What GPU beats AMD RX580?

[Tazling]

After building my new Mojave Hackintosh I was a little disappointed to find that the (gaming) graphics performance of my new Sapphire RX 580 8GB was not perceptibly different from my trusty old NVIDIA GTX970 (Asus Strix 4GB). Somehow, with double the VRAM and a more recent card, I was expecting noticeable improvement. Oh well.

I'm pretty sure it's the GPU processor that limits my framerate. When I look at resource usage history after a gaming session, I see my GPU processor maxed out (100%) for half an hour solid, while my mobo CPU was lazing about at less than 25% utilisation. VRAM? only using about a third of it. mobo RAM? using less than 50% (during the gaming session).

So now I'm wondering, if I do want more gaming GPU horsepower (of course I do!), what's the next upward step after the RX580? Been googling AMD GPUs and the price points don't seem to align with the specs. The Pro WX 7100 is very expensive, but most reviewers conclude that it actually underperforms the 580. The 580, though it doesn't wow me, is called the "flagship" AMD card at present. So, should I now wait patiently for Navi and accept Catalina as the necessary evil that goes with the upgrade?

 

[sriHacPro]

RX580 is not an upgrade to GTX970. It is a side grade, just to maintain compatibility. It may even underperform in some areas compared to 970. currently the upgrade is RX5700 / RX5700XT which are twice the price, and deliver twice the performance approximately. Or wait for RX5600 which will be a decent upgrade. AMD will announce new graphics card models on 6 jan. Wait for 4 days and see what they will offer.

 

[mitch_de]

Running Mojave you could take AMD Vega 56 )about 40 % faster than RX 5800) or AMD Vega 64 ( around 90% faster, near double as fast).
And of course the V II - very fast card near 3 times faster as RX 580, in gpu compute 3 times++ faster.
BUT: At least the Vegas have an bad performnce(FPS)/ Watt usage - they use (much) more power (Watt) than the RX 580 - which also isnt a "green" card VII has much better FPS/Watt value, but is more an highend card.
The performance boost of the Vega 56 may a bit to less for you, i think. You wold need at least Vega 64.

As you write, for the newer Navis you need 10.15.
Now are RX 5500 XT and RX 5700 XT available. RX 5600 XT comes in the next 2 months.
For you the RX 5500 XT would be to less faster as the RX 580. The RX 5700 XT is even faster than the Vega 64 - that would be the right card. Or the upcomming RX 5600 XT which will be between RX 56 and 64.
All Navis takes less power usage, so better fps/watt.

EDIT: Her an Games GPU Bench over 20 Games in 5 resolutions (Win 10 64), shows good the GPU game ranking.
Your GTX 970 is within the list at the bottom. RX 580 is not listet but around the GTX 1060. You see - an RX 580 is an too less speed boast for your GTX 970 Setup.

 

[Tazling]

Thanks for the info! I guess maybe I can sell my RX580 on Ebay (and my trusty old GTX 970 as well)?

I saw a post-xmas (somewhat) deal on a 5700 XT from Sapphire, so I'll take a chance on that...

is it a simple board replacement (to swap one AMD GPU card for another) or will I get into kext changes and other complications?

 

[antieatingactivist]

Thanks for the info! I guess maybe I can sell my RX580 on Ebay (and my trusty old GTX 970 as well)?

I saw a post-xmas (somewhat) deal on a 5700 XT from Sapphire, so I'll take a chance on that...

is it a simple board replacement (to swap one AMD GPU card for another) or will I get into kext changes and other complications?

You should be fine, just make sure your macOS is fully updated first.

 

[Tazling]

do I have to go to Catalina to make the 5700 XT work? or can I update Mojave to "today" patch level and live with that? [update] after a lot of reading, it sounds like no, Mojave will not work with this card, I'll have to go to Catalina and kiss my 32 bit apps g'bye. that's too bad, as there are a couple of very useful ones I'll be sorry to lose.

if anyone has an opinion on the most stable Catalina that supports the RX 5700 xt and what versions of which kexts play best with it, that would be much appreciated.... off to read some more... hope I didn't just buy myself a big headache...

