[GUIDE] RX 580 on Big Sur and Z390 Aorus Elite board

[miliuco]

AMD RX 580 graphics card with macOS 11 Big Sur on Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite board: excellent performance with graphics acceleration (Metal) out of the box, no drivers (kexts) needed, with 1 drawback on booting the operating system (solution proposed).

I have put the XFX AMD Radeon RX-580 P8DFD6 8GB Triple X Edition GDDR5 DVI + HDMI + 3DP graphics card in a Z390 Aorus Elite motherboard with i3-9100 Coffee Lake CPU. The RX 580 card requires a lot of space but it fits perfectly in an ATX box. Requires additional power connector. It has 2 large fans incorporated that most of the time are stopped, at least in my case. On Big Sur it works perfectly, even with Metal acceleration, installing it without additional drivers and without adding configurations in Clover or OpenCore. But it has a drawback that I comment below.

Booting the operating system, when the screen goes from basic driver to macOS driver, 2 artifacts are presented randomly, they are of very short duration (from one to a few seconds):

• Very brief white screen that may or may not be accompanied by purple lines
• Card fans start for a few seconds (noise is clearly audible).
  

This behavior is solved with the installation of 2 extensions, Lilu and WhateverGreen. Lilu is an extension created by acidanthera group whose function is to execute patches on extensions, processes and libraries during macOS startup. It is accompanied by specific plugins for the required task, for example WhateverGreen, which injects necessary patches for certain AMD, Intel and Nvidia graphics cards. It is mandatory to have both extensions together, one of them separately does not correct the problem.

I have installed Lilu and WhateverGreen and the artifacts have disappeared. Remember that these 2 extensions are not necessary for the card to work correctly in Big Sur, if you tolerate well those brief distortions of the screen or the noise of the fans running for a few seconds you can use it without Lilu and WhateverGreen.

Note: in Clover or OpenCore I don't have any graphical options or settings.

Note: I have also been observed in Windows these artifacts, especially the brief white screen and less commonly purple lines and noise from the fans, and there are similar comments from real Mac users with same card.

Conclusion: Although my RX 580 card is a model from the XFX brand, known for using custom VBios and giving problems in macOS, in my case it seems to work well with Lilu and WhatEverGreen:

• Booting macOS it does not show artifacts
• The 3 DP ports, the only HDMI port and the DVI port work
• You can send image simultaneously to 3 screens (I have not tried more) with usual duplication options
• You can send sound and image to a TV via HDMI
• During the installation of macOS it works correctly provided that Lilu and WhatEverGreen are on the USB device, etc.

GeekBench 5 Scores:

• Metal 50100
• openCL 44100.

For comparison, the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 card reaches 4800 in Metal.

 

[K1ngWilly]

I have a RX 580 as well and I get 50441 in Metal and 46120 on openCL but when I game it still lags ?

 

[miliuco]

I have a RX 580 as well and I get 50441 in Metal and 46120 on openCL but when I game it still lags

I have not played games except a very simple one with little graphic requirement. When do you observe that lag, is it a modern game with a lot of graphic demand? Is it a single game or is it more than one?

 

[K1ngWilly]

It's more stuttering than lag I would say but honestly I think it's just Fortnite. I did benchmark tests and I'm getting around the same score you posted in the other post @milliuco

I notice it sometimes in the general UI as well but my system even shows "Metal supported" so I guess everything is properly utilized.

I'll try changing the SMBIOS to iMac19,1 and see if that helps!

 

[miliuco]

It's more stuttering than lag I would say but honestly I think it's just Fortnite. I did benchmark tests and I'm getting around the same score you posted in the other post @milliuco

I notice it sometimes in the general UI as well but my system even shows "Metal supported" so I guess everything is properly utilized.

I'll try changing the SMBIOS to iMac19,1 and see if that helps!

It’s miliuco
I think your CPU doesn’t have iGPU right? iMacPro1,1 seems correct because that model neither has integrated graphics but it’s a good idea to try iMac19,1. Try and comment.

 

[stark1937]

My rx580 always in 100W Power consumption. Vram is usage 95%+. It always reboot when running Metal/openCL .(or open some big picture >20MB).

 

[miliuco]

My rx580 always in 100W Power consumption. Vram is usage 95%+. It always reboot when running Metal/openCL .(or open some big picture >20MB).

Fill in the data of your mobo in your Accounts setings and Build signature.

 

[stark1937]

Fill in the data of you mobo in your Accounts setings and Build signature.

Roger that

 

[miliuco]

My rx580 always in 100W Power consumption. Vram is usage 95%+. It always reboot when running Metal/openCL .(or open some big picture >20MB).

I see you use Big Sur. It's a strange situation at least for me. In my case the RX 580 card isn’t forced with normal use. Memory is rarely above 15-20%. Metal and OpenCL benchmarks and apps work fine. Before you think about a card hardware failure you have to rule out a few other things.
Is the power cord connected from the power supply?
Is it plugged in a PCIe x16 slot?
What SMBIOS model do you use?
It would be convenient to see your EFI folder. You can upload it here as a zip.

 

[stark1937]

I see you use Big Sur. It's a strange situation at least for me. In my case the RX 580 card isn’t forced with normal use. Memory is rarely above 15-20%. Metal and OpenCL benchmarks and apps work fine. Before you think about a card hardware failure you have to rule out a few other things.
Is the power cord connected from the power supply?
Is it plugged in a PCIe x16 slot?
What SMBIOS model do you use?
It would be convenient to see your EFI folder. You can upload it here as a zip.

EFI in post
Is the power cord connected from the power supply? yes, FurMark has running 15min.
What SMBIOS model do you use? iMac19,1