Apple Outlines Metal-Capable Cards Compatible With macOS Mojave on 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro Models

[MacRumors]

Apple's new macOS Mojave update is not compatible with mid-2010 and mid-2012 Mac Pros with stock GPUs, but it is supported on 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro models that have been upgraded with graphics cards that support Metal.

Apple today shared a new support document that provides a list of graphics cards that are Metal-capable, which will be useful for 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro owners who want to purchase a new graphics card to upgrade to macOS Mojave.

According to Apple, the following graphics cards are known to be Metal-capable and compatible with macOS Mojave on the mid-2010 and mid-2012 Mac Pro models:

[*]MSI Gaming Radeon RX 560 128-bit 4GB GDDR5
[*]SAPPHIRE Radeon PULSE RX 580 8GB GDDR5
[*]SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition
[*]NVIDIA Quadro K5000 for Mac
[*]NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition

Apple also lists other AMD graphics cards that "might" be compatible with macOS Mojave:

[*]AMD Radeon RX 560
[*]AMD Radeon RX 570
[*]AMD Radeon RX 580
[*]AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100
[*]AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
[*]AMD Radeon RX Vega 64
[*]AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100
[*]AMD Radeon Frontier Edition

You can check to see if your graphics card is compatible by holding down option while selecting Apple logo to access System Information. Under Graphics/Displays, if "Supported" is listed next to the Metal entry, the graphics card will work with macOS Mojave.

According to Apple, once a Metal-capable graphics card has been installed in a 2010 or 2012 Mac Pro, macOS Mojave can be downloaded and installed after turning off FileVault.

Article Link: Apple Outlines Metal-Capable Cards Compatible With macOS Mojave on 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro Models

 

[Nunyabinez]

Awesome. I can either stay on an older system, or replace my video card with a much, much less capable card. What to do...

 

[shadowbird423]

Hmmm.

Anyone with sense still running these MPs has a modern Nvidia card. I wonder when Nvidia will respond with new web drivers.

 

[Johnny Steps]

Hmm.. that’s pretty cool actually.

 

[e1me5]

man this is confusing... I did some reasearch and some of these cards look like they are not expensive on amazon but I do not know for sure if they are the versions supported by OSX.

 

[casperes1996]

man this is confusing... I did some reasearch and some of these cards look like they are not expensive on amazon but I do not know for sure if they are the versions supported by OSX.

Any reference implementation is pretty much guaranteed to work. Out-of-spec cards likely work as well if they've not changed the card IDs and why would they do that?

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

man this is confusing... I did some reasearch and some of these cards look like they are not expensive on amazon but I do not know for sure if they are the versions supported by OSX.

I’m sure it won’t be long before the industrious cMP community confirms compatibility. I had a non-flashed 7870 in my flashed 2009, and I’m pretty sure Metal support said yes. I don’t have my cMP anymore, so I can’t confirm.

 

[bunnspecial]

Awesome. I can either stay on an older system, or replace my video card with a much, much less capable card. What to do...

Any of the cards recommended by Apple will absolutely murder the Radeon 5870, which was the best card shipped in these computers.

With that said, I'm keeping my 5770 and not upgrading to Mojave because my specific use case for my Mac Pro requires that I run Snow Leopard natively(not virtualized).

 

[Supermacguy]

Unless the GM changed something, Mac Pro 2009's updated to 5,1 with a compatible card have been working since beta 2. Extremely long thread (22 pages at posting): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/official-mojave-mac-pro-metal-gpu-card-list-finally.2124795/

 

[647156]

Apple officially accepting that people upgrade the hardware inside Macs, accepting (and in fact supporting) that non Mac cards (i.e. PC cards) that don't show boot screens can be used, and officially supporting an OS version on third-party hardware upgrades (in fact requiring those upgrades) - all pretty much unprecedented in the history of the Mac.

A very clear admission from Apple themselves that the "trashcan" Mac Pro has been a dismal failure, as there is no way they would have even considered supporting a new OS on 5 to 8 year old hardware that requires a third-party upgrade designed for PCs under normal circumstances...

 

[Nunyabinez]

Any of the cards recommended by Apple will absolutely murder the Radeon 5870, which was the best card shipped in these computers.

With that said, I'm keeping my 5770 and not upgrading to Mojave because my specific use case for my Mac Pro requires that I run Snow Leopard natively(not virtualized).

