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GTX 1070 or RX 580 in cMP?

Squuiid

Squuiid

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 31, 2006
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I have a GTX 1070 in my cMP running macOS Sierra, however I have concerns about the quality of NVIDIA's web driver. I also get frustrated having to wait for NVIDIA to release a new driver each time there is an OS update. I know you can hack the driver to force an older version but this is too much effort for my liking. Finally, I also have concerns about the longevity, and quality, of NVIDIA updates.

I have about a week left to return the 1070 and I'm considering an RX 580 to replace it.
The RX 580 will be natively supported in 10.12.6 and in High Sierra and I think system stability and ease of use (native driver) are probably preferable to the somewhat higher performance of the 1070.
This is the card I have in mind:
SAPPHIRE Pulse Radeon RX 580 8G GDDR5 Dual HDMI/DVI-D/Dual DP Graphics Card - Black

Will I be better off moving to an RX 580? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts before I return the card. Thanks.
 
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580 will be natively supported and offer great application performance.

1070 is superb in Windows but it's a pain to update in macOS and Nvidia hasn't fixed OpenCL bugs for two years.

Before any Nvidia salesboy refutes anything, I'm moving both of my 1070s into a cMP tomorrow.
 
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Squuiid said:
Ha! Can I ask what for?
What are you replacing them with?
Click to expand...

I sold my cMP last year. Now I need an extra rig so I figure it's cheaper to buy a cMP and just move my existing GTX 1070s into there. It's cheaper to buy a cMP than to buy case+mobo+cpu+ram+hdd+PSU.

The PC the cards came from will then be free to mine with a pair of 390X I have in the closet.
 
Drivers aside, the 1070 spanks the RX580 hard.

I'd be curious to know and read about experiences using the 1070/1080 in Mac OS though today. I didn't expect it to be bad. I'd love to have a 1070.
 
Actually considering the exact same purchase myself as a stop gap from my GTX680 until we know more about the next Mac Pro. I'd read this "Pulse" card is the version Apple use in the developer kit so might be the most compatible.

Never having used a card without a Mac ROM I've been looking for reports of how it is recognised and about compatibility with existing Mac games.
 
itdk92 said:
lol can any of you even find an RX 580 in this crazy ether mining period? (thinking about Apple eGPU Dev Kit)
Click to expand...
Very hard, you have to know people and pay premium. Just bought one now.

Here's the secret. If the site says 'out of stock' it just means they can't handle all the messages. You have to call and show the money and they will sell to you.
 
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it's good to say what apps you want to run or if you just want to play games and if you want to boot in to windows to play games. (1080p/4k?)

1070 has also had it's price hit by mining too prices i think.

the ATI card may be easier to use in osx, less pain and perform ok open CL will be nice i gess and will be fine for most pro apps.
if you want to boot in to windows the 1070 may win out but the cmp CPU is old so if the game is cpu limited then the card will just sit there and chill, i have a GTX770 and all the total war games lose fps hard thanks to the CPU (and there not well threaded).
(fps tend not to be cpu limited sim games tend to be)
 
orph said:
it's good to say what apps you want to run or if you just want to play games and if you want to boot in to windows to play games. (1080p/4k?)

1070 has also had it's price hit by mining too prices i think.

the ATI card may be easier to use in osx, less pain and perform ok open CL will be nice i gess and will be fine for most pro apps.
if you want to boot in to windows the 1070 may win out but the cmp CPU is old so if the game is cpu limited then the card will just sit there and chill, i have a GTX770 and all the total war games lose fps hard thanks to the CPU (and there not well threaded).
(fps tend not to be cpu limited sim games tend to be)
Click to expand...
My other cMP has a 1080 in it which I run Windows 10 on and use for gaming.
This is strictly for macOS general use.
 
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Treat yourself better and get a 1080 ti for gaming in boot camp windows 10.
Rx580's performance only get roughly 55% of that of 1080 Ti.
 
id get something cheaper if it's just for general use, RX560? (is that working fine? im out of date on that)
tempted to say stick to a ATI card if there working without 'fixes' just to make life simple.

dont see the point in a 1070 or 580 for checking emails,web use word etc
might as well save some cash and spend it on something nice

@Prince134 he has a 1080 already.
 
For me it is just something to keep running the latest MacOS game ports for the next year or two until we see what Apple come up with as an upgradable machine. Hopefully still in 1440p and decent quality, but even 30-40fps is OK for me.

The RX580 price is about as much as I'd spend given I need to start saving for the next machine. I've never bothered with bootcamp but it would be nice to still have that option is needed so the lack of boot screen may be an issue, also for troubleshooting etc.
 
@Mattww
i think there are reports of the RX 4xxx/5xx cards working without messing around in osx10.13 so if you can wait for that it might make things simpler.
when you say "Hopefully still in 1440p and decent quality, but even 30-40fps is OK" do you mean with games? or UI?
in osx or windows?
 
Games in MacOS, never had any issues with UI performance and not yet given in to putting Windows on it.
 
orph said:
@Mattww
i think there are reports of the RX 4xxx/5xx cards working without messing around in osx10.13 so if you can wait for that it might make things simpler.
Click to expand...
Also in Sierra 10.12.6 beta, with the final due for release v soon.

Mattww said:
Games in MacOS, never had any issues with UI performance and not yet given in to putting Windows on it.
Click to expand...
Needed Windows for Doom primarily, also Unreal Tournament, as well as a few others. macOS can't quite match Windows when it comes to games selection.

I use my Steam account in macOS to play the old LucasArts remasters (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Thimbleweed Park, Monkey 2, etc) as well as Civ V, Firewatch and a few others.
 
Great thing about Steam if you own a gaming PC you can stream games from it to your Mac in highest settings. You don't need a good GPU on your Mac. Just a local network.

I only ever used a good GPU on the Mac for creative apps.
 
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Squuiid said:
Also in Sierra 10.12.6 beta, with the final due for release v soon.
Click to expand...

That's good news. I want to get an RX card soon. My 750ti has served me well but I'm getting alittle sick of macos upgrade issues with webdriver.
 
Anyone who installed the RX 580 Pulse know if you get an 8-pin to 2x6-pin splitter in the box or need to get that separately?
 
I've had a mixed experience with the GTX 1080 in my cMP. Usually it works well. I haven't seen any screen artifacts, but sometimes the display flashes black and occasionally the drivers cause a kernel panic and the computer restarts. It doesn't happen very often though. I'd be tempted to trade it out for an AMD card, but I want the boot screen. I can't get it to boot up into Windows 10 without it. That's why I went with the Nvidia card and had it flashed by MVC. If they come out with a new AMD card designed for Mac with the EFI driver I would buy that.
 
^^^^I also have an MVC flashed GTX 1080 in a 5,1 cMP and have experienced none of the issues you mentioned. My card is the Gigabyte G1 Gaming. It's working extremely well for me.

Lou
 
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