Mac OSX Mojave - vid card requirements

[OVERKILL]

Well, looks like I finally have to dump the 5770 that's in my Mac Pro. Went to install Mojave last night and it said "nope, you need a card that supports Metal". Ergo, I'm now shopping for a GTX 680 that I can flash to get around that. This computer is 8 years old presently and, with an SSD in it, still works surprisingly well. Upgraded the CPU a few months ago, has the hex-core 3.2Ghz Xeon in it now.

Anyone else install it or tried and discovered a hiccup?

 

[Pelican]

My wife just downloaded it last night without any problems, but her iMac is only 3 yo. I will download it this week and mine is 2.5 yo so don't expect any problems.

I guess this is Apple's way to make you buy new equipment and most folks fall for it.

 

[itguy08]

Installed fine this morning on my 2013 iMac. Initial checkout seemed good. Not a fan of dark mode on that machine - the low res screen made things look fuzzy and some apps that don't support it (Word, VirtualBox) still show a light background.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Pelican
My wife just downloaded it last night without any problems, but her iMac is only 3 yo. I will download it this week and mine is 2.5 yo so don't expect any problems.

I guess this is Apple's way to make you buy new equipment and most folks fall for it.


Actually, it was surprisingly nice that they give you a link to a web site that says "you need to upgrade your video card, here are the cards that will work". Decent list of supported hardware, and of course they are ridiculously easy to swap out.

 

[OVERKILL]

Well, the GTX 680 I found on Kijiji showed up this AM. I flashed it a couple of hours ago with the Mac ROM and now I'm running Mojave

So far, so good. Updating WoWS for the first time and a while, as I'm expecting the playing experience to be a lot better with this card than it was with the 5770.

 

[bunnspecial]

The fact that Apple has officially provided an upgrade path for the Mac Pro 5,1 is absolutely unprecedented, but good news for those of us still using these beast 5,1s. There have been unofficial hacks like this in the past to get newer OSs running on unsupported hardware, but Apple officially endorsing it is completely unheard of.

To me, it shows that Apple recognizes how miserable of a failure the Mac Pro 6,1(late 2013, aka the "trashcan") was/is.

With dual X590 CPUs and a couple of PCIe drives, my 5,1 will run circles in almost every way over even a top end, $10K+ 6,1.

Unfortunately, one of my primary uses for the computer requires that I run Snow Leopard on it. I need to run PowerPC-native software to interface with Firewire peripherals, and want to use that alongside Intel-native software. The fact that I need access to Firewire means virtualizing Snow Leopard is out for me. Also, there are not any Metal-compatible GPUs that will work in SL. That means I'm "up a creek" on Mojave. I'm running a 5770, and I'm hoping that Mac 5870 prices will tank now that the card is useless in Mojave-I may pick one up and enjoy the best SL GPU performance available, along with not half bad performance in High Sierra.

I haven't installed Mojave yet on my MBP 9,1(mid-2012 15" non-Retina) which officially supports it. I'm still running High Sierra on it. SO FAR, I've only installed it on my "backup" laptop, a MacBook Pro 9,2(13" Mid-2012 non-Retina) and it runs great on there.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
The fact that Apple has officially provided an upgrade path for the Mac Pro 5,1 is absolutely unprecedented, but good news for those of us still using these beast 5,1s. There have been unofficial hacks like this in the past to get newer OSs running on unsupported hardware, but Apple officially endorsing it is completely unheard of.

To me, it shows that Apple recognizes how miserable of a failure the Mac Pro 6,1(late 2013, aka the "trashcan") was/is.

With dual X590 CPUs and a couple of PCIe drives, my 5,1 will run circles in almost every way over even a top end, $10K+ 6,1.

