Radeon Compatibility Guide - ATI/AMD Graphics Cards

[trs96]

I'm sure that AMD let Apple know Big Navi was on the way years ago, during it's development. I wonder if Apple's marketing dept. chose Big Sur for the name of macOS 11 so that we'd get the Big Navi release right around the time when macOS 11 goes GM ? It's not a BIG deal to me as I'm not very excited for Big Sur or Big Navi graphics. Looks like the new cards are going to be very power hungry and expensive too. I don't need that in my hackintosh. Add to that the immature and buggy macOS drivers that will cause problems and it's a Big deal breaker for me. I'd guess that most of Apple's best SDE's or Software Engineers are working on Apple's own new graphics drivers for the ASi Macs that are imminent. Apple wants to make sure those will work perfectly so that new ASi Macs get all the praise from reviewers. Then Apple customers will eventually completely forget about inferior AMD and Intel based legacy Macs and buy the shiny new ASi Mac laptops and desktops. Just my 1.5 ¢ worth. Don't mean to rain on the parade of excitement for the Big Navi fans. Just a reality check. For those that dual boot with Windows and game a lot, Big Navi will be a Big deal I'm sure. Especially if these new cards live up to all the hype on the internet.

 

[wallace82]

Excellent information. Thanks.

So in terms of compatibility, it might be best to put in an RX580 and plan to upgrade somewhere down the road?

My situation is I want to upgrade to Catalina but am out of luck in terms of Nvidia drivers.

 

[izo1]

View attachment 493434

I'm sure that AMD let Apple know Big Navi was on the way years ago, during it's development. I wonder if Apple's marketing dept. chose Big Sur for the name of macOS 11 so that we'd get the Big Navi release right around the time when macOS 11 goes GM ? It's not a BIG deal to me as I'm not very excited for Big Sur or Big Navi graphics. Looks like the new cards are going to be very power hungry and expensive too. I don't need that in my hackintosh. Add to that the immature and buggy macOS drivers that will cause problems and it's a Big deal breaker for me. I'd guess that most of Apple's best SDE's or Software Engineers are working on Apple's own new graphics drivers for the ASi Macs that are imminent. Apple wants to make sure those will work perfectly so that new ASi Macs get all the praise from reviewers. Then Apple customers will eventually completely forget about inferior AMD and Intel based legacy Macs and buy the shiny new ASi Mac laptops and desktops. Just my 1.5 ¢ worth. Don't mean to rain on the parade of excitement for the Big Navi fans. Just a reality check. For those that dual boot with Windows and game a lot, Big Navi will be a Big deal I'm sure. Especially if these new cards live up to all the hype on the internet.

There’s no way Apple can compete with raster performance of AMD or NVIDIA.

Their SoC GPUs are mostly going to be good for low powered laptops and so on.

Most likely Apple is going to keep using AMD even when they switch their Mac Pro to Apple silicon. It HAS to have PCIe lanes anyway.

People think Apple is just going to use SoC CPU/GPU on their Pro line, which I doubt. This isn't Apple's first entry into RISC processors, after all they used to run on PowerPC.

 

[izo1]

Excellent information. Thanks.

So in terms of compatibility, it might be best to put in an RX580 and plan to upgrade somewhere down the road?

My situation is I want to upgrade to Catalina but am out of luck in terms of Nvidia drivers.

you can yes. The rx580 is cheap enough and rock solid.

however I got Radeon VII day 1 and the drivers have been nothing but stable. Probably because it’s just another vega.

 

[jaymonkey]

@trs96,

I pretty much agree with everything you said above, for sure the new Big Navi cards are very powerful and if AMD's released benchmarks are to believed (and there is no reason not to doubt them) then Big Navi should compete with Nvidia's Ampere on a level playing field but are significantly cheaper at the top end and draw a bit less power.

I don't game, so for me the compute performance of my Liquid Cooled Vega 64 is still more than enough for the workflow that i do on my main Hack (see MonkeyMac Pro specs in my sig). Same goes for my Haswell i7 4790K running at 4.8Ghz, it's old but get the job done.

I don't have disposable income to spend on the latest and greatest CPU/Motherboard/dGPU combo although i probably would if i could.

