current state of GPUs (NVIDIA vs AMD)

[forcedmeme]

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice from anyone who's built a rig with either (preferably both) of these manufacturers cards and High Sierra.

I'm currently using a GTX 1050 in High Sierra and I've got to say that I'm far from pleased with the performance. It's slow, laggy and glitches all the time. This is with the older version of the drivers (.106) as I had a later version installed and it made the system completely unusable.

It seems like the drivers from NVIDIA are simply no good.

So I'm wondering if I might have a better time with an AMD card. I've been reading about native support for the RX 580, for example, and I want to know if any of you are running this card and can comment on its performance.

My GTX 1050 runs very nicely in windows, but I'd be willing to replace it if it meant I could get my customac running nicely.

 

[dfritchie]

I highly recommend the RX580, all it took for full support was lilu + whatevergreen. Full speed, no glitches, and the performance is very good in macOS and Windows 10. I hear from beta tester that full support is in 10.13.4, no kexts or clover deinit needed (native support!).

 

[forcedmeme]

Thanks for the input! Did you specifically buy the RX580 that Apple supports in GPU enclosures? Or just a generic one? I'm wondering if it makes a difference or not.

But if native support is coming to all of them, I guess that won't make a difference soon.

 

[pastrychef]

Yes, wait for the release of 10.13.4 and see which AMD cards work well with it.

Last week, I switched from Nvidia to AMD and, generally, I have been very happy. Everything is MUCH, MUCH smoother.

 

[forcedmeme]

Just ordered a Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX580, will report back with my findings here for anyone that's interested. Thanks for the tips!

 

[pastrychef]

Just ordered a Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX580, will report back with my findings here for anyone that's interested. Thanks for the tips!

In case you happen to get one that isn't natively supported, you can hack it to get native support. Instructions are here: Turn a "new" Sapphire RX580 PULSE into the "Mac Edition" card | MacRumors Forums

 

[trs96]

In case you happen to get one that isn't natively supported, you can hack it to get native support. Instructions are here: Turn a "new" Sapphire RX580 PULSE into the "Mac Edition" card | MacRumors Forums

I also like what post #3 by the author of that thread says about the Sapphire Nitro + version.

It should be much easier to work with the Nitro+ because of its dual ROM design, much much less pressure on worrying about if the hex edit screw up the ROM.

Looks like that may be the best RX580 choice as it costs even less than the Pulse version. Besides, bricking a new $500 graphics card would ruin anyone's day.

Looks like the Nitro+ version (8GB) is selling for a relatively low 430 USD right now at Newegg.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202280&cm_re=rx580_nitro-_-14-202-280-_-Product

 

[forcedmeme]

In case you happen to get one that isn't natively supported, you can hack it to get native support. Instructions are here: Turn a "new" Sapphire RX580 PULSE into the "Mac Edition" card | MacRumors Forums

Thanks very much for that link. I remember reading it a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it.

I must admit that I can’t really get my head around exactly what’s required with the hex editor. I’m also not sure that it’s completely necessary, some people say it’s only cosmetic and others that their machine was glitchy without it.

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks very much for that link. I remember reading it a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it.

I must admit that I can’t really get my head around exactly what’s required with the hex editor. I’m also not sure that it’s completely necessary, some people say it’s only cosmetic and others that their machine was glitchy without it.

The Apple drivers look for those two specific part numbers. If it doesn't see it, things will not work right. The hack in that link puts the "good" part number on the video card so that the driver recognizes it and will load properly.

Since I wrote the above post, I've stumbled upon an easier fix that achieves the same thing by using Clover to patch the driver to look for modified part numbers. You can find instructions here.

 

[forcedmeme]

Just a quick update for anyone following/interested: I've got the RX 580 Pulse, and it appears to be natively supported in macOS. I used RadeonDeinit in clover and other than that it seems to working OOB.

I would say though, it's miles better than the NVIDIA card but in photoshop and pixelmator the performance is very bad indeed. General desktop usage seems much smoother, but still in some apps it looks like Im using a much less powerful card.

Benchmarks seem to be on par with what other people have achieved in macOS, so Im not sure exactly what the problem is.