Video card for old GA-Z77x-UP5 TH Mobo? Where to look..

elvtnedge · Oct 27, 2017

So I’m rocking my 4 year old Hackintosh with Gigabyte Z77x-UP5TH Mobo and i7 3770K chip. All has been good except for no iMessage, and some weirdness through failed attempts of clover over the years. If I could start over I would.. but I digress.

The computer is used for Logic mostly so I’ve been using the onboard HD4000 video. I’ve recently gotten into Final Cut Pro and video editing as a hobby. Rendering is getting a bit slow and just out of curiosity I was wondering if they still made compatible video cards and what would work with my hack. Not looking to spend $200-$300 but if there’s a cheap card that will be better than the onboard HD4000 then I’m all ears.

Thoughts?

Stork · Oct 27, 2017

Yes! See what's available on the used market. Although I'm still using a GTX 650 Ti in my Thunderball build, I'm going to replace it soon with a GTX 760 (supported natively) or maybe a GTX 960 (requires Nvidia Drivers). I recommend sticking with the Nvidia graphics cards in your price range. I also have a GTX 750 Ti in another (Hector) build which works OK. However, if you're going to use Logic, I recommend you find a GTX 9xxx, like a GTX 960, in your price range.

If you prefer a new card, The GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti sell in the $100-$200 range. These cards will require Sierra 10.12.6 or High Sierra with the appropriate Nvidia drivers. (We've provided the latest Nvidia drivers for the latest versions of macOS in our Downloads section.)

Stick with the EVGA or Gigabyte graphic cards as they don't deviate from the Nvidia Reference Designs, unlike ASUS and others. You can get a good idea of supported graphics cards in the Buyer's Guide. Older year Buyer's guides with that year's current graphics cards are located in the link the current Buyer's Guide greenish blue paragraph.

Finally, you can get a good idea of the graphics cards technology "level performance" from the Best Graphics Performance October 2017 - Hierarchy Chart by Tom's Hardware.

Good Luck! :thumbup:

VioletDragon · Oct 27, 2017

elvtnedge said:
So I’m rocking my 4 year old Hackintosh with Gigabyte Z77x-UP5TH Mobo and i7 3770K chip. All has been good except for no iMessage, and some weirdness through failed attempts of clover over the years. If I could start over I would.. but I digress.

The computer is used for Logic mostly so I’ve been using the onboard HD4000 video. I’ve recently gotten into Final Cut Pro and video editing as a hobby. Rendering is getting a bit slow and just out of curiosity I was wondering if they still made compatible video cards and what would work with my hack. Not looking to spend $200-$300 but if there’s a cheap card that will be better than the onboard HD4000 then I’m all ears.

Thoughts?

Final Cut Pro has support for Intel HD 4000. I switched from my GTX760 due to having problems with Crashing. Render times with HD 4000 is a lot faster than Nvidia Graphics.

elvtnedge · Oct 27, 2017

thanks for the answers guys. Interesting to buy in the used market, never thought of that and didn't know the old buyers guide was still active. I was in a computer store and saw new cards for $50 so thought maybe something simple, but they're not supported

Thanks VD for letting me know about the issues you had. Don't want to take 2 steps back.

As I said, my system sometimes does weird things like I boot up, and the bar gets stuck about half way. I need to put in my usb stick and click on boot clover and then boot from HD and then it loads up and I can take the stick out. Not sure why it randomly happens and it could be fine for months and then boom, it happens. Also my Bluetooth usb stick stopped working. Imessage never worked and I could never get it to work.

VioletDragon · Oct 27, 2017

elvtnedge said:
thanks for the answers guys. Interesting to buy in the used market, never thought of that and didn't know the old buyers guide was still active. I was in a computer store and saw new cards for $50 so thought maybe something simple, but they're not supported

Thanks VD for letting me know about the issues you had. Don't want to take 2 steps back.

As I said, my system sometimes does weird things like I boot up, and the bar gets stuck about half way. I need to put in my usb stick and click on boot clover and then boot from HD and then it loads up and I can take the stick out. Not sure why it randomly happens and it could be fine for months and then boom, it happens. Also my Bluetooth usb stick stopped working. Imessage never worked and I could never get it to work.

Create a new threat under General Help with Problem Reporting Files.

Post ioreg as ZIP: http://www.tonymacx86.com/audio/58368-guide-how-make-copy-ioreg.html. Please, use the IORegistryExplorer v2.1 attached to the post! DO NOT reply with an ioreg from any other version of IORegistryExplorer.app

Also, press F4 at the main Clover screen, then compress and attach the EFI/CLOVER folder in use. And please, in order to reduce the size, omit EFI/Clover/themes.