Having said all of that it is an exciting time if you in the market for a new high end dGPU, I guess a lot will depend on if Apple release a Big Navi card for the new Mac Pro, if not then I agree with you that Apple will be 100% focused on AS Mac's.

Cheers
Jay

 

[pastrychef]

View attachment 493434

I'm sure that AMD let Apple know Big Navi was on the way years ago, during it's development. I wonder if Apple's marketing dept. chose Big Sur for the name of macOS 11 so that we'd get the Big Navi release right around the time when macOS 11 goes GM ? It's not a BIG deal to me as I'm not very excited for Big Sur or Big Navi graphics. Looks like the new cards are going to be very power hungry and expensive too. I don't need that in my hackintosh. Add to that the immature and buggy macOS drivers that will cause problems and it's a Big deal breaker for me. I'd guess that most of Apple's best SDE's or Software Engineers are working on Apple's own new graphics drivers for the ASi Macs that are imminent. Apple wants to make sure those will work perfectly so that new ASi Macs get all the praise from reviewers. Then Apple customers will eventually completely forget about inferior AMD and Intel based legacy Macs and buy the shiny new ASi Mac laptops and desktops. Just my 1.5 ¢ worth. Don't mean to rain on the parade of excitement for the Big Navi fans. Just a reality check. For those that dual boot with Windows and game a lot, Big Navi will be a Big deal I'm sure. Especially if these new cards live up to all the hype on the internet.

I'm still hoping that Apple will use AMD graphics with the Apple Silicon Macs. The graphics demos that they showed at the Apple Silicon Macs announcement was impressive, but it was more demonstration of software efficiencies than raw graphics processing power. If/when Apple applies the same techniques with one of these Big Navi cards, I'm sure performance will be phenomenal.

It's too bad Apple is going to Arm... Zen 3 + Big Navi are looking really sexy.

 

[pastrychef]

So the 6xxx series would probably be the best bet for long-term compatibility and performance?

Long term compatibility is a huge question mark right now. No one but Apple really knows how long macOS on X86-64 will still be supported.

Personally, I consider macOS on X86-64 to be "legacy" already.

 

[trs96]

I guess a lot will depend on if Apple release a Big Navi card for the new Mac Pro, if not then I agree with you that Apple will be 100% focused on AS Mac's.

Some may think this sounds crazy, but I could see Apple providing one Intel refresh of the '19 Mac Pro. In that scenario they would definitely support AMD Big Navi graphics. When they have invested that much R&D money into the MP 7,1 I really doubt they will abandon it and offer some tiny (by comparison) Mac mini Pro with Apple Silicon. I know that Pros need PCIe slots and they need the most powerful graphics they can get (at least if they edit video). This is why I think the the 2019 Intel Xeon MP will still be supported longer than any other Macs will. What Pros definitely don't need is the ability to run all of the millions of iOS apps that Apple Silicon will allow once it is in the next release of new hardware from Apple.

See: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/apple-to-refresh-16-intel-based-macbook-pro.305477/

 

[jaymonkey]

I could see Apple providing one Intel refresh of the '19 Mac Pro. In that scenario they would definitely support AMD Big Navi graphics.

@trs96,

Back in early 2020 I do seem to remember reading a few reports from Apple product predictors that Apple will indeed release a iMacPro refresh before the year is out, from what i remember it was due to be released around the same time as the last new iMac from a few moths back. If that plan is still on the cards then it would make sense for Apple delay it until Big Navi was ready.

The iMacPro was an interesting device, expensive for sure and a bit of a nice product. However given that it was released before the new Mac Pro and that a 2020/2021 refresh will most likely be even more expensive than the first model I do wonder if Apple would steer potential buyers of such a product towards the new Mac Pro ?

I guess time will tell ..... interesting times ahead for everyone in the PC and Mac world.

Cheers
Jay

 

[zzmadd]

Can anyone help in relationship to a Yeston RX 550 4GB?
This card is reported working as it is a Polaris 640 4GB with ID 0x67EF1002.
Even though I set such ID IN Clover / Devices / ATI I don't see such ID being reported and the card is still being reported with ID 699F12002, hence acceleration doesn't work.

Can anyone help?
Thanks.