compatible card (i.e. with non-Mac/PC cards), you'll see a black screen until something loads a driver that can speak to your video card - that's typically either OpenCore or MacOS itself. OpenCore loads early enough that the native screens aren't really necessary. As I understand it (I've never looked at an MVC card), MVC patches their cards to include UGA support, so you can use the native boot picker and see the boot screens immediately, without the need for OpenCore. (And, in the case of the RX6x00 cards, they've presumably fixed the same AMD bug that my patch fixes.)



Unfortunately, yes. As @tsialex correctly points out, you can't boot a cMP with an unpatched RX6x00 card in it; the card's initialization code contains a bug that prevents booting (fixing that is the whole point of my patch!). So, if you're using software flashing, you'll need to do that on a non-Mac PC.

To simplify things, I've attached a Windows version of the FixRX6x00 patcher program. It's still a command-line program (no GUI), same instructions as the MacOS version in my previous post. At least this way, there's less shuffling back and forth between systems.



Your Python script has a problem. It complains about the EFI ROM not being the last image, but that's not a requirement for EFI option ROMs. In this case, the x86_64 EFI code appears before the ARM64 EFI code - but in the output from your script, the ARM64 code gets removed. Also, while I don't have an RX6900XT to test with, I can state that GOP is most definitely provided by the card's original ROM.



Correct. As I said in my original post, @caingraywood was using a hardware flasher (I think he said it was an RT809F). I don't know his methodology - he may have been flashing in situ, or he may have been physically replacing the chips. In any case, he wasn't using software flashing. Since a cMP can't even POST with an unpatched RX6x00 card, it's necessary to flash it using either a PC (Windows/Linux) or a hardware flasher (or, I suppose, a MP7,1?).

To help simplify things, I pulled all of the RX6600/6600XT/6800/6800XT/6900XT ROMs from TechPowerup, patched them, and have attached them to this post. However, be advised that patching the ROM that came with your particular card will almost always be the better choice. Use the attached ROM images at your own risk. If you choose to use one of the attached ROM images, verify that the make/model and version number matches your card.

Hello. Thank you for the work done. Thanks to your fix patch, I easily extracted the original firmware from my rx6950, ran it through your fix and uploaded the firmware back. Everything worked, the MP started up and I was able to boot into Windows. (As everyone knows, before the patch, the MP didn't show any signs of starting up, there was no melody, the fans weren't spinning). Now I decided to upgrade and bought an amd rx7900 xtx 24gb card. And the problem is back again. The MP doesn't start. The question is the following. Can you make a similar fix patch for the 7900 series? Or is it possible to use the fix from 6x00 for the 7900?

 

[dim-deep]

Just tried on Sapphire Nitro+ 6600XT. It works great with Montery 12.1.

this is all great, yes, and my rx6950 card works great in mp 5.1 in windows and monterey. but here's the catch. many modern programs for macos require the latest firmware and simply do not run in monterey. therefore using our favorite video cards of the 6xxx series we are forced to get stuck in the past called monterey. for reference, before i bought 6950 i had rx580 and i constantly used macos sequoia and everything was fine except for the lack of video memory in powerful applications and games.

 

[mode11]

Now I decided to upgrade and bought an amd rx7900 xtx 24gb card. And the problem is back again. The MP doesn't start. The question is the following. Can you make a similar fix patch for the 7900 series? Or is it possible to use the fix from 6x00 for the 7900?

MacOS doesn't contain drivers for RX7xxx cards, so it would be unusable in macOS anyway.

Considering your Mac Pro CPUs are essentially first-gen i7s, pushing 15 years old, you'd be far better off putting that expensive GPU in a modern PC.

Or if you want to continue on the Mac platform and need decent GPU power, you should be looking at a M4 Max Studio. The ol' cheesegraters had a good run, but are only good as hobbyist toys now. No one should be sticking £800+ GPUs in them.

 

[Rian Gray]

Or if you want to continue on the Mac platform and need decent GPU power, you should be looking at a M4 Max Studio. The ol' cheesegraters had a good run, but are only good as hobbyist toys now. No one should be sticking £800+ GPUs in them.

Well said. As much as I like my Mac Pro 2019, I'm only maintaining it (no major upgrades, just few PCIe cards to mount SSDs) because it's already paid in full. I don't want people to get the wrong impression. It's probably possible to juice few more years out of old Intel machines, but I don't think it's a future-roof investment.