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Graphics Upgrade (AMD R9?)

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Joined
Jul 6, 2010
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Motherboard
Asus Z170M-Plus
CPU
i5-6600K
Graphics
R9 280
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
  2. Mac Pro
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Hey Guys,

I'm currently looking for a replacement of my old HD5770 (system in the left).
From what I"ve read, current AMD Graphics in the medium price range are much better value for money than NVIDIAs.
I've read a lot about the R9 280X, but almost nothing about the R9 280 non-X. Isn't it compatible?

I've installed Clover on my efi partition as my bootloader, so I shouldn't have and problems with AMD cards, right? My system doesnt have an IGP, so I can't use this as initial graphics...

So, R9 280, 280X or anything else?

Thanks in advance!
 
The AMD R9 280x is working flawless on my dual boot yosemite 10.10.2/ win 7 (don't like win 8) machine. However, you will need to install a uefi partition, see here, to get it working. It's the same for all amd r9 cards and I think you have experience with this from your bootloader. It's not hard, but just be aware. Once done though, the drivers are automatically picked up and that's it.

Nvidia cards don't need the uefi partition BUT some times need tweaking with the downloaded nvidia drivers. SO either way, you may need to do 'some work. Also, as you lack an onboard gfx you will have some fiddling to do, e.g. verbose mode, safe mode etc to get the os installed because without the nvidia drivers (which you won't get until the os is installed), things will be slow.

Currently, for Yosemite, people have had success with AMD 280x (some report 290x too) and gtx 780, gtx 970 and 980 for the high end cards.

For $250 range, the amd 280x is best value for money but the gtx cards are better than the 290x. The 295x (best amd card) has limited/ no success in Yosemite afaik.

Toms hardware site have a gpu hierarchy and buying guide which is a great reference source
 
Thanks for your advice!

In the meantime, I had already ordered an Sapphire R9 280 (non-x). It seems to be better value for money than the 280X (~25% more money compared to ~10% more performance), so I chose it.

Upgrading from my HD5770 was amazingly easy, it works OOB with no issues so far (no white screen, gibberish text or other things I had read). As I said, my bootloader (Clover) was already living on the extra EFI partition of my Fusion Drive, I think this did the trick.
Performance is about 3 times better than with my old 5770, I'll add some benchmarks to the corresponding threads later.
 
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