Got a 1080. Will adding a RX 580 (headless) give me Metal compatibility?

[Jeronimo2000]

Hi there,

my aging i7 3770k build has recently been pimped with a GeForce 1080 and is still going strong. However, as nVidia cards don't offer Metal support in macOS, I was wondering if adding a Radeon RX 580 would offer a noticable speed boost within apps like FCP?

Please let me know if my thinking is flawed here: the build would be connected to the display via the 1080, the Radeon would act as some sort of co-processor and speed up Metal-accelerated processes, even headless, ie. the Radeon is not connected to a display… right? Or am I getting this horribly wrong?

Thanks for any insight you can share!

 

[Adrian B]

I would think that it would now be difficult to get it to boot with more than one graphics card. Apple have made changes in recent versions of High Sierra that were not an issue in Sierra or El Capitan.

Here is a list (link below) of hardware that Apple have produced. iMacs from 2013 and 2014 often used nvidia graphics, so there is a chance that as these models are compatible with High Sierra and Mojave, then there may be Metal support for nvidia as long as nvidia provide additional driver support.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202823

We know that the RX580 will have some level of support for some time, but it isn't as powerful as a GTX1080 if you are also running Windows for gaming.

We cannot know for sure what Apple plans as even when Mojave becomes publicly available Apple may choose to make changes or may decide that older iMac models with nvidia graphics shouldn't get such good Metal support as a prompt for users to upgrade...

If you want to buy a AMD RX580, then they will continue to be current model upto Feb. 2019. its replacement is expected to become available in March 2019, we do not know when these new cards can be used in macOS.

Worth keeping an eye on the Macrumors forums for Apple/nvidia support. MacPro section is handy for graphics related content.
https://forums.macrumors.com/

 

[Jeronimo2000]

Thanks for your extensive reply, Adrian! Shortly after posting my question I decided I wanted to check it out myself and went ahead and got the RX 580. Observations so far:

- My build boots fine with both cards installed. I was actually wondering if my PSU would take it. It does.
- The RX 580 shows up in macOS 10.13.5, no questions asked, no kexts installed. Works OOB. Geekbench 4 Metal Score: 142222.
- Here's the kicker: System Info tells me the nVidia 1080 does support Metal (I had no clue that it would), so my whole point of buying the RX 580 seems moot?
- Geekbench Compute scores for the RX 580 are of course much lower than for the 1080, so I guess the 580 will be sent back tomorrow.

Ah well, worth a shot.

 

[Jamesbond007]

Thanks for your extensive reply, Adrian! Shortly after posting my question I decided I wanted to check it out myself and went ahead and got the RX 580. Observations so far:

- My build boots fine with both cards installed. I was actually wondering if my PSU would take it. It does.
- The RX 580 shows up in macOS 10.13.5, no questions asked, no kexts installed. Works OOB. Geekbench 4 Metal Score: 142222.
- Here's the kicker: System Info tells me the nVidia 1080 does support Metal (I had no clue that it would), so my whole point of buying the RX 580 seems moot?
- Geekbench Compute scores for the RX 580 are of course much lower than for the 1080, so I guess the 580 will be sent back tomorrow.

Ah well, worth a shot.

If I were you, I won't send back that 580 for a while.

Do you plan to upgrade to Mojave in the future? If you do, you should be aware that should Nvidia elect not to release drivers for Mojave (We don't know what Nvidia will do but the GTX1080 did not receive MacOS Sierra drivers until a year after release.) then your Nvidia 1080 will be useless in Mojave, while it is quite certain the RX580 can be used.