Hi, I have a MacPro 2012 and was told that I needed to upgrade my graphics card to use it. One of the cards Apple sited was Sapphire Radeon Pulse RX 580 8GB GDDR5. Are all these cards the same or is there a "special Mac" version? I am scared because I already ordered it and thought about the problems the MacPro has had with other PCI cards. If some one knows I would like to hear.
Thanks!
John
Mac Pro, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2), MacPro 2012 12 core
The last genuine Mac edition video cards for the classic Mac Pro were the AMD Radeon HD 7950 (Mac Edition) and the Nvidia GTX-680 (Mac Edition).
It has been possible for people to DIY 'flash' PC edition AMD Radeon HD 7950 and 7970, AMD R9 280 and AMD R9 280x cards to add Mac firmware.
It is possible to buy various newer Nvidia cards converted and flashed to Mac firmware only from http://www.macvidcards.com/
There are some features that can only be used if the video card has Mac firmware, for example using the Option key to select alternate boot drives, accessing the RecoveryHD partition or Internet Recovery, or FileVault2 logins. However due to the fact that Apple do list the AMD RX 580 as a suitable video card it would seem clear that you do not need a video card with Mac firmware in order to run Mojave on a classic Mac Pro. (Doing the actual install might be a different matter.)
There is no way currently to flash an AMD RX 580 for Mac firmware.
My hope is that if Apple's forthcoming Mac Pro 2019 includes PCIe slots that this might encourage AMD and/or Nvidia to produce new official video cards with Mac firmware.
The last genuine Mac edition video cards for the classic Mac Pro were the AMD Radeon HD 7950 (Mac Edition) and the Nvidia GTX-680 (Mac Edition).
It has been possible for people to DIY 'flash' PC edition AMD Radeon HD 7950 and 7970, AMD R9 280 and AMD R9 280x cards to add Mac firmware.
It is possible to buy various newer Nvidia cards converted and flashed to Mac firmware only from http://www.macvidcards.com/
There are some features that can only be used if the video card has Mac firmware, for example using the Option key to select alternate boot drives, accessing the RecoveryHD partition or Internet Recovery, or FileVault2 logins. However due to the fact that Apple do list the AMD RX 580 as a suitable video card it would seem clear that you do not need a video card with Mac firmware in order to run Mojave on a classic Mac Pro. (Doing the actual install might be a different matter.)
There is no way currently to flash an AMD RX 580 for Mac firmware.
My hope is that if Apple's forthcoming Mac Pro 2019 includes PCIe slots that this might encourage AMD and/or Nvidia to produce new official video cards with Mac firmware.
I have that card in a Mac Pro 5,1 and it works fine with macOS X 10.13.6. I am waiting on others to tell me that it works with MacOS X 10.14. I didn't need any special driver. However, the startup is different as it doesn't show anything until the log in prompt. Which also may mean some of the events that require a startup may not work. Hopefully, this situation will be remedied by Apple in future updates. By default the MacOS X has drivers for AMD cards. And, I can tell you that it works well in macOS X 10.13.6. Maybe someone will chime in on experiences with Mojave?
Always best to get the Mac edition of the card, otherwise you would need to get the card 'flashed' to see the boot screens.
Published Date:September 24, 2018:
Install macOS 10.14 Mojave on Mac Pro (Mid 2010) and Mac Pro (Mid 2012) - Apple Support
.
That is where I got the name of the card. Other PCI cards have been named the same for Mac and PC but are NOT interchangeable. That is what I am asking!
Mojave on MacPro 2012?
