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

[SmackAttack]

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.

We had TWO Radeon VIIs in a Cubix xPander Chassis that were both exclusively dedicated to Resolve (motherboard-mounted 590 was used for Mac OS/GUI). We dumped the expansion chassis, the 590 and the two Radeon VIIs for ONE AMD 6950XT on the motherboard (running the OS’s GUI AND Resolve compute), and it smokes the dedicated Radeon VII pair. The standard candle test previously maxed at 14-15fps, whereas the 6950 easily surpasses real-time. Caution ‘tho: it needs a big PSU and it runs HOT at full bore. You’ll want a good case with excellent airflow for the card.
J

 

[Bustycat]

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.

And in some markets the RX 6000 series is quickly phrased out. For buying a new and compatible graphics card here, only RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT are still available at good prices. No new RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT cards are available, and RX 6900 XT cards remain unreasonably expensive.

 

[etorix]

So there actually is some drawback to living too close to the source of all electronic goods…

 

[Bustycat]

So there actually is some drawback to living too close to the source of all electronic goods…

Or consumers here just love Nvidia too much that stores didn't want to import enough AMD graphics cards, even their GPUs were all manufactured here.

 

[smail2133]

Already with rx 580 saphire. About 5 years or so. Thank you tonymac. I have used hackintosh many years ago, which was bought a few years ago. It still working.

 

[Bustycat]

Already with rx 580 saphire. About 5 years or so. Thank you tonymac. I have used hackintosh many years ago, which was bought a few years ago. It still working.

Bought mine in early 2019 but it's from Gigabyte. Too difficult to find a Sapphire card here and it's not mandatory to stick with the brand.

 

[Jamesbond007]

Or consumers here just love Nvidia too much that stores didn't want to import enough AMD graphics cards, even their GPUs were all manufactured here.

That seems to be exactly the case at my location. Most, if not all, of the available new graphics cards from the stores are Nvidia. Only a few AMD cards (in particular the RX 6000 series) from selected brands are still available, and I suspect once they are sold out they will not be restocked.

 

[GDS]

We had TWO Radeon VIIs in a Cubix xPander Chassis that were both exclusively dedicated to Resolve (motherboard-mounted 590 was used for Mac OS/GUI). We dumped the expansion chassis, the 590 and the two Radeon VIIs for ONE AMD 6950XT on the motherboard (running the OS’s GUI AND Resolve compute), and it smokes the dedicated Radeon VII pair. The standard candle test previously maxed at 14-15fps, whereas the 6950 easily surpasses real-time. Caution ‘tho: it needs a big PSU and it runs HOT at full bore. You’ll want a good case with excellent airflow for the card.
J

thx a lot, it helps concerning my choice

I am having a PSU gold 1500W, hope will be enough to drive those 2 monsters in a thermal take 900 tower

I went to 2 x 6900XT XTHX water-cooled for the reason of avoiding throttle at full use
the Aorus WC 6900XT XTHX is as great as a 6950XT for cheaper price (in Japan) and 4 years warranty

according to the end of intel Mac, I guess it was the best choice to still have a good rig for the next 4/5 years before to go to a Mac studio:
3970x, 256Gb 3600Mhz, dual 6900XT

 

[VioletDragon]

Looks like I'm looking for another Graphics Card, my RX570 decided to start artefacting last night, Powering down the system for 5 mins then Powering back on it works fine until the card gets warm, the card is getting way too hot, tested in Linux same problem so not a macOS problem. Only 2 months old as well.

 

[trs96]

Only 2 months old as well.

Buy it new or refurbished ?