I have tried dual and triple monitors setups with no issues. But most of the times I only use one.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
official Mojave Mac Pro Metal GPU card list finally
- Thread starter LightBulbFun
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I have tried dual and triple monitors setups with no issues. But most of the times I only use one.
I use the GT120 and RX580, each powering their own identical monitors. So I have two monitors total. One goes to GT120 and one goes to RX580. The resolutions I run though are low in comparison to others listed in this thread. Either 1600x900 or 2560x1440. They are native 1600x900 but I sometimes use resXtreme to force the higher resolution on the one screen using the RX580. I have used this setup on at least 10.13.4 through 10.13.6 (may have used it on 10.13.3 too) It has been smooth sailing for me. I have used all the ports, I didn't notice any difference when using different ports, but the main configuration is DVI to the two 1600x900 computer monitors. I have also used the HDMI and DP ports to run 1080p TVs, which again have the ability to force to 2560x1440 if wanted. So I have done three simultaneous monitors without any issues
As to the fan issue, I swear I only noticed that on my very first boot with the RX580. I cannot remember though if it was just the RX580 installed or if the GT120 was also. I haven't seen that happen since. So I am not sure if I just happened to update from 10.13.3 to 10.13.4 which I think some say took care of the fans on cold boot or if I ended up putting in the GT120 simultaneously with the RX580, or both.
As to the fan issue, I swear I only noticed that on my very first boot with the RX580. I cannot remember though if it was just the RX580 installed or if the GT120 was also. I haven't seen that happen since. So I am not sure if I just happened to update from 10.13.3 to 10.13.4 which I think some say took care of the fans on cold boot or if I ended up putting in the GT120 simultaneously with the RX580, or both.
If we are not talking only Mojave, I too have observed something today about the two cards behaving together.
One question H9826790 at the very first: Is Apple Photos the only App giving the mentioned glitches?
I just updated the firmwares and OS to the newest ones for 3 of my Mac Pros, 2pcs 4,1->5,1 and one original 5,1. I consider High Sierra the newest, not counting any beta software this time.
I've got two Sapphire 8GB Pulses, and one Asus RX 570 4GB. I've got two GT 120 512 MB. I am getting these glithes with Photos all the time.
Mac Pro 4,1->5,1, firmware 0089, MacOS Hoigh Sierra Photos glitches.
- there are glitches with both cards plugged in to monitors, GT 120 and RX 580 Pulse.
- there are glitches with one monitor plugged to either of the cards, both installed.
- there are glitches with only RX 580 installed and plugged to a monitor.
- there are now glitches with my Asus RX 570+GT 120 too. Almost none of this happened earlier.
Glitches behave differently though at times, and a little different with each configuration. If I export the "glitched" pic out from Apple Photos, it seems just allright in other programs- no glitches as of yet:
- I tried Archicad with both RX 570 and GT 120. No glitches as of yet. The picture is fine there, when exported to there, but not in Photos App, it looks shattered, totally red, or like random tv-screen static.
- I tried Affinity Photo with that earlier exported photo - no glitches there either.
- No glitches surfing the shallow web, or using Mail or Preview or any other software, not as of yet. But we'll see.
No glitches observed before these updates, none like that when I was on Sierra and with the earlier firmware, what ever the firmware number was again..
I ain't no software architect:
Drivers acting up against each other - maybe.
Firmware acting up against drivers - maybe.
Apples Metal acting up against whatever - maybe.
One question H9826790 at the very first: Is Apple Photos the only App giving the mentioned glitches?
I just updated the firmwares and OS to the newest ones for 3 of my Mac Pros, 2pcs 4,1->5,1 and one original 5,1. I consider High Sierra the newest, not counting any beta software this time.
I've got two Sapphire 8GB Pulses, and one Asus RX 570 4GB. I've got two GT 120 512 MB. I am getting these glithes with Photos all the time.
Mac Pro 4,1->5,1, firmware 0089, MacOS Hoigh Sierra Photos glitches.
- there are glitches with both cards plugged in to monitors, GT 120 and RX 580 Pulse.
- there are glitches with one monitor plugged to either of the cards, both installed.
- there are glitches with only RX 580 installed and plugged to a monitor.
- there are now glitches with my Asus RX 570+GT 120 too. Almost none of this happened earlier.
Glitches behave differently though at times, and a little different with each configuration. If I export the "glitched" pic out from Apple Photos, it seems just allright in other programs- no glitches as of yet:
- I tried Archicad with both RX 570 and GT 120. No glitches as of yet. The picture is fine there, when exported to there, but not in Photos App, it looks shattered, totally red, or like random tv-screen static.
- I tried Affinity Photo with that earlier exported photo - no glitches there either.
