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Flashing Sapphire HD 7950 Boost to Mac Edition

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I recently picked up a Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 (I think it's the "Boost" edition) that I'd like to flash to the "Mac Edition" of the card. There are at least a couple of ROMs in the TechPowerUp database that claim to be Mac versions, but none of them are verified. Is there any way I can verify if any of these ROMs are Mac compatible (e.g., opening them with VBE7 or a hex editor.)

HD7950.gif
 

eidairaman1

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Provide the sku sticker on card back or side of heatsink please
 
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I hope this is what you’re looking for. I already tried flashing the secondary BIOS with a Mac ROM and it wouldn’t boot the Mac. I’m back to the primary BIOS. Is there any way to flash the secondary BIOS with the primary active?

AACAE2D4-8676-43F7-8270-84CB811699FC.jpeg
 

eidairaman1

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1002 679A 174B E249-37F (M14)

Base clock 850, boost 925

We do not have a bios for your specific card, it must contain the info
1002 679A 174B E249 and elpida ram to work.

There is 1 bios here but it is fot a totally different subsystem id, there is a major risk of bricking when syb system ids arent matching.


If you want to flash, only flash 1 bios, not both otherwise you brick the card. Reflash the non working bios position only.

So if 1 bios fails to run the monitor, you flip to the working bios and get monitor running then you flip to bad bios to reflash it.

More info for this endeavor
 
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So if 1 bios fails to run the monitor, you flip to the working bios and get monitor running then you flip to bad bios to reflash it.
Just to be clear...I should boot Windows with the BIOS switch in the 'good' position, let Windows boot up, flip the BIOS switch to the 'bad' position/BIOS, then flash the ROM I had backed up over it? Sorry if I seem obtuse, but I thought for sure doing this would lock up Windows or even cause hardware damage.
 

eidairaman1

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Just to be clear...I should boot Windows with the BIOS switch in the 'good' position, let Windows boot up, flip the BIOS switch to the 'bad' position/BIOS, then flash the ROM I had backed up over it? Sorry if I seem obtuse, but I thought for sure doing this would lock up Windows or even cause hardware damage.

Yes that is right
 
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So I got this to work, but I had to go a roundabout way to get things working. Once I got the original ROM flashed backed onto the card, I tried to mod my own ROM with a script from another site, some MacEFI code and my original ROM. After a few false starts I created a modded ROM, but it worked no better than the standard PC ROM. I finally had to track down a custom ROM someone else built and flash the card with it.

I now have the Mac boot screen, but HDMI and DP output is flakey. Fortunately, I have a couple of DVI monitors I can use with the card.
 

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So I got this to work, but I had to go a roundabout way to get things working. Once I got the original ROM flashed backed onto the card, I tried to mod my own ROM with a script from another site, some MacEFI code and my original ROM. After a few false starts I created a modded ROM, but it worked no better than the standard PC ROM. I finally had to track down a custom ROM someone else built and flash the card with it.

I now have the Mac boot screen, but HDMI and DP output is flakey. Fortunately, I have a couple of DVI monitors I can use with the card.

Can you drop the bios and upload it and link it here so others can see? Atleast others might benefit. Or a fellow modder will see it and potentially fix the issues. Sharing is caring.
 
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The ROM that worked for me is attached to post #441 in this thread on netkas.org:

It seems to work fine for the two DVI ports, but I get artifacts if I use the HDMI port. The original modder reported that he had issues with the DP port.
 
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Hi,
Dunno if you are still watching this thread, and I'm about to post a new one on a related topic.

However, I think the MAIN difference between a "Mac" GPU and non-Mac is going to be if it is Metal capable.
See the following link for more details:
Metal Capable GPU and Mac OSx Upgrade

The short answer is that if you want to upgrade past High Sierra, you need a GPU that is Metal capable.
That's for anything back to a MacPro 2010.

And you can easily see in your System Preferences if an installed GPU is Metal capable.
Otherwise, you need to check the Apple list of which are Metal capable.
And THEN I suppose hope that your board is whatr it CLAIMS to be, and not a pirated version.
 
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I am indeed watching the thread, though I forgot about it quite a while ago. I did get the Sapphire Dual-Boost Radeon HD 7950 (I think that's how it's marketed) working fine with my Mac Pro, and it's still pushing an old Dell 30" DVI monitor. I have had no problems with it, and have even successfully upgraded to Catalina. (Big Sur is still a question mark.)

The list of Metal GPUs you linked to does indeed include the 7950, though it is one of the oldest still supported. Fortunately that also makes it cheap. I think I picked mine up for US$50 or US$60 a year ago. And in Boot Camp it performs about on par with a GTX 1050 Ti, which is adequate for light to moderate gaming. And, finally, ROMs for the 7950 are easily and publicly available. It took me trying about a half dozen ROMs before I found one that worked.
 
