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AMD Radeon HD 7970 shows as FirePro D700 in 10.9 Mavericks

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tonymacx86

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Everywhere else in the OS, the card shows up as 7xxx or if using GraphicsEnabler=Yes 7970.. However, Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB shows up as FirePro D700 in LuxMark. Perhaps this is why performance has been spotty and fluctuating since 10.8.5 and 10.9.

On 4770K:
Screen Shot 2013-11-11 at 7.21.40 AM.jpg
 

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7870 XT also shows up as FirePro D500, also on Cinebench R15. For some reason your 7970 seems to be running slower than 7870 XT
 

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Don't know if the test could work differently on OSX but on Windows 7 i5-2500K and i7-3770K systems with 7870 XT's both get almost identical results, 1747 and 1730.
 
7870 XT also shows up as FirePro D500, also on Cinebench R15. For some reason your 7970 seems to be running slower than 7870 XT
I have the same card (7870 tahiti - the powercolor branded one). It benches correctly in 10.8.3, but in 10.9 it gets the *exact* same score as the HD4000 in the same system. I can't get even the bootloader to display without internal graphics on, so I have no way of testing with HD4000 disabled.

Has anyone been able to get decent performance out of this card in a system with processor graphics on?
 
Tonymacx86,

Thank you for posting this because this situation has been one of great frustration. I have never downgraded from an update in all my Mac days. I've always looked forward to each new update with anticipation and really dug in to all the new features but 10.9 has been the most disappointing that I can remember. I actually had to go buy a 2nd ssd just to be able to continue working (one for 10.9 experimentation and one for 10.8.5 work, which is very stable).

I sure hope that the AMD HD7970 get sorted in 10.9.x otherwise I will be stuck at 10.8.5 for a very long time. I'm posting benchmark shots from each OSX. The performance hit is very noticeable in many apps. 10.9 has some really nice and much need features dealing with multiple monitors as well as tabbed finder windows that I'm already missing going back to 10.8.5.

Thank you for all you do for this community!
 

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Ok retested the 7970 on the Haswell Z87MX-D3H + Core i7-4770K system:

View attachment 73547

I think this score is accurate now. Here is the Unigine Heaven OpenGL score in 10.9 as well:

Screen Shot 2013-11-11 at 7.34.17 AM.jpg
 
Does this mean that the drivers have been optimized for the new haswell systems? Will Apple then fix this for all the Ivy bridge systems or will they just move on and leave us in the lurch? I guess I'm asking for some speculation but maybe you can use your experience guided by wisdom.
 
Does this mean that the drivers have been optimized for the new haswell systems? Will Apple then fix this for all the Ivy bridge systems or will they just move on and leave us in the lurch? I guess I'm asking for some speculation but maybe you can use your experience guided by wisdom.

I really have no idea- the drivers were great in 10.8.3 and 10.8.4, and then something changed making them ID as FirePro- I would suppose it has something to do with the coming of the Mac Pro. Maybe when that's launched in December we'll have a better understanding about optimizing these cards.

As for the Ivy vs. Haswell difference- It could have something to do with the implementation of PCI Express 3.0 in 8 series vs. 7 series. Or it could be something with the drivers.
 
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