Maffew477 · May 28, 2020

Stork said:
Yes! See what's available on the used market. Although I'm still using a GTX 650 Ti in my Thunderball build, I'm going to replace it soon with a GTX 760 (supported natively) or maybe a GTX 960 (requires Nvidia Drivers). I recommend sticking with the Nvidia graphics cards in your price range. I also have a GTX 750 Ti in another (Hector) build which works OK. However, if you're going to use Logic, I recommend you find a GTX 9xxx, like a GTX 960, in your price range.

If you prefer a new card, The GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti sell in the $100-$200 range. These cards will require Sierra 10.12.6 or High Sierra with the appropriate Nvidia drivers. (We've provided the latest Nvidia drivers for the latest versions of macOS in our Downloads section.)

Stick with the EVGA or Gigabyte graphic cards as they don't deviate from the Nvidia Reference Designs, unlike ASUS and others. You can get a good idea of supported graphics cards in the Buyer's Guide. Older year Buyer's guides with that year's current graphics cards are located in the link the current Buyer's Guide greenish blue paragraph.

Finally, you can get a good idea of the graphics cards technology "level performance" from the Best Graphics Performance October 2017 - Hierarchy Chart by Tom's Hardware.

Good Luck!

Commenting from 2020!!!

I have the same specs (Gigabyte Z77x-UP5TH Mobo and i7 3770K chip) and I'm currently running the GT 640 in my build. Do you think it'd be worth it to stick the GTX 1050 ti into that old mobo with my DD3 ram?

A neat lil 150 upgrade, but potentially worth it?

EDIT: Running High Sierra

PS You're a legend and I loved your golden build! It's lasted me 8 years so far!!!

Stork · May 28, 2020

Maffew477 said:
Commenting from 2020!!!

I have the same specs (Gigabyte Z77x-UP5TH Mobo and i7 3770K chip) and I'm currently running the GT 640 in my build. Do you think it'd be worth it to stick the GTX 1050 ti into that old mobo with my DD3 ram?

A neat lil 150 upgrade, but potentially worth it?

EDIT: Running High Sierra

PS You're a legend and I loved your golden build! It's lasted me 8 years so far!!!

If I was updating my graphics card, I'd either look for an EVGA GTX 770 or a new/used Sapphire RX 580 Pulse (8GB). I'm currently running (the last time I looked last December) an EVGA GTX 760 which was cheap used a couple of years ago. The RX 580 is support natively in HS 10.13.6 and newer macOS. I believe the 760/770 is still supported natively in macOS. The newer GTX 1xxx series needs Nvidia drivers; Nvidia stopped supporting macOS after High Sierra. (Latest update needs an updated Nivida driver...good luck with that!)

So, go with what you need in a graphics card with either an older Nvidia supported or AMD graphics card.

VioletDragon · May 28, 2020

Maffew477 said:
Commenting from 2020!!!

I have the same specs (Gigabyte Z77x-UP5TH Mobo and i7 3770K chip) and I'm currently running the GT 640 in my build. Do you think it'd be worth it to stick the GTX 1050 ti into that old mobo with my DD3 ram?

A neat lil 150 upgrade, but potentially worth it?

EDIT: Running High Sierra

PS You're a legend and I loved your golden build! It's lasted me 8 years so far!!!

Ive no longer got my GTX 760 I have the 1050Ti 4GB model. I do plan to try getting this card working.

Stork said:
If I was updating my graphics card, I'd either look for an EVGA GTX 770 or a new/used Sapphire RX 580 Pulse (8GB). I'm currently running (the last time I looked last December) an EVGA GTX 760 which was cheap used a couple of years ago. The RX 580 is support natively in HS 10.13.6 and newer macOS. I believe the 760/770 is still supported natively in macOS. The newer GTX 1xxx series needs Nvidia drivers; Nvidia stopped supporting macOS after High Sierra. (Latest update needs an updated Nivida driver...good luck with that!)

So, go with what you need in a graphics card with either an older Nvidia supported or AMD graphics card.

What is the overall support like with the Nvidia Web Drivers? do they work okay in Catalina?

kylec · May 28, 2020

It's a little frustrating that the pinned posts on this site are just outdated, useless information. I'm not even sure where to direct you, to read up on the basics.

VioletDragon said:
What is the overall support like with the Nvidia Web Drivers? do they work okay in Catalina?

NVIDIA web drivers don't exist for Mojave or Catalina. Your card can be used with High Sierra.

VioletDragon · May 28, 2020

kylec said:
It's a little frustrating that the pinned posts on this site are just outdated, useless information. I'm not even sure where to direct you, to read up on the basics.

NVIDIA web drivers don't exist for Mojave or Catalina. Your card can be used with High Sierra.

Ahh my bad. im running High Sierra. No worries cheers.

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