Graphics card OOB replacement, Mavericks 10.9.5 without integrated GFX

[fx600]

Hi, I am researching a replacement graphics card for my box, because the old one (Radeon 6870) just died recently (bad VRAM). I am currently running 10.9.5 using Chimera/Multibeast for 10.9.5 on Gigabyte P55-UD4A with core i5-760 Lynnfield CPU. Obviously, that has no integrated Intel GFX.

I am looking for a simplest replacement graphics card, preferably just working OOB. However, the information is quite fragmented, even here, due to to Yosemite and most install methods rellying on Intel Integrated GPU as the installation GPU.

So I am looking fo some help please.

What current card could I just plug and work with, OOB, on my system? 10.9.5

Nvidia Maxwell require the web driver and are not supported at all under 10.9.5? Or do they at least boot even if without QE/CL untill I can install the driver? I would aim for something like the GTX 960, although its 4K performance is not good.

What about Kepler cards? GT740 works OOB in 10.9.5? (Obviously it would be a big downgrade over my present dead card)

How about AMD cards? I can still get R9 280X new, would that work OOB in 10.9.5? Here I read both, that it should be working OOB, and on different thread that it has problems unless I disable the integrated graphics or boot using USB or EFI partition.

Newest iteration of AMD - R9 3xx series? It should be just rehash of the 2xx but could be plagued by framebuffer issues?

It was a lot easier when I built the machine back then...things just worked or not

Thanks for any help.

 

[Einsteiniac]

GTX 760 will work just OOB. IIRC some 7xx series cards are not OOB friendly. Anything 9xx series requires the web driver. It works fine and you can do any 900 series without the need of any other graphics cards you just have to make sure you send nv_disable flag to the kernel while installing and before you get the web driver installed. Also don't use Mac Pro 6,1 or iMac 15,1 system profiles as it will break the web drivers.

I don't follow ATI so can't help you there.

 

[Stork]

According to the Tom's Hardware Graphics Hierarchy Chart, your 6870 is technology equal to the GTX 650 Ti & GTX 750 and a R9 260X. But, since you are using Mavericks 10.9.5, the nVidia Maxwell chipset cards (GTX 750/750 Ti/900 series) are not viable because their use requires Yosemite.

So, a GTX 650 Ti (~$80) or a R9 280 ($125 used) are the minimum level I'd recommend to just replace the graphics power of the HD 6870. However, the GTX 760 ($130 used) or a GTX 770 ($200+ used) work OOB (w/o the use of the nVidia Web drivers) and are equivalent to the GTX 670 and 680, respectively.

A note about AMD...the R9 270/280/280X will work OOB. The newer R9 380 may work work in Mavericks, but, in Yosemite, the 380 only can use two monitors due to the Apple drivers. If you get an AMD/ATI R9 series card, make sure it has the same port configuration as the AMD/ATI reference design card. On the 280, that 2xmDP, HDMI and DVI which is the same as the 7900 series cards.

Ah, choices. I guess it's basically up to how much your wallet wants to hurt.

 

[Fl0r!an]

The lowest fully compatible AMD card that'll outperform your HD 6870 is a HD 7870. It's OOB since 10.8.3. I'd recommend a reference version ( 2xmDP, HDMI and DVI), but others should work, too. Got a used one for less than 90€ last week.
HD 7850 should work, too, but I'm not 100% sure Mavericks hat the Device ID in the kexts.

 

[fx600]

Thanks everybody. I am a bit uncomfortable buying used, as I have no way of telling if the card had been abused by the previous owner and how long it might last (my then new 6870 gave up the ghost after 4 years of running at stock speeds)

I have since made a shortlist of few cards still available new:
650Ti - cheapest equiv. to 6870. Lack of mDP/DP ports in that version, though. 4K support unknown and unlikely. Cross out.
660 - OOB right? should support 4K@60Hz (DP v1.2), 2GB is not so much. Still somewhat cheap option, although long term ?
R9 280X - OOB with the right framebuffer/ports, fastest option in my budget, 4K ok, 3xLCD support ???
GTX 960 - with upgrade to Yosemite and webdrivers, new, 4GB versions almost as pricey as 280X which is faster, 2GB versions too small.
760 or 770 impossible to get here.

