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macguru9999

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 9, 2006
782
363
Can anyone tell me when I can use a

Gigabyte Radeon RX 7800 XT Gaming OC 16GB in my 2019 mac pro ??​

 

leifp

macrumors 6502
Feb 8, 2008
367
355
Canada
https://egpu.io/ is a great resource to see who has gotten what working on which Macs… although it’s targeted towards getting eGPU setups operational (external GPUs hooked up to Macs with Thunderbolt) the general idea is similar to getting a GPU to work in a Mac Pro.
 

avro707

macrumors 68000
Dec 13, 2010
1,833
1,166
Can anyone tell me when I can use a

Gigabyte Radeon RX 7800 XT Gaming OC 16GB in my 2019 mac pro ??​

Unlikely to work in macOS. No drivers and Apple refuses to make any.

It might work in windows… but I haven’t got one to test.
 

H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,674
6,954
Unlikely to work in macOS. No drivers and Apple refuses to make any.

It might work in windows… but I haven’t got one to test.
Excuse my lack of knowledge about GPU drivers but having made drivers with the MacOS before, do AMD actually need Apple to make a driver, could they not release one their own even if it's for an older OS?
 

avro707

macrumors 68000
Dec 13, 2010
1,833
1,166
Excuse my lack of knowledge about GPU drivers but having made drivers with the MacOS before, do AMD actually need Apple to make a driver, could they not release one their own even if it's for an older OS?
If I’m not mistaken then without Apple approval and cooperation then it’s not possible.

You can see what happened with Nvidia and it might as well be the same for newer AMD cards.

Our machines are stuck with 6900 level GPUs (or the W6800X Duo) as the latest we will even get unless we all ditch MacOS and move to Windows permanently.

Apple wants to sell locked down silicon machines rather than allow us to keep our machines working productively for longer.
 
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H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,674
6,954
If I’m not mistaken then without Apple approval and cooperation then it’s not possible.

You can see what happened with Nvidia and it might as well be the same for newer AMD cards.

Our machines are stuck with 6900 level GPUs (or the W6800X Duo) as the latest we will even get unless we all ditch MacOS and move to Windows permanently.

Apple wants to sell locked down silicon machines rather than allow us to keep our machines working productively for longer.
This is what I can't quite get my head around, wondering why they couldn't do a web driver like Nvidia used to.

Let's suppose I write a simple app myself, that just took desktop screen shots and saved them to the downloads folder. I'm not sure I'd need Apple to do anything at all for that app to be completely functional.
Now let's say I modified it to save output to /Library. This needs admin access and although it's a system folder, again nothing from Apple required.
Assuming then to be able to store items in even deeper levels, that Apple need to notarise it but do they need to write it?
 

salamanderjuice

macrumors 6502a
Feb 28, 2020
514
555
This is what I can't quite get my head around, wondering why they couldn't do a web driver like Nvidia used to.

Let's suppose I write a simple app myself, that just took desktop screen shots and saved them to the downloads folder. I'm not sure I'd need Apple to do anything at all for that app to be completely functional.
Now let's say I modified it to save output to /Library. This needs admin access and although it's a system folder, again nothing from Apple required.
Assuming then to be able to store items in even deeper levels, that Apple need to notarise it but do they need to write it?
Maybe, maybe not. AMD didn't write the drivers previously and the 2019 Mac Pro is clearly a niche several year old dead end product. It probably doesn't make much sense from AMD's end to start writing drivers for Intel based macOS which is probably going to EoL'd in a few years at best. Especially since the 2019 Mac Pro is the only model that can really take advantage of 7000+ series cards. Too much work for too little gain.
 

H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,674
6,954
Maybe, maybe not. AMD didn't write the drivers previously and the 2019 Mac Pro is clearly a niche several year old dead end product. It probably doesn't make much sense from AMD's end to start writing drivers for Intel based macOS which is probably going to EoL'd in a few years at best. Especially since the 2019 Mac Pro is the only model that can really take advantage of 7000+ series cards. Too much work for too little gain.
Yeah it's a shame that.
Apple had a good relationship with AMD, (I think). Would be great to be able to use the latest and greatest from both AMD and Nvidia.
Yes, I know they are all in on Apple Silicon now but it's just good customer relations to support them for a reasonable length of time. 4 years for a flagship machine isn't acceptable.
 

avro707

macrumors 68000
Dec 13, 2010
1,833
1,166
Apple doesn’t care about customer relations, it cares about moving new expensive silicon Mac Pro machines.

You could try reaching out to AMD.

I was looking at pricing of the W7900 48GB and it was costly enough that I’d just instead get a W6800X Duo instead.
 

H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,674
6,954
Apple doesn’t care about customer relations, it cares about moving new expensive silicon Mac Pro machines.

You could try reaching out to AMD.

I was looking at pricing of the W7900 48GB and it was costly enough that I’d just instead get a W6800X Duo instead.
That's the problem. I'm one guy. My opinion means nothing to them. In fact it might even mean less than that.
 

H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,674
6,954
I’m also one person, and you need all these one persons to make noise.
You know what, you're right.
It'll cost me 5 minutes and the weekend has just started so I have the time. I'll have a look at the AMD site and leave some feedback.
 

macguru9999

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 9, 2006
782
363
Maybe we are dinosaurs?
Maybe, my mac repair work has dropped right off, the latest macs are mainly appliances, and pretty hard to repair. But they work well , I also have an M1 pro and its fast.
 

H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,674
6,954
Maybe, my mac repair work has dropped right off, the latest macs are mainly appliances, and pretty hard to repair. But they work well , I also have an M1 pro and its fast.
Yep, same as.
Trouble is the whole industry has decided to follow suit for the most part.
 
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