[GUIDE] [SUCCESS] MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X full acceleration in macOS Sierra

[Sillycorn1]

You need to plug in a connector to your mobo in order to enable it. If you have no connector to mobo, you can't see it. My mobo is also an ASUS and thats my case.

Btw, I'm about to order this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H3P9CKI/?tag=tonymacx86com-20 but there is no DVI, which is strange, so I'm worried if it will work. Can someone advise please? Is is XFX reference model that people has succeeded?

Like I said before, I bought that and it works but until MacOS support RX 480, it won't gonna have full performance.

 

[idominikos]

@idominikos I'm planning to get that GPU, could you let me know what is your mobo?

MSI z97 Gaming 5

 

[mwo21]

Installed XFX Rx 480 and it seems to work following your instructions. Unigine and Luxmark benchmarks look fine. The only apps that repeatedly crash are FCPX and iMovie. I can't open or import any of my libraries.
Attached is a crash report.
Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[mwo21]

Installed XFX Rx 480 and it seems to work following your instructions. Unigine and Luxmark benchmarks look fine. The only apps that repeatedly crash are FCPX and iMovie. I can't open or import any of my libraries.
Attached is a crash report.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Never mind. I've discovered my FCPX crashes are related to using a 4k monitor. FCPX and iMovie are fine if I use my 1080p monitors. The XFX Rx 480 card seems to work fine (but not with my 4k monitor on some apps).

 

[Revod]

Never mind. I've discovered my FCPX crashes are related to using a 4k monitor. FCPX and iMovie are fine if I use my 1080p monitors. The XFX Rx 480 card seems to work fine (but not with my 4k monitor on some apps).

Can you post what steps you do? I have the same gpu but after modify the kext I can't boot, and without modifying boot but without acceleration

 

[ericliquid]

If we set the Initial Display Output to "IGFX", we lose the ability to see the boot screen, right? How could we dual boot legacy Window 7?

MSI Radeon RX 480 Gaming X (not the reference) is now working on macOS Sierra with full acceleration!
To make it work you need to:
1. install the macOS Sierra 10.12.2 public beta
2. go to /System/Library/Extensions/AMDRadeonX4100.kext/Contents/, open info.plist and replace "0x67FF1002" to "0x67DF1002"
3. run Kext Utility (download Kext Utility.app.zip) and wait until the access rights restored
4. reboot, go to BIOS>Peripherals, and set the Initial Display Output in "IGFX", then go to the section Chipset and set the Internal Graphics in "Auto"
5. save, reboot, and wait a few minutes (you must set the partition "Macintosh HD" by default and turn on timer in Clover) and you will see a login screen!
And more: in "About This Mac" will be displayed "AMD R9 xxx". To fix this, do the following:
1. download app "iHex" from App Store
2. go to /System/Library/Extensions/AMD9500Controller.kext/Contents/MacOS/
3. open the file "AMD9500Controller" with iHex
4. find (Edit>Find) text "xxx" and replace text "R9 xxx" to "RX 480"
5. run Kext Utility and wait until the access rights restored
6. reboot!
That's all, good luck!)
[All that I have written refers to mobo Gigabyte Z170 D3H - on other motherboards names may differ]
UPD: It also works on 10.12.1
View attachment 219245

 

[Fl0r!an]

@ericliquid: One possible solution without replugging cables or BIOS reconfiguration:

Configure Clover to auto-boot your OS X drive. Also make sure the NVRAM is fully functional. If you want to switch over to Windows, do so by selecting Windows in your OS X System Preferences -> Boot Volume. On the next reboot, Clover will boot Windows instead of OS X. The following reboot will be OS X again.

 

[ericliquid]

Thanks for the tip.

I have a legacy windows installed in a separate SSD. I don't think it is EFI. Currently, clover is not able to boot that. So I have to use bios(F12) boot menu to switch between OS. It is a pain. I would love to get clover to work.

Do we have a guild somewhere here to get that working? I looked around but didn't find one matches my situation. Probably I overlooked.

Thanks in advance.

@ericliquid: One possible solution without replugging cables or BIOS reconfiguration:

Configure Clover to auto-boot your OS X drive. Also make sure the NVRAM is fully functional. If you want to switch over to Windows, do so by selecting Windows in your OS X System Preferences -> Boot Volume. On the next reboot, Clover will boot Windows instead of OS X. The following reboot will be OS X again.

 

[mwo21]

Can you post what steps you do? I have the same gpu but after modify the kext I can't boot, and without modifying boot but without acceleration

i'm still trying to sort out what's up with my system. What i thought was a reproducible issue with FCPx and the 4k screen has now turned more complicated. FCPX is now crashing regardless of which monitor i use. If i can sort it out, i'll definitely repost.
Ive done the same kext edit everyone's done, and i have no problem booting or seeing the boot screen if i have one monitor connected to the IGFX and IGFX set in bios as initial display. I then move the hdmi cable to the XFX card and everything, except FCPX and iMovie. work. Even Unigine valley and LuxMark benchmarks go fine. If i set the RX 480 as the initial PCI boot, the gigabyte boot screens shows up but my system freezes during the macos boot.

i'm going to start over and try to be more methodical with my steps. I did try out both my 480 cards in windows 10 with the AMD drivers and they work well.

 

[Fl0r!an]

@ericliquid: Yeah, you might need to reinstall Windows. I'm no expert in this area, but I also had a legacy Windows install in the past which wasn't bootable with Clover. Reinstalling Windows in UEFI mode killed Clover (although I installed it to a different drive, thanks MS...), but after reinstalling Clover it was fine!