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MP All Models Turn a "new" Sapphire RX580 PULSE into the "Mac Edition" card

No worries, thanks. I read through the entire thread and was following his problems from last October ordering the cable after already getting the GPU. I wanted to know how the movie ended so to speak and what his experiences were.
Can't pass up the RX580 at $200!
 
mavots said:
No worries, thanks. I read through the entire thread and was following his problems from last October ordering the cable after already getting the GPU. I wanted to know how the movie ended so to speak and what his experiences were.
Can't pass up the RX580 at $200!
Click to expand...


Hey, can you clarify something for me ?

#1. If I got a sapphire RX580 will it work without drivers with my 2010 Mac Pro? I will be using firmware 140.0.0.0.0 but using high Sierra as OS due to software compatibility.

#2. Will I still be able to run a boot camp for Windows 10 with the sapphire RX580 ?

#3. Id like to add
-a USB3.0 by allegro ,
-a PCIe NVMe 970 evo 2TB boot drive in a 4x lane partitioned 1TB for each OS.
-a 4TB PCIe NVMe Samsung 970 evo scratch drive for partitioned 2TB for each OS in a 16x lane using a highpoint 7101a
Do you think all this would fit with the sapphire rx580?

Any recommendations, thoughts or concerns ?
 
pidcin1 said:
Hey, can you clarify something for me ?

#1. If I got a sapphire RX580 will it work without drivers with my 2010 Mac Pro? I will be using firmware 140.0.0.0.0 but using high Sierra as OS due to software compatibility.

#2. Will I still be able to run a boot camp for Windows 10 with the sapphire RX580 ?

#3. Id like to add
-a USB3.0 by allegro ,
-a PCIe NVMe 970 evo 2TB boot drive in a 4x lane partitioned 1TB for each OS.
-a 4TB PCIe NVMe Samsung 970 evo scratch drive for partitioned 2TB for each OS in a 16x lane using a highpoint 7101a
Do you think all this would fit with the sapphire rx580?

Any recommendations, thoughts or concerns ?
Click to expand...

1) Yes- it will work without drivers (I'm using the same card and same firmware) and I have dual boot High Sierra/Mojave
2) I am running boot camp on Win 10 Pro with no issues
3) The Nitro+ version (I don't have the Pulse version) expands slightly over the the 2nd PCIe slot. If you're careful you can still get a card in there, but it's a bit tight.
 
DCswitch said:
1) Yes- it will work without drivers (I'm using the same card and same firmware) and I have dual boot High Sierra/Mojave
2) I am running boot camp on Win 10 Pro with no issues
3) The Nitro+ version (I don't have the Pulse version) expands slightly over the the 2nd PCIe slot. If you're careful you can still get a card in there, but it's a bit tight.
Click to expand...

Ah very cool. Is the nitro larger than the pulse ? How are able to boot Mojave’s and high Sierra ? And have a boot camp for Windows 10?
Do you lose the boot screen with this card ? Is there a special way you have to get into Windows ?
So basically all I have to do is install the card and that’s it. No drivers , no nothing. It simply works . That’s amazing !
Where did you purchase the cables to power it ? eBay?
 
mavots said:
1- Would the RX 580 be a justifiable upgrade for a (primarily) photographic workflow? PS, Lightroom, etc. I use Handbrake a lot but that is all CPU from what I can tell. (HB is slightly faster processing video files on my iMac and both the Mac Pro (RX 7950) and iMac (RX 850) use only about 20-25% of the GPU memory).
Click to expand...

I don't really think so, no. There are some tools in PS/LR that are accellerated by GPU, but not all. For those tools that are, yes the RX580 would speed up your workflow, but I don't think it's a significant enough upgrade just yet if you're only thinking of the photography workflow. Mostly because Adobe's GPU utilisation still isn't entirely where I'd say it should be. It might be a more significant difference with Affinity or Pixelmator. Maybe in future Photoshop/Lightroom as well, but for now they don't utilise the GPU as much as they could.

mavots said:
2- Which RX 580? I realize they all have the boot up issue. OWC sells the RX 580 for about $390. They don't say which flavor. B&H, Newegg, etc have the Pulse version for about $220. Does OWC do something with card that justifies almost double the price? Perhaps its been flashed to a "Mac Edition" and is ready to use as is. They have not gotten back to me on that. I realize the boot up issue would still be there regardless.
Click to expand...

There's no Mac Edition ROM to flash to it in any case, so they definitely don't do that. No way of getting a boot screen on there right now. That is; Unless you're capable of hacking in UGA support for the card yourself. - If you do, please let others know how...

pidcin1 said:
So basically all I have to do is install the card and that’s it. No drivers , no nothing. It simply works . That’s amazing !
Click to expand...

Yep. I mean that is typicaly for GPUs supported by macOS

pidcin1 said:
Do you lose the boot screen with this card ? Is there a special way you have to get into Windows ?
Click to expand...

You lose the boot screen, yes. In System Preferences, you can select Startup Disk. Inside of Windows, with the BootCamp tools installed, you can likewise change startup disk.

pidcin1 said:
Ah very cool. Is the nitro larger than the pulse ? How are able to boot Mojave’s and high Sierra ? And have a boot camp for Windows 10?
Click to expand...

By partitioning the drive in three chunks. If you're using an MBR for Windows you'll need to make sure the partition map for Windows (the MBR section) has no more than 5 entries (maybe it's 3? Think it's 5) otherwise Windows won't boot, but you can manipulate the partition map with GDisk from within macOS or Linux. If you're using GPT for Windows you don't need to worry about that.
 
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Is it normal that RX 580 PULSE 8gb card with Orinoco framebuffer does not have hardware encoding support? Mojave 10.4.3

Screenshot 2019-03-27 at 16.16.36.jpg
 
That's a question for Apple, but false restrictions likely have more to do with making sure "pros" upgrade down the road. The MP5,1 processors are also partially at fault for some of this. I'm not aware of false limitations being placed on RX580 in eGPU, however those are still underutilized to their best advantage when setup with the recommended configuration (using TB3). The only eGPU that is falsely limited is RX560 in eGPU currently.
 
Reindeer_Games said:
10.4 was Tiger.

You missed a 1. You meant 10.14-according to your link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Tiger
Click to expand...
I was hungry I guess so I ate one number.
[doublepost=1553723483][/doublepost]
startergo said:
Yes there is . basically you have to overwrite one kext with a kexts from 10.4.
Update: 10.14
I posted a link here a while ago .
[doublepost=1553710643][/doublepost]https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/336278-mojave-10141-breaks-radeon-hardware-decoding-no-igpu/
Click to expand...
 
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I am on 10.14.4 now, and i tried to swap AppleGVA.framework with one from 10.14.0 version. But it changed nothing after reboot.
 
Last edited:
crjackson2134 said:
Please update if you are able to confirm this. This would be really great news unless its just another “happy accident”.
Click to expand...

I don't have the hardware to check, but I thought it might be worth pointing out that other people in different threads have mentioned dramatic performance differences for their Vega GPUs in Mac Pro with 10.14.15 - improving by a good margin in LuxMark, but going down in GeekBench scores.
At least Apple have been touching the drivers it seems
 
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