- No glitches surfing the shallow web, or using Mail or Preview or any other software, not as of yet. But we'll see.
No glitches observed before these updates, none like that when I was on Sierra and with the earlier firmware, what ever the firmware number was again..
I ain't no software architect:
Drivers acting up against each other - maybe.
Firmware acting up against drivers - maybe.
Apples Metal acting up against whatever - maybe.
In Photos.app do all photos show up glitched or just certain ones? If only certain ones (or if all of them) is there any commonality in the underlying file type of the photos? Can't imagine they would be HEIF if you're talking about originating from Archicad. But like are they all JPEG or a mix of JPEG, RAW, TIFF, etc?
Could be just a bug with Photos.app?
Could be just a bug with Photos.app?
I tried an ArchiCAD rendered pic, iPhone 4pic, and an iphone SE "live" pic. All those can give me glitches with Photos App. Not all of them and not every time. Strange.
I tried with my other Mac Pro RX 580 only, no GT 120 anymore, and those glitches seem to remain now. Stranger still.
edit. Maybe it's about heavy "Metal"-usage in Apple Photos
I tried with my other Mac Pro RX 580 only, no GT 120 anymore, and those glitches seem to remain now. Stranger still.
edit. Maybe it's about heavy "Metal"-usage in Apple Photos
Last edited:
I only use this combination for short period of time. And once I notice the glitches in Photos, I removed the GT120. So, no test for other apps. However, no issue in Finder, Safari, Mail, etc in that few days.
I've heard that may create glitches in FCPX as well. But I didn't test it.
So far, as long as I only install the RX580, no glitches spotted.
Well since it's happening with just the RX 580 (one of Apple's "recommended" cards) then that gives me high hope that it's a bug that will get fixed (if we all report it!). And if that's the main problem with a 580/GT120 combo then it sounds like that combination will be an option for people going forward.
I have amended my post #440 above, found an incorrect display port setting on my monitor.
Can now confirm I have the GT120 + RX580 combo fully working on my Mac Pro.
MacOS 10.13.6
Boot ROM Version: MP51.0089.B00
Can now confirm I have the GT120 + RX580 combo fully working on my Mac Pro.
MacOS 10.13.6
Boot ROM Version: MP51.0089.B00
I got my GT120 almost two weeks ago, and it hasn't been all smooth sailing with the 580:
1) I could not get Mojave, neither the logical volume on my hardware RAID Apricorn Velocity Duo X2 (pair of 850 Evo 2TB SSDs) nor a clean Mojave install on a regular hard drive, both AFPS, to fully boot with both the GT120 and 580 installed; either it appears to get stuck midway through the progress bar, or after the progress bar completes it goes to a full gray screen on both monitors where it seems to get stuck. I pulled the Velocity card and it didn't solve the hanging boot of Mojave on the hard drive, so it's not the Velocity. Resetting PRAM didn't solve it either. On a positive note, I was able to boot the Win10 Pro UEFI logical volume on the same hardware RAID with both GPUs installed so this appears to be on OS X issue. The Mojave installs do work with either GPU so long as the other is removed.
2) Initially, I could not get my Sierra (10.12) install to boot with both GPUs installed (stuck on on a black screen), so I first tried booting with only the 580 (success) then just the GT120 (success). Putting both back in simultaneously, I was then able to boot Sierra just fine repeatedly. Perhaps Sierra just need to enable/activate/download the appropriate drivers separately first.
3) I booted my Yosemite install (10.10.5) for the first time with both GPUs and it does not recognize the 580 at all. Same with my Mountain Lion install (10.8.5). At least they can both boot just fine as long I have the GT120 installed regardless of the presence of the 580.
FWIW, my monitors are an Apple 30" Cinema Display and an Apple 27" Cinema Display (Mini DisplayPort); it doesn't matter which GPU the monitors are connected to but the problems with Mojave persist. I have another Apple 23" Cinema Display offsite that I may swap in for the Apple 27" to determine if it has anything to do with DisplayPort.
1) I could not get Mojave, neither the logical volume on my hardware RAID Apricorn Velocity Duo X2 (pair of 850 Evo 2TB SSDs) nor a clean Mojave install on a regular hard drive, both AFPS, to fully boot with both the GT120 and 580 installed; either it appears to get stuck midway through the progress bar, or after the progress bar completes it goes to a full gray screen on both monitors where it seems to get stuck. I pulled the Velocity card and it didn't solve the hanging boot of Mojave on the hard drive, so it's not the Velocity. Resetting PRAM didn't solve it either. On a positive note, I was able to boot the Win10 Pro UEFI logical volume on the same hardware RAID with both GPUs installed so this appears to be on OS X issue. The Mojave installs do work with either GPU so long as the other is removed.