That is true, but this machine has a GTX 1080. Oddly enough, it shows up as supporting Metal. Of course, there are no Nvidia Webdrivers available yet, but theoretically, once they come out, I should be able to run Mojave.

 

[MisterAndrew]

I love my Sapphire Pulse RX Vega 56. It works fantastic in Mojave. So much more stable than my old Nvidia GTX 1080 was in High Sierra using the buggy web driver. Just need to make sure you power it properly.

 

[-BigMac-]

Pre sure a 2080ti would stomp anything on that list, metal or no metal

 

[critter13]

SAPHIRE Pulse RX 560 shows metal support, GPU family 2v1

 

[bladerunner2000]

Awesome. I can either stay on an older system, or replace my video card with a much, much less capable card. What to do...

Hackintosh.

Should be obvious.
[doublepost=1537840325][/doublepost]

Pre sure a 2080ti would stomp anything on that list, metal or no metal

Even a regular non-Ti 1080 would stomp all those cards. It's amazing how Apple is so cheap on the GPU end yet it hypes up their graphics so much. Hilarious.

 

[Eumaeus]

I put a SAPPHIRE Radeon PULSE RX 580 8GB GDDR5 in my 2010 MacPro 5,1 over the weekend. This replaced the ATI Radeon that was original to it. $240, and it like having a new computer. Updated to Mojave today. Everything works great… Lightroom is much snappier, as is Final Cut.

This was out of the box, unflashed. I don't get the initial Apple logo on boot, but once the OS is loaded everything works as expected.

 

[Charmandrigo]

Woah wait wait wait, is apple saying Nvidia cards from the Pascal (Nvidia 10XX cards) architecture are not capable?

 

[mabhatter]

No RX 470 or 480 cards on the list? They’re basically the same as RX 570 and 580?

 

[kegan forbes]

Woah wait wait wait, is apple saying Nvidia cards from the Pascal (Nvidia 10XX cards) architecture are not capable?

my 1070ti show it is under 10.13.6 and it installed the beta with this card in it a while back

 

[asiga]

The fight of Apple against Nvidia has gone through all stages you could imagine: First, it was an inconvenience to users. Then, it became an annoyance. Later, when they decided to extend the fight to external GPUs, it became like if Apple was performing the typical child rant. And now, trying to say “it’s going to be like that forever”, goes from childish to ridiculous.

I’m not a critic with Apple having high prices, but I expect higher quality and longer expected life for paying that higher price. And going AMD just for the sake they are saving pennies makes you wonder if you should also be saving pennies by not buying Apple.

 

[Agent OrangeZ]

My 2009 flashed 5,1 with GTX 770 works... after a SCARY firmware update with no bootscreens... LOL.

 

[Charmandrigo]

my 1070ti show it is under 10.13.6 and it installed the beta with this card in it a while back View attachment 788428

Did the bootrom updated too? I know Mojave came with a newer Bootrom that added finally efi boot support for new cards

 

[-BigMac-]

Even a regular non-Ti 1080 would stomp all those cards. It's amazing how Apple is so cheap on the GPU end yet it hypes up their graphics so much. Hilarious.

Yep. So sad. It's the single reason I have been driven away from Apple Desktops.
I now run a water cooled PC with absolutely incredible performance. Every component is the best you can buy, and it probably still cost less than the Mac Pro.
Definitely less than the iMac Pro....

Each to their own.. but everyone should be able to agree.. Apple GPU offerings are terribly behind

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

They should start selling replacement cards for the iMac 2011.
I have a 27' i7 upgraded to 20GB RAM, bought it in 2012. It runs fast for everything I do, but is now EOL

 

[bladerunner2000]

Yep. So sad. It's the single reason I have been driven away from Apple Desktops.
I now run a water cooled PC with absolutely incredible performance. Every component is the best you can buy, and it probably still cost less than the Mac Pro.
Definitely less than the iMac Pro....

Each to their own.. but everyone should be able to agree.. Apple GPU offerings are terribly behind

I jumped ship on the desktop end about 4 years ago. Built myself a Hackintosh instead. Paid about 1/4 the price of an iMac and got about twice the performance and a whole slew of upgrade options. Not to mention; a GTX 980. Sure, it's a bit dated, but STILL holds it's own against whatever garbage Apple sells.

Only thing I need to do now is to sell my 2012 MacBook Pro and completely cut off Apple from getting any more money from me.