 

[scottkendall]

do I have to go to Catalina to make the 5700 XT work? or can I update Mojave to "today" patch level and live with that? [update] after a lot of reading, it sounds like no, Mojave will not work with this card, I'll have to go to Catalina and kiss my 32 bit apps g'bye. that's too bad, as there are a couple of very useful ones I'll be sorry to lose.

if anyone has an opinion on the most stable Catalina that supports the RX 5700 xt and what versions of which kexts play best with it, that would be much appreciated.... off to read some more... hope I didn't just buy myself a big headache...

You need to do the Catalina update before the 5700xt will work since the driver did not work on the 5700xt till 10.15.1. I would expect the driver to optimize with it very quickly since they will be offering the 5700xt with the new Mac Pro in the near future.

 

[Tazling]

I guess I'll wait for 10.15.3 in the hope of more stability. Been reading a lot about upgrading (the normal Apple way) to Catalina and it seems experience is very mixed -- some folks have a no-pain, no-brain 30-minute upgrade, others end up with black screen of death and days of floundering before they get their system back. I ask myself "Do I feel lucky?" and I wonder

 

[mitch_de]

Hi, if you don't have probs with a bit more watts, you could buy perhaps an used VEGA 56 or 64 - the Vega 64 will boost your gaming speed near to double FPS. And the VEGA can run already in Mojave (and 10.15 also). If you could get an used VEGA cheap, why not?
Later in 2020 you could buy an RX 5600 XT or RX 5700 - the prices will go down a bit to end of 2020. At this time 10.15.4 or 10.15.5 will be out with even better RX 5xxx support and over all stability than 10.15.2/3.

PS: I added an GPU gaming bench chart (over 20 Games /over 4 resolutions) in my first post. You see, an VEGA would already be enough for a good FPS boost - if you don't care the more an watts used by the VEGAs. But with AMD wattman (Win) you can reduce the power usage . i am sure.

 

[Snowy]

Hey guys,

As we all know we're scrwd now for 3D on Macs. I started playing with Blender since 2.8b and I'm hooked. Obviously Cycles does not get any boost since AMD GPU's are not supported (CUDA, Optix)
Currently with the Nvidia RTX cards the boost is like 10 fold compared to CPU rendering so huge difference.
I am seriously thinking about moving to windows but not looking forward to it. I love MacOS design and workflow and even though Win 10 has improved a lot it's still not the same, you guys know what I mean right. If I would switch I would get the 2080 RTX which would set me back around 1k. I also would have to move all my files to NTFS, around 4TB which is not a straight forward task because mydrives are almost completely full. Then I'll be looking into replacements for app but so far I've found Seer, Greenshots, Evernote, Google Keep,etc... to be good alternatives so that might work out fine.
Anyway as some of you might know Blender 2.8 has EEVEE now which uses the GPU for viewport and rendering. It runs ok but since I work on 4K screen in HiDPI it still lags. Would a RX 5700 XT (which sets me back only half of the RTX 2080) run a lot faster in my case? On paper it's almost double the performance of my RX580 but I highly doubt that will be the case. Still if it's at least half as fast in 3D or photoshop/lightroom I would stick around a bit longer, maybe till AMD has RTX support. It seems the RX5800 coming out this year would have RTX support? but how will that transfer into apps such as Blender?
Or would it finally be that time for me to leave MacOS? after more then decade. As I said I'm not looking forward to working in Windows but if my work gets done in 1 hour instead of 10 hours my patience (and electrical bill) would thank me for it.
What would you guys do if you would work in 4K (1080p HiDPI) and mainly use Blender, Resolve, Lightroom and Photoshop? stick around, perform a small upgrade (RX 5700 XT) and hope for the best or move on to Windows?

Thanks in advance guys