Buying a Dedicated GPU for your Monterey, Ventura or Sonoma Hackintosh

[Ryan Thomas]

I don't see the RX6700XT on the list?? was just about to buy one and came here to double check thankfully

 

[etorix]

@etorix PDF is attached to post #1 and below. Think I got them all but check it over to see.

Dortania's guide, which we are now mostly duplicating indicates that RX 5600 and RX 5600 XT are also compatible. Navi 1 is easier than Navi 2 (and Navi 3 is easiest: "No. Never.")

I could add the Radeon PRO WX 3200 as a single slot model supported only through fake-id (Radeon PRO WX 4100 device-id=E3670000) also, to give better performance and compatibility to this polaris model it is necessary to add the properties to it attached here.

Thanks for the contribution, but WX 3200 and below are based on Lexa rather than the supported Polaris flavours. It may well be possible to make them work but, as with the uncertain "RX 550", I do not see the point to go for a Lexa card rather than a natively supported Polaris. Used WX 4100 come in the same price range as used WX 3200 and work "out of the parcel". Same for RX 550 vs. RX 560.

I don't see the RX6700XT on the list?? was just about to buy one and came here to double check thankfully

RX 6700 (XT) is NOT supported, and never will be.

 

[Michenstein]

Thanks for the contribution, but WX 3200 and below are based on Lexa rather than the supported Polaris flavours. It may well be possible to make them work but, as with the uncertain "RX 550", I do not see the point to go for a Lexa card rather than a natively supported Polaris. Used WX 4100 come in the same price range as used WX 3200 and work "out of the parcel". Same for RX 550 vs. RX 560.

Of course, sometimes there is no local availability to opt for a compatible card, in addition to the possibility of importing it (as in 2020). Take the WX 3200 (2019) also for the possibility of having professional drivers for Windows with a support range of 3 years higher than WX 4100 (2016). There may be some users who have this graph and that information serves them, there are also some laptops such as the HP ZBook 14u G6 that contains these graphs. Currently there is a greater offer and availability of desktop graphics, so you are right.

 

[trs96]

indicates that RX 5600 and RX 5600 XT are also compatible.

Added those two. Still fits on one page. I'm calling this the final draft.

I have tried spoofing the Device ID with Lexa based cards. Tried a WX2100. It "kind of" works but not good enough to keep me happy. I returned it. As you said, find a supported Polaris card instead. Sounds like good advice.

 

[GDS]

From what little I've read (I don't buy the highest end GPUs) it looks as if it's a dual slot GPU not a "dual GPU" someone correct me if that's not right. So the performance will not be that much better than a 6900 XT. It's probably just drawing more power...

I spoke about 6900xt so meaning 2 x GPU CARDS!!!

And about it is not "better" than one only clearly NO, it is a huge avantage on mac intel with multiple graphic cards
Metal 3 use ALL GPU available on the rig
My question is: there is a gain to have dual Graphic cards on a rig but how much? (Compared to nvidia on windows with davinci! There is no tests on Mac OS with multi GPU
I use 8k raw footage on a 4k timeline + lot of open fx effects with davinci… just to let you know why I need a workstation with multi GPU

Just for your info that Mac OS use well all GPU cards on the same rig

Selecting Device Objects for Compute Processing | Apple Developer Documentation

Switch dynamically between multiple GPUs to efficiently execute a compute-intensive simulation.

developer.apple.com

 

[oli.mathieu]

I spoke about 6900xt so meaning 2 x GPU CARDS!!!

And about it is not "better" than one only clearly NO, it is a huge avantage on mac intel with multiple graphic cards
Metal 3 use ALL GPU available on the rig
My question is: there is a gain to have dual Graphic cards on a rig but how much? (Compared to nvidia on windows with davinci! There is no tests on Mac OS with multi GPU
I use 8k raw footage on a 4k timeline + lot of open fx effects with davinci… just to let you know why I need a workstation with multi GPU

Just for your info that Mac OS use well all GPU cards on the same rig

Selecting Device Objects for Compute Processing | Apple Developer Documentation

Switch dynamically between multiple GPUs to efficiently execute a compute-intensive simulation.

developer.apple.com

I'm not sure that Davinci handle Multi GPU the same way MacOS does.
I knew that on dual GPU system Davinci handle frame 1 with GPU 1, and frame 2 with GPU 2 and so on...
It gives twice the time for each GPU to handle ONE frame. That is the main reason VRAM DON'T add up !!

Even Puget Benchmark on windows shows that Dual GPU isn't twice as fast ... but 60% more = 160%.

 

[GDS]

I'm not sure that Davinci handle Multi GPU the same way MacOS does.
I knew that on dual GPU system Davinci handle frame 1 with GPU 1, and frame 2 with GPU 2 and so on...


Even Puget Benchmark on windows shows that Dual GPU isn't twice as fast ... but 60% more = 160%.

Exactly! And this is the point, it is clearly dumb to think that dual graphic card (same GPU) will bring twice the performance of one GPU!
But when you handle tricky project with lot of effects and tracks 8k (for example)
Having 160% is a huge step forward (with only one top end GPU) pointless if you use low or middle range GPU and make it dual! (Better to buy one top GPU as the 6900 or 6950xt)

About davinci on windows with dual GPU PUGET made the test with nvidia!
On macOS, different paradigm: no nvidia and only metal (which cannot be used on windows system)
And there is no test with davinci on Mac OS optimized with metal GPU: it is my other point
Davinci on their manual said that their program is optimized to multi GPU on Mac OS with metal (adobe is the same btw)
Apple said that 13.4 is optimized with multi GPU on Intel system!
But no one tried to test it
Anyway I will post my results when I will finish my rig (end of week)

 

[kSilva]

I'm looking at replacing my Radeon VII for the RX 6950XT. I was wondering if it's worth the upgrade now, since prices have dropped so much. Also, which variant would you recommend. I do mainly video editing/colorgrading in Davinci Resolve.

 

[diafebus]

I'm looking at replacing my Radeon VII for the RX 6950XT. I was wondering if it's worth the upgrade now, since prices have dropped so much. Also, which variant would you recommend. I do mainly video editing/colorgrading in Davinci Resolve.

I currently have bought the 6950XT and its quite simple to make it work and its a lot of horse power, I own the Stock AMD Radeon card, which also happens to be the cheapest

According to some benchmarks you'll get an increase of performance between 70% to 86% in most computing stuff… so it depends on your use case of course, but just so you know its possible, and not problematic in the build.

 

[Jamesbond007]

As AMD slowly brings their RX 7000 series cards to market (with the recent RX 7600 and we-dont-know-whether-they-will-be-available RX 7700 and RX 7800 cards), the RX 6000 series cards on the list will all be eventually phased out (perhaps in 1-2 years) and new users may be forced onto the second hand market if they need such cards to run Intel MacOS.

One more factor contributing to the end of hackintoshing in addition to the eventual end of the road for MacOS Intel.