Mac Pro 4,1/5,1 video card upgrade recommendations

[Barton261]

I have a Mac Pro 4,1 with 5,1 firmware to get Sierra installed without any hacks. It currently has a Radeon 5870. I'm looking to upgrade the video card and want the best bang for buck route that I don't have to deal with constantly (if possible). I've read Sierra natively supports Polaris cards now so I was looking at an Rx 480, but I read that the last update killed it. nVidia cards I've never dealt with but I think require a web driver install after every OS update? Just looking for some advice on best route to get a "user friendly" less hassle - work like it should setup. Any help is appreciated.

[dijitalitrx]

I have a Sapphire RX 460 in mine, it runs my 4k display okay (only 30Hz though) I've had it around a month and there's been no issues so far. I believe there is a MacBook Pro with an RX460 chip in it so it's officially supported by Apple and should continue to be. However it is not capable of displaying the grey boot screen, I keep my GT120 around just in case I ever need it.

That said it's not great value when you look at the RX480 which for around double the price offers more than double performance. Performance is fine for me doing basic desktop work, it's similar performance to the R9 280x but much less power hungry which I think killed my 4,1 logic board. The RX 460 I have needs a 6pin connector so there's no issues with additional PSUs or power draw to worry about.

Hope it helps.

[goodfidelity]

I have a Mac Pro 4,1 with 5,1 firmware to get Sierra installed without any hacks. It currently has a Radeon 5870. I'm looking to upgrade the video card and want the best bang for buck route that I don't have to deal with constantly (if possible). I've read Sierra natively supports Polaris cards now so I was looking at an Rx 480, but I read that the last update killed it. nVidia cards I've never dealt with but I think require a web driver install after every OS update? Just looking for some advice on best route to get a "user friendly" less hassle - work like it should setup. Any help is appreciated.

I always recommende GTX680 cards. But they are not the latest. They are stable, run perfect in OSX. Have all port options. Are avalible in 4Gb configurations. Suppoert 4k in 60hz.

Pretty much what everybody needs, and fully supported. Realy easy to flash.


R9 280X i have also tried i few. They worked very well. But there are more problems and things to think about when flashing the ROMs for bootscreen.

If you want faster cards, i will let others speak.

//GF

[ceprovid]

Do not buy any card that does not have 60hz capability at full 4k res !!! I did that mistake, ended having to return EVERYHING !!! waste of time. Try to keep under 200W consumption... so you do not need to modify your power source.
Establish what you do exactly: CAD needs a Quadro card...games are good with GFX, video editing make sure that are supported by the soft.
AMD ATI ... am not very knowledgeable I used the original 5770 and 4870 but memory is a limit. 
Buying a PC version ... there are people like macvidcards that have many solutions, ask them.
My 2 cents.

[macfriedchikkin]

For what you need I'd recommend the GTX680. I believe I purchased a flashed one from MacVidCards via eBay and have had zero issues with it. I actually keep it for when macOS upgrades give me problems with my GTX970. The 970 is a noticeably faster card but Apple are crap with kernel extensions and I usually use Pacifist to force install NVIDIA's latest Web Drivers before upgrading macOS which, as you noted, usually breaks the Web Drivers.

[Synchro03andsoon]

All Kepler cards are user friendly with no hassles, supported by OS X native drivers: E.g. GT 630, GTX 680, GTX 770, GTX 780 (only 3GB).

But notice that you will have no boot screen with a Kepler card on a 4K monitor, doesn't matter if the card is flashed with Mac EFI or not.

Therefore I would recommend a Maxwell card, which supports boot screen even in 4K resolution and above. If the Maxwell card is EFI flashed by MVC, there are only minor efforts needed to run the card. After each OS X update just wait one or two days until new web drivers are released. Do the update, restart the computer without graphics card acceleration, install new Nvidia drivers, restart, and enjoy.