[Success] AMD RX6000 Series working in macOS

[dehjomz]

I'm still bitter towards Nvidia for the unexplained end of support for my old GTX 1080. I was forced to buy an AMD video card at the height of the previous mining craze.

Yeah. Me too. I’d had nvidia cards since the 90s, and after macOS nvidia support ended, I bought my first AMD card ever in life; an XFX 560. Little did I know the bios used by xfx didn’t play well with macOS, and the damn thing would kernel panic when booting Mojave. I was so ****ing upset.

Luckily I flashed a sapphire bios onto the card and it never gave me any trouble after that. But I never had any problems with nvidia at all. I understand your frustration completely.

 

[thedocbwarren]

From the reviews I've read, the GPU in the Apple Silicon SoC is already outperforming RX 560. On desktop systems where heat and power consumption are less of a concern, they can scale it up.

Apple signed a new licensing deal with Imagination Technologies in 2020 to bring Ray Tracing to their GPUs. I doubt they would go through the trouble of doing that if they were just going to use someone else's graphics chips...

Apple’s Imagination Technologies deal is all about ray tracing and AR

Apple and GPU designer Imagination Technologies forged a mysterious new multi-year agreement, almost certainly to bring ray tracing to Apple devices.

venturebeat.com

Lastly, Apple released the MacPro6,1 in 2013 and it wasn't until December 2019 that they released the MacPro7,1. So, there's no guarantee that there will be another Intel based Mac Pro release before the entire lineup goes Apple Silicon.

Real world use (on M1) I've had better performance than my 16 with an RX580 on a eGPU. End of the day they can scale this no problem. I just don't see them needed to go third party for AS Macs.

 

[thedocbwarren]

Have you seen the performance of the Apple Silicon Macs with FCPX? I don't think they need any eGPU solutions for Apple Silicon Macs. Like I said on a desktop where power consumption and heat are less of an issue, they can easily scale up the GPU on the M1 SoC.

I also question whether there are millions of Mac users (not hackintosh users) with eGPU boxes. I think it's a very niche segment

It is a small group. I jumped in, it's... ok. It works well but it really feels like a stop-gap for lacking on the platform for what Apple wishes to support. I'm not sure I'd recommend it for everyone.

 

[thedocbwarren]

Real world use (on M1) I've had better performance than my 16 with an RX580 on a eGPU. End of the day they can scale this no problem. I just don't see them needed to go third party for AS Macs.

Also before anyone asks why use an eGPU with an RX580 that is essentially the same performance of the internal 5500m. The answer is throttling due to heat. The internal is fast enough but the 16 heats up badly and can't handle load on CPU and GPU at the same time.

Main reason I switched. Also I wanted to jump in early to build up support in open-source on the M1.

My hacks are nice enough for what they did, and same for switching to AMD after having very nice (including two 1050tis, a 1080ti, and 1080 in 4 machines.)

 

[sixsixtysix]

There's no way Apple can prevent Nvidia from releasing drivers. Apple doesn't sign the drivers. Nvidia just needs a developer account and they sign their own drivers.

If Apple told Nvidia they can't release drivers, would Nvidia say okay and walk away or would they sue Apple for everything they are worth for anti-competition practices?

Does Nvidia need approval from Microsoft to release Windows drivers? Does Nvidia need approval from Linus Torvalds to release Linus drivers?

Only Nvidia can stop Nvidia from releasing drivers.

This is still Nvidia's only statement on the matter and it alludes to the fact that Apple wasn't allowing them to release signed drivers for Mojave.

 

[pastrychef]

This is still Nvidia's only statement on the matter and it alludes to the fact that Apple wasn't allowing them to release signed drivers for Mojave.

I've seen that and it's complete BS. That mod was making crap up. All you need to sign an app is a developer account (it costs $100). Apple doesn't sign it, the developers do. This is how you install your own home-brew apps on an Apple TV.

Also, back then we were able to run unsigned apps by disabling SIP. They could easily have released drivers unsigned if that was truly a problem.

Look at all the kexts us hackintoshers use. You think they are signed by Apple? FakeSMC? VirtualSMC?

My theory is that Nvidia didn't want to release Metal drivers because it undermines Cuda.

Source:https://developer.apple.com/developer-id/

 

[sriHacPro]

AFAIK, Apple wanted Nvidia to hand over driver source code, which Nvidia refused.
Apparently AMD, and Intel share their driver source code with Apple.

So, Nvidia did an "Apple"( closed garden ) on Apple, which Apple didn't liked.

 

[CrashMidnick]

AFAIK, Apple wanted Nvidia to hand over driver source code, which Nvidia refused.
Apparently AMD, and Intel share their driver source code with Apple.

So, Nvidia did an "Apple"( closed garden ) on Apple, which Apple didn't liked.

Ok but Nvidia was able to provide web drivers without giving source code to Apple. Nvidia is 100% guilty for not supporting Mac anymore.

For me Nvidia gave up because :

- Relationship between Nvidia and Apple is bad
- no more Macs with Nvidia products
- Support for old nvdia Macs became too expensive for 5+ years computers
- Metal VS Cuda

 

[sriHacPro]

Main reason could be Metal. Nvidia may have thought supporting Metal could hurt CUDA market.

 

[gabevf]

Ok but Nvidia was able to provide web drivers without giving source code to Apple. Nvidia is 100% guilty for not supporting Mac anymore.

For me Nvidia gave up because :

- Relationship between Nvidia and Apple is bad
- no more Macs with Nvidia products
- Support for old nvdia Macs became too expensive for 5+ years computers
- Metal VS Cuda

During SWIM’s time working at Apple SWIM was explained that the fault was actually on Apple’s side.
They definitely had the ability to make Nvidia cards work, but they were holding off, because ultimately their goal is to undermine the Nvidia CUDA mononopoly and boost their own hardware and Metal standards.

As upsetting as this was as a consumer, internally, SWIM was actually using special drivers on Catalina with Nvidia GTX 1080ti’s and RTX 2080ti’s without any issues.
SWIM might have snagged some of those driver files from their machine, but was never able to get it to work on his own, sadly