I have a work Mac Pro (Mid 2010) running El Capitan and am considering the upgrade to Mojave (using a new hard drive to not overwrite work stuff). Apple lists one of the requirements to upgrade is a Metal compatible card. The usual suspects for upgrades are trotted out on several Apple threads (AMD 5x0-series) but I'd like to know what is the cheapest option that's worked for this kind of upgrade.
I'm aware that this is not the Mac sub-forum but I spend the majority of my [H] time here and I trust the AMD sub-forum more than the Mac sub-forum for this kind of question. I will consider a cheap nVidia card but would prefer to stick with the AMD camp for this machine. I'd actually love to get a 290x but I doubt the PSU would agree (whilst this machine sips power on idle when all 12 cores are being used it draws a lot) and I doubt a Mac-flashed card would be cheap..
I'm aware that this is not the Mac sub-forum but I spend the majority of my [H] time here and I trust the AMD sub-forum more than the Mac sub-forum for this kind of question. I will consider a cheap nVidia card but would prefer to stick with the AMD camp for this machine. I'd actually love to get a 290x but I doubt the PSU would agree (whilst this machine sips power on idle when all 12 cores are being used it draws a lot) and I doubt a Mac-flashed card would be cheap..
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- Apr 04, 2017 I have a 2010 Macbook Pro that currently has an NVIDIA GeForce 320M 256MB graphics card. I am looking to update this card to something more powerful. I do a fair bit of gaming/recording, video editing, and graphics stuff, so I need a bit more power. What better graphics cards can I safely install in my system? I can perform the upgrade myself.
- Apr 27, 2017 Looks like my Mac Pro is too old for macOS Sierra. I could have just done a search on iMore to discover that the cut off date for Sierra on Mac Pros was 2010. Never give up! Not to be deterred, I found a number of tutorials on how to install Sierra on an unsupported Mac! This involves disabling SIP or System Integrity Protection and makes your Mac less secure.
- Sep 25, 2018 Mac Pros released between 2010 to 2012 came with GPUs that don't support the Metal API, so you'll need to install one of these cards if you want to use macOS Mojave. Compatible graphics cards.
The other video cards above are compatible with the 'Early 2008' and 'Early 2009' as well as the 'Mid-2010' and 'Mid-2012' Mac Pro models. The excellent BareFeats has various ' shootouts ' that compares several of the above video cards with one another as well as stock Mac Pro video cards.
Introduction
The graphics card you choose for your hackintosh is arguably the most important component of the entire system. For graphics intensive tasks like gaming and video editing, it is the GPU that has the most impact on performance. Here, we benchmark and test seven different graphics cards to see how they compare in terms of performance under the latest version of Apple’s Operating system – MacOS X 10.14 Mojave. Macos whihc app used for teaching. There is a slight increase in performance across the board when compared to High Sierra.
Apple’s native support for GPU’s based on the AMD Polaris architecture, introduced in High Sierra 10.13.4, continues in Mojave. AMD cards, therefore, work out of the box, with no need for additional drivers.
Apple officially lists support for the AMD Radeon RX 470, RX 480, RX 570, RX 580, and Radeon Pro WX 7100, but the RX 560 will also work without any additional drivers.
All of these cards will also work in a real Mac, in an external GPU enclosure, however there is a performance hit of around 20% compared to the same card in a hackintosh.
Mojave And Graphic Cards For 2010 Mac Pro Parts
No Nvidia?
At the time of writing, there are no drivers for Nvidia cards under Mojave, although a Nvidia representative has stated that they are currently working with Apple to make drivers available.
Cards tested
We tested seven different graphics cards, from the budget RX 560 up to the high-end RX Vega 64, using four different benchmarks.
Benchmarks
Conclusion
RX 560
The RX 560, while being the slowest card tested, is also the cheapest. At under $150, this card is still significantly faster than the dedicated graphics chip in the current model 15″ MacBook Pro with touchbar, for example. In the BruceX 5K Export test, the 2018 MacBook Pro with Radeon Pro 560X manages 35 seconds. A Core i5 8400-based hackintosh with this card does the same test in under 28 seconds.
RX 570
The 4GB version of the RX 570 is a massive step up from the RX 560 – it’s almost double the speed in some tests, for only around 30-40% more money. Macos keeps prompting for password for network drive.
As well as doubling the memory, the 8GB version of the RX 570 increases the memory clock from 7000Mhz to 8000Mhz, resulting in an overall speed improvement of around 5-10% compared to the 4GB version.
RX 480
The RX 480, although released in 2016 and replaced in 2017 by the RX 580, is based on the same Polaris chipset. The difference between the two models is actually very small. Because it’s an older card, it can often be found at a bargain price. Performance is somewhere between the RX 570 8Gb and the RX 580.
RX 580
At around 10% faster than the RX 570, the RX 580 is the same card that ships in the top end model of the 27 inch Retina 5K iMac, where Apple have labelled it the Radeon Pro 580.
Mac Pro Mid 2010 Graphics Card Upgrade For Mojave
RX Vega 56
The Vega 56 is the same card shipping in the base level iMac Pro, costing $5000. It’s around 25% faster than the RX 580 on average.
RX Vega 64
The Vega 64 is available as an upgrade option in the iMac Pro, for an extra $600 on top of the $5000 base price. It’s about 20% faster on average than the RX Vega 56. In a hackintosh for high-end content creation and 4K video editing, pairing this card with fast nVME based storage and a coffee lake i7 processor is going to give you a monster machine, capable of outperforming all but the most expensive Macs at a fraction of the price.