Newer AMD Graphics Cards in the oMP

[jannikmeissner]

The time has come again that my trusty Mac Pro will get an update and I more or less have my mind set on an AMD GPU as OpenCL performance is most important to me.

However, it seems to be a nightmare to find any of the older cards un-used from a trustworthy source. I would like to avoid used cards as this level as many of them might have been used extensively for bitcoin/light coin mining and/or used in a heavily overclocked manner.

This leads me to ask if anyone has any experiences with any of the cards that can currently be purchased. I love the idea of an R9 285X/380X but I can't find any reports from anyone having used them in a Mac Pro?

Did anyone test them?
Also, do we know if the Fury Nano is working?

What Nvidia Card has similar OpenCL performance if this fails?…

 

[h9826790]

I think it's not too hard to get a new R9 280 / 280X. Both of these are proved work OOTB and the reference card are very easy to flash.

I am not 100% sure, from memory, there is no Mac EFI avail for 285 and above at this moment. Some of those card are actually work with the current Apple driver, but not including the nano.

 

[Draeconis]

This leads me to ask if anyone has any experiences with any of the cards that can currently be purchased. I love the idea of an R9 285X/380X but I can't find any reports from anyone having used them in a Mac Pro?

Did anyone test them?
Also, do we know if the Fury Nano is working?

Been following this one closely for a while as I'd like to know too.

The answer seems to be that while Nvidia support even their latest GPUs with their web drivers for OS X, AMD GPU support is either present in OS X or it isn't. Currently, since no Macs made ship with Fiji GPUs, there are no drivers for them either, though that could always change I the near future.

I'd expect an excited post from netkas or MacVidCards once any mention of Fiji support appears in OS X

 

[Fl0r!an]

R9 285/380 (Tonga) should work fine from what I've read. I don't know if R9 380X has its device ID in the drivers, would have to look it up. Can't be flashed though.
380 is slower than R9 280X was, though. Maybe you can get it as Warehouse deal or something like that?

Their big brothers (290/390[X]) work somehow, but seem to have crappy drivers. Fiji doesn't work at all.

 

[jannikmeissner]

R9 285/380 (Tonga) should work fine from what I've read. I don't know if R9 380X has its device ID in the drivers, would have to look it up. Can't be flashed though.
380 is slower than R9 280X was, though. Maybe you can get it as Warehouse deal or something like that?

Their big brothers (290/390[X]) work somehow, but seem to have crappy drivers. Fiji doesn't work at all.

In the UK I seem to find the R9 380 from about £120 and the 380X from about £160 while the 280s I found so far start from 180 minimum, with reference cards going for even more than those with weird coolers and port layouts that seem to be norm. I won't flash it if I go for a 380, but if anyone has one running, please let me (us) know. Maybe I even get two, so my 1,1 also gets one with a headless adapter... the X1900 is unusable even for remote desktop.

 

[jannikmeissner]

I just searched the Netkas forum and found this (German Language) thread:
http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,11173.0.html

As I now have a first hand mention of it working, I will buy the R9 380 as well and will report back with my findings, though I make sure I can return it even when opened, in case it won't work...

 

[koyoot]

Device ID for Fiji is already in OS X. You can try Asus Strix Fury, because it uses much less fuel than Sapphire model(220W vs around 300, because of much higher voltage on Sapphire card), or Fury Nano.

Edit. Here are few screens showing performance in OpenCL environment:


http://cdn.sweclockers.com/artikel/diagram/10130?key=6e3c39edaaa5f182742dac364baf5b54
http://cdn.sweclockers.com/artikel/diagram/10101?key=a1b152dcfc8131bcace16043c8d6f7f8
http://cdn.sweclockers.com/artikel/diagram/10100?key=08ab0a1bc1a005ddd068932b10ac531c