MP 1,1-5,1 Variants of Vega 56/64 GPU on 5,1

[Farravi]

Hello,

I've been surfing and sieving through many threads and posts and given serious thought to changing my current GPU (Nvidia GX 980 Ti 6mb flashed with Bootscreen) to a metal compatible GPU so that I can safely upgrade to Mojave.

After much contemplation, I've dropped the idea of buying the Sapphire RX 580 8GB and instead looking into the RX Vega 64 around ~£260 secondhand(with the Pixlas mod of course) purely because of the performance.

For those of you who already have experience with installing the Vega 64, which variant is the best for the 5,1 in terms of installation (size) and performance.

Cheers

 

[iGobbleoff]

I could be wrong, but to get a Vega 64 you need to do the Pixlas mod also?

 

[tommy chen]

I could be wrong, but to get a Vega 64 you need to do the Pixlas mod also?

yes, it is the best way to safe your backplane and avoid shutdowns
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For those of you who already have experience with installing the Vega 64, which variant is the best for the 5,1 in terms of installation (size) and performance.

Cheers

you look at sapphire reference model with one fan and a high of 2HE

 

[MisterAndrew]

As far as physical fitment I'd say reference model like the Sapphire above. For silence (fan stop feature) I'd recommend Sapphire Pulse Vega 56, but it's larger at 2.5 slot width. You probably won't notice a difference in performance between Vega 56 and 64. They're very close in macOS.

 

[tommy chen]

the sapphire vega56 reference has the same formfactor as the vega64 in my post
the performance difference is 8 - 10%

 

[AlexMaximus]

I used to have a Vega 64. The cooling is compared to an Nvidia 980Ti very bad. The card got very hot in my 5.1 and the performance was mediocre at best. If I would start again with a reasonable solution, I would choose the Vega 56 Power Color Red Dragon. The Vega7 is great but overkill. Believe me, every custom cooler is better than the original duct fan when it comes to the Vega cards. The Power Color has three fans, this is the best solution in terms of budget and cooling.

 

[Farravi]

Gents

I've heeded your advice and bought a second hand Sapphire Pulse RX Vega 56 of fleabay as well as the cables / tools for the Pixlas mod. This is programmed for completion by this weekend.

 

[rmpitzer]

Gents

I've heeded your advice and bought a second hand Sapphire Pulse RX Vega 56 of fleabay as well as the cables / tools for the Pixlas mod. This is programmed for completion by this weekend.

I'm considering the same upgrade. How did yours go? Any issues with high fan speeds, or is that a non-issue now?

-Rich

 

[Farravi]

I’ve not had the chance yet but tomorrow I’ve set aside time so I’ll update this thread with my findings once I’ve done that.

 

[Farravi]

It took a good 4 hours as I was faffing about with the SATA wire and the all-in-one (Crimping, Stripping, Cutting) tool isn't the best for this job, also passing the cable through the back of the desktop with the taps still attached wasn't easy even though I took the fan off but on the whole, take your time and it is doable.

I've attached the screenshot, it was pretty much plug and play for the Sapphire Pulse Vega 56 card. The computer instantly recognised it and the display are looking wonderful, I'd say I think I won't have any issues with the dual display as I did with the Nvidia GT 980 Ti. Obviously, it came up with the CUDA settings stating, "GPU not detected" but I switched it to 'Default MacOS graphics driver' having no issues thus far.

How do I get the reading for the power now that it's all setup?

 

[rmpitzer]

Very cool, glad to hear all went well. Thanks for the update!