2) Initially, I could not get my Sierra (10.12) install to boot with both GPUs installed (stuck on on a black screen), so I first tried booting with only the 580 (success) then just the GT120 (success). Putting both back in simultaneously, I was then able to boot Sierra just fine repeatedly. Perhaps Sierra just need to enable/activate/download the appropriate drivers separately first.
3) I booted my Yosemite install (10.10.5) for the first time with both GPUs and it does not recognize the 580 at all. Same with my Mountain Lion install (10.8.5). At least they can both boot just fine as long I have the GT120 installed regardless of the presence of the 580.
FWIW, my monitors are an Apple 30" Cinema Display and an Apple 27" Cinema Display (Mini DisplayPort); it doesn't matter which GPU the monitors are connected to but the problems with Mojave persist. I have another Apple 23" Cinema Display offsite that I may swap in for the Apple 27" to determine if it has anything to do with DisplayPort.
Last edited:
Further on cards to accompany RX580.
As discussed earlier I have RX580 & GT120 working OK, although I have to use HDMI cable for the RX580.
Today I tried the 580 with a flashed GT630, which is metal compliant.
Not successful, the GT630 works OK on it's own & with Sapphire 7950,
However when combined with the GT630 I can't get either of my 5,1 to boot successfully. One goes into a boot loop at login screen, the other only gets to about 2/3 boot. The GT630 is MacVidCards flashed & the boot screen displays correctly.
Is this perhaps a power (or lack of) issue??
My aim is to have a boot screen on one of my 2 monitors. as I have now with HS. With the GT630 having Metal support on Mojave I thought I could avoid swapping cards to install.
As discussed earlier I have RX580 & GT120 working OK, although I have to use HDMI cable for the RX580.
Today I tried the 580 with a flashed GT630, which is metal compliant.
Not successful, the GT630 works OK on it's own & with Sapphire 7950,
However when combined with the GT630 I can't get either of my 5,1 to boot successfully. One goes into a boot loop at login screen, the other only gets to about 2/3 boot. The GT630 is MacVidCards flashed & the boot screen displays correctly.
Is this perhaps a power (or lack of) issue??
My aim is to have a boot screen on one of my 2 monitors. as I have now with HS. With the GT630 having Metal support on Mojave I thought I could avoid swapping cards to install.
It's a known issue when combining flashed NVIDIA card with any other card. Several other people have reported the same issue.
Hey thanks, I missed these reports. So I'm stuck with the RX580/GT120 combo.
If I have trouble with installing Mojave I'll cross that bridge then.
On the other hand, might try installing the beta on another disk to see what happens......
Mojave should run with the GT120 installed, just unaccelerated (sluggish and glitchy). It's the Mojave installer that tries to prevent you from installing Mojave with non-metal cards like the GT120 installed. There are ways to overcome that though--the easiest of which is just to pull out the GT120 when installing Mojave, then after it's installed, put the GT120 back in. This has already been tested to work in earlier Mojave betas.
Yes, I understand that.
Only problem then with RX580 installed is the lack of boot screen to see what's going on.
I believe it can still be done, I just have to research that, or else put the GT630 in for the install.
You don't need the boot screen to install macOS. The screen will be black for portions of the install but for most of it you will see a picture even with a non-EFI GPU (so long as the drivers for it are built into macOS, which they are for the RX 580).
Only no boot screen (that few seconds Apple logo during boot) without the help of Mac EFI. The whole installation process still display correctly with the RX580. RX580 is an OOTB card, the installer has driver for that. The card will be correctly activated during the whole installation process.
I ask a question for those that have installed GT120 + RX580: have you tried to export a movie in FCPX or, better, tried the Brucex Test?
I tried and with the 580+GT120 (also without connecting monitors, only installed GT120 in the pci port), my results are very poor (over 5 minutes), it seems that the work is done only by the GT120.
If i try only with the 580, the results are good (35")
It's normal that???
I tried and with the 580+GT120 (also without connecting monitors, only installed GT120 in the pci port), my results are very poor (over 5 minutes), it seems that the work is done only by the GT120.
If i try only with the 580, the results are good (35")
It's normal that???
I updated to Mojave PB7. Vega FE now shows link speed of 8.0 GT/s. It was 5.0 GT/s. Doesn't seem to have any noticeable effect. So this means what, a better GPU driver coming?
![Screen Shot 2018-08-15 at 5.53.51 PM.png]( "Screen Shot 2018-08-15 at 5.53.51 PM.png")
The cMP in your signature does not support 8GT/s. Something is wrong.
The Vega 64 does not requires additional drivers? macOS Mojave comes with built in drivers for Vega 64? I'm planning to buy a Vega 64 in order to upgrade to Mojave.