What are the "Best" current Graphics cards for cMP?

[H2SO4]

Great to find out that cMP can safely handle GPU <225W! And finally it has become a global well-known fact that such a powerful, affordable and power-efficient card like RX 480 reference (TDP = 150W) can fit and sit pretty comfortably inside cMP without having us to deal any more with hassles of complex wiring management, or worries of power supply need (no extra PSU!). Gonna be quite a breath of fresh air for our aging but still mighty cMP!

So then out of curiosity and with some time in hand, I've been eyeing on XFX GTR 8GB, MSI ARMOR 8GB, or even Asus ROG STRIX 8GB (too much for cMP?). Sapphire, Gigabyte, and PowerColor seems ok too with some mixed reviews. Some of those are rated as TDP=150W (like the reference) while mostly aren't. I don't see any compelling reasons why not installing into cMP with aftermarket RX 480s 8GB that are build on incredibly power-efficient Polaris architecture. I run into a lot of discussion about the reference but not much about the aftermarkets. Am I missing something? Are the aftermarkets not feasible for cMP? I'm not much of a hardcore gamer but looking for mainstream top-tier performance card with future-compatibility under $300. Plz feel free to enlighten me.

The 470/480 may be a bit of an issue going forward, (10.12.4).

 

[h9826790]

Great to find out that cMP can safely handle GPU <225W! And finally it has become a global well-known fact that such a powerful, affordable and power-efficient card like RX 480 reference (TDP = 150W) can fit and sit pretty comfortably inside cMP without having us to deal any more with hassles of complex wiring management, or worries of power supply need (no extra PSU!). Gonna be quite a breath of fresh air for our aging but still mighty cMP!

So then out of curiosity and with some time in hand, I've been eyeing on XFX GTR 8GB, MSI ARMOR 8GB, or even Asus ROG STRIX 8GB (too much for cMP?). Sapphire, Gigabyte, and PowerColor seems ok too with some mixed reviews. Some of those are rated as TDP=150W (like the reference) while mostly aren't. I don't see any compelling reasons why not installing into cMP with aftermarket RX 480s 8GB that are build on incredibly power-efficient Polaris architecture. I run into a lot of discussion about the reference but not much about the aftermarkets. Am I missing something? Are the aftermarkets not feasible for cMP? I'm not much of a hardcore gamer but looking for mainstream top-tier performance card with future-compatibility under $300. Plz feel free to enlighten me.

Some aftermarket card using their custom design / firmware which makes the card not compatible on cMP. That's why stay with reference card is more safe. In fact, after market (cooler) is fine, reference design usually good enough. But more deviation from the reference, greater the chance that the card won't work on cMP. e.g. Even the RX460 has native support now, something like the single slot RX460 doesn't work on the cMP at all (obviously it's very different from the reference card).

 

[STek ZeNIO]

The 470/480 may be a bit of an issue going forward, (10.12.4).

In my understanding that's not something new. WRT cMP, 100% compatibility OS support for any current GPU architecture is not to be expected at all by any means, but where there is a will there is always a way. So far I find RX 480 to be mainstream all rounder card capable of being compatible with all cMP in aspects of power efficiency, native drivers, and cost/performance. Anyhow, what kind of specific issues lead you to the thought?

Some aftermarket card using their custom design / firmware which makes the card not compatible on cMP. That's why stay with reference card is more safe. In fact, after market (cooler) is fine, reference design usually good enough. But more deviation from the reference, greater the chance that the card won't work on cMP. e.g. Even the RX460 has native support now, something like the single slot RX460 doesn't work on the cMP at all (obviously it's very different from the reference card).

You are right on! The reference designs are usually conservatively build for wide range of systems with compatibility in mind. But if one of the aftermarkets works well with certain level of compatibility as the reference does, isn't it a great news for cMP owners? It may be well worth of a few extra dollars in exchange for better performance, reduced noise level, dual BIOS switch, and light (bonus). e.g. Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 8G features ~10% boost over reference, quiet under load, V BIOS switch for custom overclock in Mac and Window, elegant design with RGB lighting, and most importantly its safe power draw at peak <225W (Even if more, MP's 1x mini 6 pin can handle up to ~120W?). I just ordered it in order to experience myself.

e.g. Even the RX460 has native support now, something like the single slot RX460 doesn't work on the cMP at all (obviously it's very different from the reference card).

There are evidence RX460 works with native support (not official tho)... just plug 'n play on MP r? Or What do you really mean?

 

[H2SO4]

In my understanding that's not something new. WRT cMP, 100% compatibility OS support for any current GPU architecture is not to be expected at all by any means, but where there is a will there is always a way. So far I find RX 480 to be mainstream all rounder card capable of being compatible with all cMP in aspects of power efficiency, native drivers, and cost/performance. Anyhow, what kind of specific issues lead you to the thought?