So I am considering either the R9 280X or the GTX 960 4GB with moving to Yosemite.

Just a couple follow-up questions please:

1) Stork mentioned R9 380 as having problems with more than 2 monitors in Yosemite. Does that apply to R9 280X as well? Is that the dreaded framebuffer and port mapping issue? I am using 2 screens but would like to add another one soon. And since inevitably I will upgrade to Yosemite or El Cap sooner or later, do any of these cards have upgrade issues?

2) The new Maxwell GPUs need the Nvidia web drivers (only for Yosemite, right?), so how much unsupported are they in Mavericks? Can I at least boot off the card in safe mode or without Quartz acceleration, installing Yosemite and later adding the web drivers? Is that how the "nv_disable=1" flag works? Or does it require CPU IGFX (integrated GPU on CPU like HD4000) which I lack? I do have an experimental Yosemite install on spare disk, so I might just go the whole way. With 960 I would loose like 20-30% performance over R9 280X (especially in 4K), which is a lot, but with Nvidia actively turning up drivers to support the cards in newer iterations of OS X, unlike AMD where we are stuck with Apple's versions tailored for specific versions of the cards (usually with framebuffers and ports that don't resemble the PC AMD cards much), I might be inclined to go Nvidia. Or are the web drivers more of a hassle?

3) any noted 4K or multimonitor issues on these?

Thanks again.

 

[Stork]

The GTX 960 will not run in Mavericks as neither Apple nor nVidia support it in Mavericks. I am not with my P55M systems to verify the following, but you can

• insert the 960 and boot with nv_disable=1 boot flag and live with very low resolution while installing Yosemite (you'll have to use UniBeast to install Yosemite);
• run MultiBeast for Yosemite, latest version) and then
• install the latest nVidia Yosemite Web drivers.

Note: keep using the nv_disable=1 boot flag until you've installed the nVidia web drivers, and, before rebooting after installing the web drivers, add nvda_drv=1 to your Kernel Flags parameter in /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist file.

Also, put MultiBeast and the latest nVidia web drivers on the UniBeast USB thumb drive. See my link in my signature on how I installed my GTX 750 Ti for the link to the latest nVidia Web drivers. (I try to keep the link up to date; also check at http://www.macvidcards.com/which-driver-should-i-install-for-my-new-gpu.html)

 

[fx600]

Thanks for all the help, even the posts on Nvidia cards (which might hopefuly come in handy to others installing Maxwell without integrated graphics).

I finally settled for Gigabyte R9 280X (GIGABYTE R928XOC-3GD) I was able to find for a good price, and indeed it works absolutely OOB in Mavericks. Haven't tried Yosemite yet, but I can live with some framebuffer injection via Clover if the need arises. Currently, It can comfortably run 3 displays without any tweaking yet, with the default framebuffer (RadeonFramebuffer, shown as AMD Radeon HD 7xxx 3072 MB), and IOReg shows 4 entries for Framebuffer 0-3, so a fourth display might be possible. And one of the displays is 4K Dell via mDP, another a trusty calibrated Eizo 1680x1050 currently via DVI for colour critical work and the last one an old DVI office LCD from HP just for the kicks (and to try out triplehead setup) via mDP-DVI passive (!) adapter. All this without any tinkering at all, which was kinda critical to me to be able to continue working, the old Mac Mini just isn't up to my work needs any more.

I am gonna try out the old version Yosemite/Clover soon on a second drive, and possibly tinker with Clover framebuffer and ports injection, to see how it works, and as I would like to migrate to Clover anyway, but now all is working which is what matters. All benchmarks run nicely, and Photoshop CC GPU acceleration is markedly faster than on the older 6870 (especially on the 4K screen!), which is a boon. And since I got the card for about the same price as GTX 960 (which ought to be slower in 4K due to much restricted memory bandwidth, and I am not interested in gaming much), I am happy (970 is way out of my budget in my country, and 770 and similar have only 2GB VRAM which is not good for 4K much)

If or when (hopefuly not!) I find any issues, I am gonna update the thread just for sake of archiving, so thanks for all the suggestions on both AMD and Nvidia cards.