MP All Models NVIDIA Kepler GPUs still supported with macOS Big Sur

[tsialex]

Ops, totally forgot of MacBook Pro late 2013 and mid-2014 that still have GTX750M, so it's not yet the end of the road for Kepler GPUs and macOS.

Just noticed that Apple removed all Macs that have NVIDIA discrete GPUs from macOS 11 list of supported Macs. Mac Pro late-2013 and 2019 Mac Pro are the only two Mac Pros supported, btw.



Which Macs can run macOS 11 Big Sur?

• MacBook (2015 or newer)
• MacBook Air (2013 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or newer)
• Mac mini (2014 or newer)
• iMac (2014 or newer)
• iMac Pro (from 2017)
• Mac Pro (2013 or newer)

macOS 11 Release notes:

Apple Developer Documentation

developer.apple.com

 

[lixuelai]

2013 and 2014 MacBook Pros have 750m...

 

[tsialex]

2013 and 2014 MacBook Pros have 750m...

Ops, forgot those. So, no more iMacs with NVIDIA Kepler are supported with Big Sur, but GTX 750M still is supported with late-2013 and mid-2014 15" Retina MacBooks Pro.

 

[chrfr]

Ops, forgot those. So, no more iMacs with NVIDIA Kepler.

You might want to edit the subject to say "macOS 11" rather than "macOS 10.11," for clarity's sake.

 

[tsialex]

You might want to edit the subject to say "macOS 11" rather than "macOS 10.11," for clarity's sake.

Yep.

Since MacBook Pros late-2013 and mid-2014 still run macOS 11, Kepler is still supported.

 

[chrfr]

Yep.

Since MacBook Pros late-2013 and mid-2014 still run macOS 11, Kepler is still supported.

It's really surprising Apple didn't just decide to tear off the Nvidia band-aid here drop all Nvidia devices with this update.

 

[tsialex]

It's really surprising Apple didn't just decide to tear off the Nvidia band-aid here drop all Nvidia devices with this update.

Yep. I was surprised that they removed mid-2012 and early-2013 MacBooks Pro, not much difference with late-2013 besides the SSD change to PCIe, 802.11AC and the Iris Pro.

 

[bsbeamer]

Might be worth pointing out that SOME machines have been "approved" for BETA in the past, but removed from final release support. This might have most recently happened with TB2 and eGPU support.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Ah my 2012 MBP has been cut off. Glad to see the 2013 Mac Pro is supported.
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Big Sur is pretty big. The beta is 9.56 GB.

 

[tsialex]

I'm really trying to understand what is the cut-off this time for macOS. AVX and what more is the pre-requisite?

2013 iMacs that were cut, even support AVX2 with the Haswell i5/i7.

 

[MisterAndrew]

Yeah, I wonder what the cutoff is also. The 6,1 CPUs don't support AVX2 so it's not that. Maybe AVX?

 

[Slash-2CPU]

PCIe storage or at least PCIe Fusion drive as a requirement? It's not a hardware limitation per se, such as AVX, but the user experience is different.

Could it be certain WiFi or Bluetooth chipsets/versions required for a feature?

bsbeamer might be on the right track with TB2 as a requirement.

Do not be surprised when dosdude puts out a patch for 2013 iMacs.

 

[bsbeamer]

believe these are base:

MBP 13" early 2013 = 2.6 GHz Core i5 (I5-3230M)
MBP 13" late 2013 = 2.4 GHz Core i5 (I5-4258U)

MBP 15" early 2013 = 2.4 GHz Core i7 (I7-3635QM)
MBP 15" late 2013 = 2.0 GHz Core i7 (I7-4750HQ)

iMac 21" early 2013 = 3.3 GHz Core i3 (I3-3225)
iMac 21" late 2013 = 2.7 GHz Core i5 (I5-4570R)
The iMac 21" 214 cutoff means both of those are not compatible.

Next up would be:
iMac 21.5" mid 2014 = 1.4 GHz Core i5 (I5-4260U)

All 2014 issued machines have IX-4XXX series CPU's. Maybe it's just a mistake? Cutoff of IX-3XXX makes sense.

