Upgrade 512MB GPU in iMac Mid-2011 to a 6GB GPU?

[PineapplePen(Man]

Upgrading a iMac Mid-2011's GPU has been asked already here but that's for 3GB GPUs.

I've installed Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on this iMac, so there shouldn't be any macOS compatibility issues as I will never be installing it on that iMac ever. So, is there any compatible (preferably not AMD, so probably NVIDIA) 6GB GPUs that'll fit in that iMac?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Upgrading a iMac Mid-2011's GPU has been asked already here but that's for 3GB GPUs.

I've installed Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on this iMac, so there shouldn't be any macOS compatibility issues as I will never be installing it on that iMac ever. So, is there any compatible (preferably not AMD, so probably NVIDIA) 6GB GPUs that'll fit in that iMac?

Try Quadro K5100m (8GB vRAM, not 6GB). It will need a hack vBIOS to display the internal LCD.

 

[PineapplePen(Man]

Thank you! Will it just slot straight into the GPU port? Also, I'm new to this so what is a vBIOS? (I guess I could search it up, I hope this doesn't require some sort of soldering or something)

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Thank you! Will it just slot straight into the GPU port? Also, I'm new to this so what is a vBIOS? (I guess I could search it up, I hope this doesn't require some sort of soldering or something)

Just search ebay or other online shopping site with keyword: "Quadro K5100m for iMac"
You can just buy one whole pre-assembled set (MXM card + modded heatsink + X-bracket) and pre-flashed vBIOS. It would be plug-and-play.
The hard part of this is to open the iMac and replace the GPU, without breaking anything.

I also have an imac 2011 but too lazy to try a new GPU for it.
Already tried new GPU on my iMac 2009 and 2010, though. In my case I was cheap out and bought the original cards, heatsink from different sellers and did all the modding and flashing myself.

If you want to research more, read these 2 threads below first. Thread No.1 is a Wiki thread, you just have to read the first post (and all links inside it) thoroughly.

1.

2011 iMac Graphics Card Upgrade

iMac 2009 to 2011 MXM3 graphics card upgrade (Lastest update 10/13/2023 - this is the official documentation page - you found it finally!) This is the single and only documentation post. During the last years we constantly updated this post to reflect the lastet development of vBIOS and OCLP...

forums.macrumors.com

2.

iMac 2011 Maxwell and Pascal GPU upgrade

This is a Wiki post with information collected from the entire thread. Before you post, please read this first. This thread is for supporting Maxwell and Pascal cards on the 2009-2011 iMac. Maxwell and Pascal cards will not work with acceleration on MacOS beyond High Sierra due to lack of...

forums.macrumors.com