Unfortunately, one of my primary uses for the computer requires that I run Snow Leopard on it. I need to run PowerPC-native software to interface with Firewire peripherals, and want to use that alongside Intel-native software. The fact that I need access to Firewire means virtualizing Snow Leopard is out for me. Also, there are not any Metal-compatible GPUs that will work in SL. That means I'm "up a creek" on Mojave. I'm running a 5770, and I'm hoping that Mac 5870 prices will tank now that the card is useless in Mojave-I may pick one up and enjoy the best SL GPU performance available, along with not half bad performance in High Sierra.

I haven't installed Mojave yet on my MBP 9,1(mid-2012 15" non-Retina) which officially supports it. I'm still running High Sierra on it. SO FAR, I've only installed it on my "backup" laptop, a MacBook Pro 9,2(13" Mid-2012 non-Retina) and it runs great on there.


Yeah, it is really quite remarkable. I did the CPU upgrade a few months ago as well, and that was dirt cheap to get into hex-core. WoW's runs awesome now, but is still unstable as heck on OSX unfortunately

 

[bunnspecial]

What CPU(s) did you put in?

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
What CPU(s) did you put in?


W3670.

 

[bunnspecial]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by bunnspecial
What CPU(s) did you put in?


W3670.


If you get an inclination to upgrade again, the X5690 is a killer processor and can now be reliably had under $100.

One of the nice things, too, is that for folks with dual CPU systems, it's easy to find these in matched sets also from server pulls. 12 cores/24 threads is a lot of fun

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by bunnspecial
What CPU(s) did you put in?


W3670.


If you get an inclination to upgrade again, the X5690 is a killer processor and can now be reliably had under $100.

One of the nice things, too, is that for folks with dual CPU systems, it's easy to find these in matched sets also from server pulls. 12 cores/24 threads is a lot of fun

This is only a single CPU rig, so I'd be gaining 260Mhz, LOL

I got this CPU for $40.00, it was also a server pull. I couldn't find any X5690's up here at the time I bought it, hence the purchase of this one.

 

[bunnspecial]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL

This is only a single CPU rig, so I'd be gaining 260Mhz, LOL

I got this CPU for $40.00, it was also a server pull. I couldn't find any X5690's up here at the time I bought it, hence the purchase of this one.


Fair enough. The W3670 is still a great unit in single CPU systems, and you can't beat the price you paid.

As a side note, I think in Apple's tacit admission that the 6,1 was a complete bust, we've seen some really interesting firmware updates for the 5,1 in the past year. The Mojave installer does an update that adds native support for NVMe drives.

This is actually a really, really big deal as it previously only supported slower(and relatively expensive) AHCI drives. The 6,1 is still using AHCI, and there's no real way to install an NVMe drive in it.

Now, you can put a $300 1TB Samsung Evo 970 in a $10 passive adapter and get a theoretical max of 1,900mb/s read and write speeds. The "trashcan" drive I boot off of in my 5,1 runs at about 700mb/s, and those drives are about as fast as you can get for an AHCI PCIe SSD.

Even without hacking, the 5,1 now has Apple's blessing to at a minimum match and in most cases exceed the performance of the 6,1 they are still selling new. That's impressive for a machine that dates to 2010...

 

[OVERKILL]

That's extremely impressive and yes, I was surprised by the firmware updates as well. The legs this platform has been continually given is amazing. Didn't know about the NVMe drive support, that's amazing! I'm using an AHCI SSD presently, but I'll look into that now that you've mentioned it.

There's no real limit on video card "newness" either, really. The primary issue is getting one that supports the boot logo, which is why I went the easy route and bought the 680. Apple could readily endorse EVGA do that again with newer cards and boom, you are current.

 

[bunnspecial]

There's always the Macvidcards route if you DO want boot screens.

Of course, you pay dearly for that.

Since my 5,1 dual boots, they are a requirement. It's also, there again, why my only potential upgrade is to a 5870.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by bunnspecial
There's always the Macvidcards route if you DO want boot screens.

Of course, you pay dearly for that.

Since my 5,1 dual boots, they are a requirement. It's also, there again, why my only potential upgrade is to a 5870.


Yeah, the pricing is insane. I got this card for $100 shipped and flashed it myself, took like 10 minutes.