 

[tsialex]

believe these are base:

MBP 13" early 2013 = 2.6 GHz Core i5 (I5-3230M)
MBP 13" late 2013 = 2.4 GHz Core i5 (I5-4258U)

MBP 15" early 2013 = 2.4 GHz Core i7 (I7-3635QM)
MBP 15" late 2013 = 2.0 GHz Core i7 (I7-4750HQ)

iMac 21" early 2013 = 3.3 GHz Core i3 (I3-3225)
iMac 21" late 2013 = 2.7 GHz Core i5 (I5-4570R)
The iMac 21" 214 cutoff means both of those are not compatible.

Next up would be:
iMac 21.5" mid 2014 = 1.4 GHz Core i5 (I5-4260U)

All 2014 issued machines have IX-4XXX series CPU's. Maybe it's just a mistake? Cutoff of IX-3XXX makes sense.

No, it's not that. iMac 27" late-2013 was cut and has a Haswell CPU (i5-4570, i5-4670 and i7-4771), but only TB1 (10Gbps).

 

[MisterAndrew]

It's not TB2. MacBook Air 2013 has TB1.

 

[tsialex]

It's not TB2. MacBook Air 2013 has TB1.

God eye, missed that. Don't make any sense at all late-2013 iMac being cut.

 

[bsbeamer]

Never said it was a TB2/TB3 thing. Was noting that during BETA TB2 was working with eGPU and was NOT working during release with TB2 for eGPU. Just noting that BETA support does not mean RELEASE support for every machine.

Was trying to look up Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) for some of these CPUs that made the cut and others that did not. Even that seems like a false indicator since many upgraded options do support.

 

[MisterAndrew]

It would be interesting to know if there is a hardware support change that makes it not run on older Macs, but it looks like the cutoff they chose is purely due to the date. Early 2013 iMac is on the Vintage list. They must be planning to add the Late 2013s by the time Big Sur releases in the fall.

 

[bsbeamer]

It's not an Intel microcode cutoff or EOL'd CPU thing. Am seeing several 2013 cutoff models with supported CPUs for microcode updates:

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/corporate-information/SA00233-microcode-update-guidance.pdf

 

[tsialex]

Big Sur list of bugs is enormous, take a look on the release notes:

Apple Developer Documentation

developer.apple.com

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Apple Silicon (A12Z) already have Apple Hypervisor support, this was a surprise:

Apple Silicon | Apple Developer Documentation

Create and run virtual machines on Apple silicon.

developer.apple.com

 

[bsbeamer]

Do hope this gets released as 11.0 (as demo'd) and that might be the first time in awhile the update numbering makes sense. Will also likely give many folks added time with IT compliance staying with 10.15+. None automatically dropped Windows 7 when Windows 10 was available, but Macs always needed to be on latest.

These stick out more than others for some reason:

Update iMac Pro to macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or later before installing macOS Big Sur 11 beta.

An unexpected System Extension Updated alert for third-party kernel extensions which are included in macOS might appear. These include: Accusys, Inc., ATTO Technology, Inc., Areca Technology Corporation, CalDigit, Inc., HighPoint Technologies, Inc., Promise Technology Mobile Apps, and Other World Computing. (64337113)

Touch ID might become unexpectedly disabled on Macs with a T2 Security Chip after installing multiple operating systems.

 

[itsmilo]

Hoping for a tool to install it on an unsupported Mac once the final version been released ? don’t feel like updating my late 2012 MacBook Pro. It still runs great!

 

[MisterAndrew]

Definitely don't want to replace our primary OS install with all the bugs! Make sure you install this on a separate drive/partition everyone!

 

[highvoltage12v]

I think the Cutoff this year actually is the Version of Broadcom WIFI chipset installed in your Mac. The BCM94331 was used in the 2012/13 iMacs while the BCM943602 was used in the Late 2013/2014/15 iMacs.

 

[macrumor2018]

The Haswell Processors in the Late 2013 21.5" iMac do not support hyperthreading, while those in the Mid 2013 MacBook Air, Late 2013 MacBook Pro, 2014 Mac mini and Mid 2014 21.5" iMac do support hyperthreading and use low power LPDDR3 RAM that is soldered and can't be upgraded at all. 2013 Mac Pro CPU also supports hyperthreading.

I'd be surprised if this had nothing to do it.

As for the Late 2013 27" iMacs vs newer 27" iMacs, someone else might know but perhaps Apple simply didn't want to support large non-retina displays. I'm really not sure what happened there.