Well I’ve seen Apple provide support for things in early releases before only to remove it later. The 470 works in my Mac Pro but not well enough for me to consider it a daily driver at the moment. I get boot issues every so often.

There is a chance of course that it may be MY Mac or MY 470. I may be looking at this simplistically but using the compare function in iHex there seems to be differences in the X4100 kexts of 10.12.2 and 10.12.3 21264 totalling 21264 lines.

 

[h9826790]

In my understanding that's not something new. WRT cMP, 100% compatibility OS support for any current GPU architecture is not to be expected at all by any means, but where there is a will there is always a way. So far I find RX 480 to be mainstream all rounder card capable of being compatible with all cMP in aspects of power efficiency, native drivers, and cost/performance. Anyhow, what kind of specific issues lead you to the thought?



You are right on! The reference designs are usually conservatively build for wide range of systems with compatibility in mind. But if one of the aftermarkets works well with certain level of compatibility as the reference does, isn't it a great news for cMP owners? It may be well worth of a few extra dollars in exchange for better performance, reduced noise level, dual BIOS switch, and light (bonus). e.g. Sapphire Nitro+ RX 480 8G features ~10% boost over reference, quiet under load, V BIOS switch for custom overclock in Mac and Window, elegant design with RGB lighting, and most importantly its safe power draw at peak <225W (Even if more, MP's 1x mini 6 pin can handle up to ~120W?). I just ordered it in order to experience myself.




There are evidence RX460 works with native support (not official tho)... just plug 'n play on MP r? Or What do you really mean?

Yes, more than 1 member here proved that the reference RX460 is plug and play in cMP.

 

[Fl0r!an]

In my understanding that's not something new. WRT cMP, 100% compatibility OS support for any current GPU architecture is not to be expected at all by any means, but where there is a will there is always a way.

Well, since Apple includes all necessary drivers in macOS, the hardware used in their genuine Macs can be expected to also work perfectly fine in a Mac Pro. There could be device ID differences, but usually Apple is too lazy to change it.

For example, Tonga GPUs (used in "current" gen 5K iMacs) work perfectly fine in macOS. The same applies to Polaris 11 used in the MBPs.

The problem is that any GPU supported "by accident" (-> hardware which Apple doesn't use and consequently doesn't need to support) can be dropped at any point. This is what just has happened with the RX 480. Yes, it still can ru on Baffin drivers, but it won't provide any video output before performing the kext mod.

 

[rueyloon]

As I've posted several times, BruceX finishes in 14 seconds on my single TITAN X (Maxwell) card. It's not surprising that using 2 GPUs is faster than 1 GPU in general as FCPX does a good job of load balancing between the two cards (something Apple added for the new Mac Pro).

I'm running 3x R9-390x and it runs Bruce x in 21 seconds. Seems that there is something Ying true about the d700 optimization. Ever try running 3?

 

[itdk92]

I know, that's why I said AMD card usually a better choice for FCPX even though Nividia produce better GPU. I was not just talking about GPU performance, but what's the best FCPX solution.

For dual 7950, it only cost $200, and it's easily self flash to get Mac EFI. And in real world, it can be faster than a more expensive single TitianX in FCPX which cost a lot more.

Since it's possible to run dual 7950 without any mod / additional PSU. What I was try to compare is a cost effective / OOTB solution. But not single / multi card performance. If the cMP can handle dual TitanX without PSU mod, I doubt if there is anything can beat that at this moment, however, it cannot.

In fact, I did think about 4x RX460 / 2x RX480 / 2x R9 Nano as well. However, kext edit may be required, and due to some posts about possible crash during stress tests. Therefore, I don't think they are good solutions at this moment.

Anyway, as I said, even TitanX is a better GPU, it doesn't mean that's the best FCPX solution. However, if OP willing to go through Pixlas mod, don't care about OOTB driver support, and cost is not an issue. Dual TitanX may be actually the best solution at this moment.

You can keep believing TitanX is the best performance GPU avail in cMP. I won't doubt about it as well. However, please accept that is not necessary the best solution for everything, especially when talking about FCPX, which is a well known programme optimised for AMD GPU.

That's exactly what I am going for in max a week. Found a good deal on two Titans X (Maxwell) and I have already done the Pixlas mod

 

[rueyloon]

Looks cool for benchmark.

 

[itdk92]

Some aftermarket card using their custom design / firmware which makes the card not compatible on cMP. That's why stay with reference card is more safe. In fact, after market (cooler) is fine, reference design usually good enough. But more deviation from the reference, greater the chance that the card won't work on cMP. e.g. Even the RX460 has native support now, something like the single slot RX460 doesn't work on the cMP at all (obviously it's very different from the reference card).

Which actually sucks! Imagine a 3x or 4x 460 single-slot gpus!