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Ah, great.
Well, I recently bough a Mac Pro 2010 for peanuts, and have been messing with it.
It had a Radeon HD 5770, and I always intended on upgrading that.
As well as make it possible to boot with an NVMI SSD.
And probably run Catalina.

I didn't realise it would need a Metal capable GPU to go past High Sierra, though.
Not a big deal, although for some things it's a hassle.

In any case, can run > High Sierra as VM: I already do that on a MacBook 2012.

I wish there was a bigger list of GPU's that run Metal.
The Apple one is quite small: there must be others.

There is a list of Metal benchmarks from GeekBench:
Geekbench Metal Benchmarks

From other forums, I know that the Titan Xp is Metal capable, although not on Apple's list.
And the GTX 1080 Ti is on Geekbench's list.
But all the faster ones are Radeon.

I'm not a gamer, but want to use the upgraded MacPro for a workstation.
And I need CUDA capability, so it means AMD is not an option.

Maybe the work around is having a cheaper GPU that is Metal capable (to run > High Sierra), and have a 2nd GPU that my number cruncher.
You can get an older Tesla that's pretty good for HPS, and inexpensive.

But that's assuming whatevver software I'm running for it can use the GPU it needs.
 
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Sorry it took me a while to get back to this thread, but I’ve been traveling. The good news is that theoretically any recent AMD will theoretically work; the bad news is you may run into power delivery issues and you will not be able to see the boot screen or boot selector. The two 6-pin PCIe can deliver a maximum of 150w (75w per connector) so make sure you don’t exceed that limit or your Mac Pro will likely crash. (Reference RX 480 I’m looking at you.) There’s also Pixla’s mod, but that’s beyond what I’m willing to do.

if you go with a standard PC GPU you will also get to miss out on a boot menu. You can have macvidcards.com flash one for you, but it’s expensive. Otherwise OS X likes AMD GPUs just fine...
 

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I see that you guys were discussing this recently so I’ll share my experiences with you.

I have 5,1 and I have run the following GPU’s in Mojave and Catalina in this order

Sapphire RX 480 4GB and 8GB reference 1 6-pin
Nvidia Quadro K2000 no power connection
Nvidia Tesla K20x 1 6 pin 1 8 pin using EVGA Power Link and 2-6pin from motherboard
Sapphire Pulse RX 580 8GB
Sapphire Pulse RX 5600 XT 2 mini 6-pin to 8-pin adapter, native support in Catalina, need to mod kext files to run in Mojave correctly
Sapphire R9 Fury Nano 2 mini 6-

The Quadra and the Tesla cannot be used for hardware acceleration under Mac OS

I’ve tested all of these myself.
 
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@Jcolon74 Have you had any issues with the reference RX 480's? I have a Dell OEM RX 580 that seems like just an overclocked 480 with '580' burned into the BIOS. It has the single six pin connector, and any machine I drop into has issues - except the Dell PC it originally came with.

For now I've retired the Sapphire 7950 from my Mac Pro 5,1, and have instead put in an MSI Air Boost Vega 56 flashed with a Vega 64 BIOS for greater power delivery and memory speed. To get it enough power, I've got two mini 6-pin to single 8 pin connector, along with a dual SATA power adapter to 8-pin connector, all plugged into an EVGA Powerlink. It does not support the boot screens, but I can swap in the 7950 if I need it for updates or what not. I'm using a hack from Macforums.com to enable h.264 hardware acceleration, and that makes DaVinci Resolve fly through 4K footage.
 

Jcolon74

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@Jcolon74 Have you had any issues with the reference RX 480's? I have a Dell OEM RX 580 that seems like just an overclocked 480 with '580' burned into the BIOS. It has the single six pin connector, and any machine I drop into has issues - except the Dell PC it originally came with.

For now I've retired the Sapphire 7950 from my Mac Pro 5,1, and have instead put in an MSI Air Boost Vega 56 flashed with a Vega 64 BIOS for greater power delivery and memory speed. To get it enough power, I've got two mini 6-pin to single 8 pin connector, along with a dual SATA power adapter to 8-pin connector, all plugged into an EVGA Powerlink. It does not support the boot screens, but I can swap in the 7950 if I need it for updates or what not. I'm using a hack from Macforums.com to enable h.264 hardware acceleration, and that makes DaVinci Resolve fly through 4K footage.
The first one I bought off eBay used had a problem where it would shut the machine down under load so I returned it. The 580’s are just an OEM model and are pretty much a flasher 480 with almost no changes. The only card that had an issue was running the 5600 in Mojave and that’s because the is predated the card

you can use open core to get a boot screen with the graphics card if you want but in all honesty I never really needed it. I have the R9 in it now which is running perfectly.

