AMD RX 570 / 580 vs. RX Vega 56 / 64

[Pintolus]

Hello there,

I'm trying to understand a strange Performance-Problem with macOS and Final Cut Pro X.

I've build myself a Hackintosh with a i7-8700K, 32GB DDR4-2933, RX Vega 56 OC with both iGPU and the Vega enabled (BruceX 11 - 13 seconds) and so far everything works fine.

But, I immediately recognized that the general Timeline (Skimming-)Performance and Playback of non-transcoded 4K-Footage is quite laggy, especially compared to a normal 27" 5K iMac with RX 570 / RX 580.

So i went to an Apple-Store with my SD-Card and tested the Timeline performance on

1. An iMac Pro with the 8-Core Xeon, 32GB Ram and the Vega 56

2. An 27" iMac with 4-Core i5, 16GB Ram and RX 570

On the iMac Pro performance was exactly the same as on my hackintosh, but the weaker, normal iMac handled the Timeline Skimming much better!

Is this iGPU related? Are the Drivers for the RX 570 / RX 580 better than the drivers for Vega?

Please share your thoughts.

 

[pano_78]

That's very interesting, I'm planing on upgrading the GPU on my FCPX editing machine, 580 and vega 56 are the obvious options so it would be very informative if you get more info on this

 

[kwokangus]

Yes, Timeline skimming in FCPX and Davinci Resolve 14 could be smoother with Intel QuickSync hardware acceleration. Even some i5 Ivy Bridge could perform smoother h264 1080p ~ 4k timeline skimming than a trash can Mac Pro

Indeed, if you monitor the cpu usage when using QuickTime player to play h264, you know which workstation support hardware acceleration.

 

[Frostreaver]

Why do you not just activate quick sync on your hack?

 

[rna23]

Hello there,

I'm trying to understand a strange Performance-Problem with macOS and Final Cut Pro X.

I've build myself a Hackintosh with a i7-8700K, 32GB DDR4-2933, RX Vega 56 OC with both iGPU and the Vega enabled (BruceX 11 - 13 seconds) and so far everything works fine.

But, I immediately recognized that the general Timeline (Skimming-)Performance and Playback of non-transcoded 4K-Footage is quite laggy, especially compared to a normal 27" 5K iMac with RX 570 / RX 580.

So i went to an Apple-Store with my SD-Card and tested the Timeline performance on

1. An iMac Pro with the 8-Core Xeon, 32GB Ram and the Vega 56

2. An 27" iMac with 4-Core i5, 16GB Ram and RX 570

On the iMac Pro performance was exactly the same as on my hackintosh, but the weaker, normal iMac handled the Timeline Skimming much better!

Is this iGPU related? Are the Drivers for the RX 570 / RX 580 better than the drivers for Vega?

Please share your thoughts.

Edit: after finding a proper configuration, everything works fine with the VEGA64 and it is very very fast!

Hi, thanks for this post. I just upgraded (?) from the RX580 to the Vega 64. Although all benchmarks give much much better results (except Cinebench), the FCPX behavior seems to be worse. Where the 580 could play easily almost any transition in 4K, the Vega needs rendering. I am wondering how would be the export times compared. I tried BruceX, which got much better, but it seems it is totally irrelevant to a normal video work.

It is good to hear that the same happens on the iMac Pro, so I know it is not a problem of my configuration.
It would be good to find out where the performace is better and where it is worse.
I suspect that in video encoding the Vega fails I was now exporting an 20min 4K video and it took soooo loooong. But unfortunately I can't compare it back with the 580.

If You find any other info about this, please share!-)

 

[thenephilim]

wonder if there's been any updates on this? I've been contemplating updating my RX580 for Vega ... but definitely don't want to do that if 4k skimming is slower!

 

[macnb]

Read this post from #393 onwards. There are plenty issues with RX5xx and Vega cards re encoding/decoding.
Looks like Vega may get fixed in the upcoming update but may be no joy for RX580.

 

[rna23]

wonder if there's been any updates on this? I've been contemplating updating my RX580 for Vega ... but definitely don't want to do that if 4k skimming is slower!

Hi, actually, after trying many different settings, I have the VEGA runnig very fast and with no problem with skimming, etc. The performance in OpenCL benchmarks is more than double, compared to the RX580, so it is very much worth the upgrade.

 

[thenephilim]

Hi, actually, after trying many different settings, I have the VEGA runnig very fast and with no problem with skimming, etc. The performance in OpenCL benchmarks is more than double, compared to the RX580, so it is very much worth the upgrade.

Oh cool, thanks for replying. That's good to hear. Can you remember what you had to change to get it to work?

 

[rna23]

Oh cool, thanks for replying. That's good to hear. Can you remember what you had to change to get it to work?

Hi, I don't count myself as an expert, but I can tell how am I running the VEGA64 now.
I use an SSDT "SSDT-Vega64-FBName-Kamarang.aml "which I got from Gigamaxx. I attach it to this post.
I use a kext, created by VGTab.app "VegaTab_64.kext" - I attach that also. That controls the normal fan speed, so it doesn't run like crazy. If You use another type of the VEGA, than You should make Your own kext.
I also use the WhateverGreen.kext and Lilu.kext. I can't tell up to now if it is necessary or not, but I read somewhere that it is better. But hard to tell ...

And that's it. Just remove anything related to the RX580, if You had some ID, etc.