Re: Sapphire HD 7950 Mac Pro Edition 3GB Video Card

that post should really go into a new thread created by you (from the top of forum discussion) and not onto a 5 month old thread, one that should have been marked solved (or something). So we'll see if a mod does that for you, moves your post to a new thread later today.

it sounds more like an issue with those apps and test suites more than anything, have you checked via google for "7950 Mac + app+name" ?

And did Barefeats test any of those apps?

Performance of 7950 in a 3,1 is hampered as stated above but its PCIe 2.0 bandwidth, an issue with any gpu in that system when compared to 2009 and especially 2010-12 models that have PCIe 2.1 and later, one of the real changes in the 2010 was to update and improve on PCIe 2.x and EFI-64 firmware.

2008's seem to have an abundance of personality issues with sleep, power management, both out of the gate and then with Mountain Lion 10.8 (but improved on with 10.8.5).

I am having the same problem. I have an 08 MP with a 7950. The PCIe bandwidth theory seems strange, because I can run full out in bootcamp. In LuxMark, on the Sala scene, I hit 2500 in Win7 and only 1500 in OS X 10.9.2. Same hardware, just different software. Something is screwy.

2008 MacPro 2 x 3.2ghz Quad

32gb Ram

Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro with 2 x OCZ Vector in RAID 0

2 x Sapphire ATI 7950 Mac Edition

I have tested 10.9, 10.9.1, and 10.9.2 Beta 1. I have had poor results in OS X since purchasing these cards. I have run Aperture, FCP X, Furmark, Valley, Heaven, and LuxMark. I have also tested in Windows 7 x64 and had great results.

I have experimented withg all different flashes to the second bios without any luck. The new boost bios ATI released for reference cards resulted in 1900 LuxMark sala scene score in Windows 7, only 500 in OS X. I created a stable OC profile with EFI that could hit 9000 on the 3DMark 11 performance test, 2500 LuxMark. Same bios hit only 1500 in OS X on LuxMark. The hardware is perfectly capable in Windows 7, so it seems to be driver bound. The cards never spin all the way up or reach full load in OS X.

http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5619.225.html

Barefeats isn't using 2008 MP 3.1's. The issue is the '08, but I don't believe a hardware bottleneck. Soemhow the drivers on 3.1's are messed up. Barefeats ususally uses 2010 MP's in their tests.

http://www.barefeats.com/gpu7950b.html

"All Mac Pro GPUs above were in a in a 'Mid 2010' Mac Pro 3.33GHz Hex-Core. The GeForce GTX 680MX is the only exception -- embedded in the 'Late 2012' (27") iMac 3.4GHz Core i7. All Macs were running OS X 10.8.3."

Rolling back to 10.8.2 will be an issue as I don't have an alternative GPU to use until the drivers are installed. I did run 10.8.4, beta 10.8.5, and 10.8.5 before jumping to Mavericks DP's. They had the same poor performance.

Vendor says Drivers are required for older MacOS.

Are the Drivers showing up as loaded in About this Mac > ( More Info) > Report > Graphics & Displays ??

I tried removing AGPM.kext to no avail. That didn't change anything.

Here is a thread at Netkas on the topic. - http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,8206.0.html

Jason,

Same position, same setup, same problem

I have a 7950 Sapphire and a 5870. I am now thinking both cards are being throttled and i am in the verge of picking up an older Mac Pro 2,1 to see if its just a 3,1 problem.

I have a Mac 3,1 2 x 3.2ghz running OSX 10.9.1.

In fact, right now the 5870 is beating the 7950....it makes no sense.

AMD Radeon HD 7950:

Chipset Model: AMD Radeon HD 7950

Type: GPU

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 3072 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x679a

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-E2080C-101

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.624

Displays:

LED Cinema Display:

Display Type: LCD

Resolution: 2560 x 1440

Pixel Depth: 32-Bit Color (ARGB8888)

Display Serial Number: 2A04003L6JL

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Rotation: Supported

Connection Type: DisplayPort

Hardware Overview:

Model Name: Mac Pro

Model Identifier: MacPro3,1

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Processor Speed: 3.2 GHz

Number of Processors: 2

Total Number of Cores: 8

L2 Cache (per Processor): 12 MB

Memory: 6 GB

Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz

Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05

SMC Version (system): 1.25f4

Serial Number (system): CK******XYL

Hardware UUID: *****

Message was edited by: Syn-Fi

<Edited By Host>

Someone will come by and edit your post, to remove serial numbers.

a 2,1 will not support a 7950, you need 64-bit EFI and drivers and possibly 10.8.x and above which is not supported on 2007 2,1.

And yes the 3,1's have had some performance, that is not seen in a 4,1 and above.

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http://forums.macrumors.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1

http://www.barefeats.com has these benchtests

September 13th, 2013 -- CRAZY FAST GPUs for Mac Pro: GeForce GTX Titan and 780

July 25th, 2013 -- Inject New Life in your Old Mac Pro with a Fire Breathing GPU

July 12th, 2013 -- Two and Three GPUs rendering Multi-GPU Aware Pro Apps (After Effects, OctaneRender, LuxMark, DaVinci Resolve) -- includes GeForce GTX 770s.

May 30th, 2013 -- Tandem GPUs = Faster Pro App Rendering. (Features Octane and After Effects rendering with dual GPUs; added DaVinci Resolve on June 5th.)

May 10th, 2013 -- Do the newest GPUs run faster on the 2010 Mac Prothan on the 2009 and 2008 Mac Pro?

April 5th, 2013 (Appended) -- SHOOTOUT WITH THE 'SHARKS': Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 for Mac versus "big fish" GPUs (Added full results for the Quadro K5000 and a flashed Radeon HD 7970.)

March 22nd, 2013 -- PART DEUX:Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 versus other Mac Pro GPUs (running StarCraft, Diablo, Team Fortress, FCPX, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and LuxMark)

March 19th, 2013 -- REVIEW: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 versus other Mac Pro GPUs (running DaVinci Resolve, Motion, OceanWave, Heaven 4, Valley, Civilization, and Dirt)

It is well known the 1,1 and 2,1 can run a 7950 just as they can run Mavericks. The 1,1 2,1 performance with mods is the same as 4,1 and 5,1. Only the 3,1 is stunted. You can read the benchmarks here.