The 5600 ran great in Catalina, there were only 2 problems, I got the “wrong” card. It was almost a 3 slot card and MASSIVE, taking up my 2 x16 slots, and I had an NVME and usb 3.2 type A & C card installed so my last empty slot was useless. The Sapphire Pulse RX 5600 XT BE looks like a normal 2 slot card and if you wanted to go that route you could but at current prices forget about it.

my gaming rig needed an upgrade from its 1060 and again with current prices...... so I stole it and swapped in an older card. Anything I ran on it ran perfectly anyway and the 5600 was wasted in it.
 
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I had Catalina running briefly, but it would lock up occasionally so I rolled back to Mojave. At some point I will need to put OpenCore on to get it to Catalina or BigSur, but that'll basically be turning the Mac Pro into a Hackintosh. And I've had lots of issues with Hackintoshes.

But updating to Big Sur will hopefully buy me a couple of years until the Mac ecosystem is entirely ARM based. And i can always use it as a Windows PC, though finding drivers might become increasingly difficult.
 

Jcolon74

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I actually got a good deal on the base m1 Mac mini so I picked one up for my bedroom desk and the Mac Pro is in my office. The experience between the two is entirely different and it’s really not something you can compare but the price of the m1 Mac mini is a real selling point and hard to beat for everything you get with it.
When I swapped over to the M1 I dropped the CMP back to Mojave as well and pulled the 5600 XT out of it. I don’t use the CMP for production at all but it’s a pretty awesome machine none the less.
 

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Hi. My name is Ed, and I'm new here. I was hoping to ask for some help with a video card I'm having issues with.
I have a AMD Radeon HD 7950 card that I bought off ebay years ago. It was supposedly flashed for use on my Mac Pro 5,1 2010 box. It never ran perfectly. When I would start up my machine, it would show the grey screen and progress bar, but about 3/4 through, it'd go to a black screen. I'd need to wait about 20 minute before it could be woken out of it's sleep mode. A real PITA.

So I'm thinking that this card needs to be Flashed again. Or does anyone think it could be something else? I'd appreciate any suggestions. See attachment.
-Ed/emojo5
 

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emojo5

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I know that I'm new here, and was looking for some help, but does no one have a suggestion about my video board? I'm afriad that if I flash it wrong, I'll brick it. Thanks for and help you might provide me.
-emojo5
 
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Hello.
Here it is not about your age or anything else.
Here you are just our forum mate.
If we can we help you with pleasure.
I believe members(including myself) are still looking for a solution.
Make a picture from GPU-z please
Cheers
 
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Hi. My name is Ed, and I'm new here. I was hoping to ask for some help with a video card I'm having issues with.
I have a AMD Radeon HD 7950 card that I bought off ebay years ago. It was supposedly flashed for use on my Mac Pro 5,1 2010 box. It never ran perfectly. When I would start up my machine, it would show the grey screen and progress bar, but about 3/4 through, it'd go to a black screen. I'd need to wait about 20 minute before it could be woken out of it's sleep mode. A real PITA.

So I'm thinking that this card needs to be Flashed again. Or does anyone think it could be something else? I'd appreciate any suggestions. See attachment.
-Ed/emojo5
Unfortunately this is more of an art than science. The only rule of thumb that I know of is that your card should ideally be as close to a real Mac 7950 as possible. That means same clock speed and port selection (mini-DP instead of full DP, for example) as the real Mac Sapphire 7950. Otherwise you'll have to try some ROMs at random until you find one that works correctly. You can try rolling your own with some scripts available online (at netkas.org IIRC) but I had zero luck doing that.
 

emojo5

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Hi Impero.
Thanks for responding. I post posted my first query back in February. No one asked a thing about it. Just wondering if I didn't provide enough info about my situation or something like that. I do appreciate your response. Here are a few additional photos of the card in question, just in case.

-emojo5
 

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  • HD 7950_02.jpg
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Can you install it in a windows environment and make a gpu-z picture ?
As you can see from the post your card does not seems to look like the one in the picture.
 

emojo5

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So the card as purchased, does work, its just that it doesn't have the Mac boot screen at startup, and as stated in my first post, has a black screen at startup, and takes about 10-15 minutes to come up. Like it's in some kind of sleep mode. Sorry but I'm not as versed in this as your guys. It's a tad maddening.
-emojo5

Hi Impero.
Yes, I noticed that my card doesn't look like a few that I've come across in Flashing videos on youtube. That why I posted here. Don't want to brick this thing if possible. Is my card just and older model of a HD 7950 or a knockoff version?
-emojo5
 
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