My experience with the HD6870 Graphics Card(s)

[jtk72]

I'd been working on my Hackintosh for 3 weeks and I finally got it all working yesterday. I have a GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 and I started with the Gigabyte branded HD6870 card.
I used Frostcalls method and I had no problems building my system and getting Lion 10.7.1 on it but when I would click on system prefs or Safari, little colored boxes would fill the screen. For 2 weeks, I searched the threads, trying to figure out what I did wrong. I ordered a CustomBeast and it was still dorking up. Finally, when I was on the verge of dismantling the system, I found an obscure post somewhere that said the boxy thing is a known defect on the Gigabyte branded HD6870's. I immediately RMA'd with New Egg and ordered a Sapphire HD6870 from Amazon.
The Sapphire card worked great (no boxes) until I would run CustomBeast or install Lion. Then the screen would go black after the OS loaded.
I then ordered another brand of the HD6870 from Amazon - the Power Color.
The graphics are perfect, I'm running 10.7.2 and after spending half the night working on it, I was able to somehow enable the HDMI Audio on the card.
Anyways, I wanted to toss this up here because I know how frustrated I had become trying to find answers. There were others with the same issues, but no real answers to them. I whole-heartedly recommend buying from Amazon because of their amazing return policy (they usually will ship the replacement next-day delivery).
Also, DON'T GIVE UP. I almost did and if I had, I wouldn't have this amazing computer that I'm typing this message on.
When I get a chance, I'll try to list out what I did to get my build going. If you are having graphics problems, try a different brand of your card...

 

[sickr1rider]

Thank you so much for posting this information. I am on the verge of buying a 6870. Is there anyway you could provide a link to amazon that you ended up with? Also do you have a monitor that has mini display port. I also want to get a 27' apple cinema display to put the icing on the cake of my hackintosh that I did a mac pro case mod on. I love this machine.

 

[jtk72]

Definitely. It's <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004BB1VL6/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details>.
I don't have the mini display. I initially had the Samsung P2770HD but returned it to Amazon also because the colors seemed muted. After reading some reviews, I went with an Acer H274HL. <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0052DHFX0/ref=oh_o01_s00_i00_details> It had good reviews so I took the leap. It's a decent monitor. If I had the money, I would have went more high end but it does the job. It's not as nice as the screen on my old 24 inch iMac but it also isn't glossy, so that's a plus. It comes with every freaking cable known to man, as opposed to the Samsung that only shipped with the HDMI. No remote - I can live with that. The speakers are a little tinny through the HDMI. I don't know if it's the HDMI or the monitor. At this point I'm just happy to have sound.

 

[TheFunkyRabbit]

Funny, just got my rig going and I popped in here to see if anyone else was having this funny "squares" problem. First click brought me here. Thanks for your research, I'll have to get a new card I guess.

 

[jtk72]

No problem - that's why I did it. Good luck with your build - I'm doing some photoshop on my mine right now and it's cookin'.

 

[TheFunkyRabbit]

Thanks - are you running dual monitors on that new card? Would like to do that eventually.

 

[jtk72]

Nope, not enough room on my desk or money in my pocket

 

[esity]

I have a gigabyte 6870 and it worked OOB flawlessly. Absolutely no issues and it plays my games on highest settings with no issues. Just wanted people to hear from the opposite side

 

[jtk72]

I just want to clarify that in no way am I slamming the card maker - when I was having problems, I'd seen where others gig cards worked fine fot people. That's why I was for two weeks trying to figure it out. I guess the lesson is, don't be afraid to return your graphics card for a different brand if you are having graphics glitches (boxes on the gig or black screen with the sapphire).

 

[Quantum3]

Graphic artifacts on screen was a bug from Lion 10.7.1, solved in 10.7.2. There were lots of complains because of that.