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e-GPU AMD R9 3xx series


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Hey guys,

I've been silently reading on the forums DIY e-GPU topics. Recently I've bought a Macbook Pro Retina 15" M370x. I'm planning to use it as my main system and replace my iMac with 4GB GTX 780M for some occasional gaming. For that I was hoping to get an e-GPU, working on both OSX and Windows.

Because my Macbook is has an AMD chipset I was wondering if it was even possible to use AMD graphic cards in OSX. I only read about Nvidia graphic cards. I would prefer the AMD to not have nVidia and AMD drivers running in Windows (never feels good to do that).

Since Apple is now using AMD chips for their MacBooks I thought it might start to get easier implementing AMD drivers in Mac OSX.

Can you guys advice me?

Cheers!

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AMDs should be much easier than Nvidia to get work on OS X because Apple provides native drivers for them, and Windows 10 has AMD drivers built in.

AMD and WINDOWS® 10

My script doesn’t support AMDs at the moment, but you can look for my Netstor implementation how to modify kexts. Please note that AKiTiO and maybe other single-slot enclosures seems to be unstable with R9 series cards in low-power consumption. When the new official TB3 eGPUs enclosures start to pop up, we will see interesting competition and hopefully more affordable products.

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I thought about buying an Akitio and built it into a small ITX/HTPC format enclosure, using a PC power supply to power the GPU. But I think TB2 might become a bottleneck by now, especially with the graphics card becoming so much faster.

But will new TB3 enclosures start to support eGPUs? I think that's not very likely. Apple seems to try and stop us from actually using the eGPU's, atleast, companies are asked to stop developing them in the past.

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But will new TB3 enclosures start to support eGPUs? I think that's not very likely. Apple seems to try and stop us from actually using the eGPU's, atleast, companies are asked to stop developing them in the past.

Regarding Windows, Intel has officially demoed eGPUs:

http://forum.techinferno.com/diy-e-gpu-projects/10147-intel-unveils-thunderbolt-3-0-mentions-external-graphics-skylake-2016-a.html#post135216

and I have confidential information.

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But regarding my laptop (I'm not planning on buy-ing a new one next year). Will it even support ThunderBolt 3? I think it's probably more than just a firmware update?

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But regarding my laptop (I'm not planning on buy-ing a new one next year). Will it even support ThunderBolt 3? I think it's probably more than just a firmware update?

Correct. It will be a whole new hardware and is not a simple firmware update. Your laptop will be whatever version of TB.

The port is actually going to be the same as the new USB-C used on the retina Macbook.

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AMDs should be much easier than Nvidia to get work on OS X because Apple provides native drivers for them, and Windows 10 has AMD drivers built in.

AMD and WINDOWS® 10

My script doesn’t support AMDs at the moment, but you can look for my Netstor implementation how to modify kexts. Please note that AKiTiO and maybe other single-slot enclosures seems to be unstable with R9 series cards in low-power consumption. When the new official TB3 eGPUs enclosures start to pop up, we will see interesting competition and hopefully more affordable products.

I've looked at your forum post about the R9 280X, if I understand correctly AMD is actually the better/easier choice for graphics cards on OSX. Apart for the obvious reasons that AMD cards tend to use a lot of power and are pretty big.

Since I'm going to use a custom enclosure case, neither power consumption or size will be a problem. I will use an ATX power supply. I'll probably also slap a closed loop water cooling on there as well, making it really quiet. Is AKiTiO a good choice for R9 graphic cards? What do you mean by instability at low-power consumption? What other affordable alternatives do I have?

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I've looked at your forum post about the R9 280X, if I understand correctly AMD is actually the better/easier choice for graphics cards on OSX. Apart for the obvious reasons that AMD cards tend to use a lot of power and are pretty big.

Since I'm going to use a custom enclosure case, neither power consumption or size will be a problem. I will use an ATX power supply. I'll probably also slap a closed loop water cooling on there as well, making it really quiet. Is AKiTiO a good choice for R9 graphic cards? What do you mean by instability at low-power consumption? What other affordable alternatives do I have?

AKiTiO's instability at "low-power consumption" with R9s is explained here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/provisional-guides/10114-2014-15-mbp-iris-r9_280x%4016gbps-tb2-akitio-thunder2-win8-1-osx10-10-%5Bbraynshoc.html#post134766

It's still a mystery. However, I didn't have any issue with HD 7970 even if it's almost the same architecture and chip (Tahiti XTL / Tahiti XT2).

Rocketstor 6361A would be interesting candidate...

http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/9638-us%24340-highpoint-rocketstor-6361a-pcie-chassis-16gbps-tb2.html#post129974

but we don't know anything about that product.

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AKiTiO's instability at "low-power consumption" with R9s is explained here:

http://forum.techinferno.com/provisional-guides/10114-2014-15-mbp-iris-r9_280x%4016gbps-tb2-akitio-thunder2-win8-1-osx10-10-%5Bbraynshoc.html#post134766

It's still a mystery. However, I didn't have any issue with HD 7970 even if it's almost the same architecture and chip (Tahiti XTL / Tahiti XT2).

Rocketstor 6361A would be interesting candidate...

http://forum.techinferno.com/enclosures-adapters/9638-us%24340-highpoint-rocketstor-6361a-pcie-chassis-16gbps-tb2.html#post129974

but we don't know anything about that product.

I read some mixed emotions about the Rocketstor 6361A.. Too bad this AKiTiO is buggy with R9's. It seems to be the weapon of choice for most people out there. I could risk it and try to run a new R9 (3xx) or maybe a Fury X with it. Neither have been used before with it I guess... To bad e-GPU isn't exact science, makes it hard to share knowledge between different card users.

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I'm just as curious as you Daniel. I'm thinking about using a Fury X as graphics card, it's very short and compact, and it offers great performance (and 5K video output). Do you guys think I can get it working with the AMD drivers in Mac OSX?

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I'm just as curious as you Daniel. I'm thinking about using a Fury X as graphics card, it's very short and compact, and it offers great performance (and 5K video output). Do you guys think I can get it working with the AMD drivers in Mac OSX?

R9 390X seems to have the same device id 0x67B0 as the R9 290X:

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/173023/msi-r9390x-8192-150521.html

VGA Bios Collection: MSI R9 290X 4096 MB | techPowerUp

So acceleration may actually work, the device id is the last in the AMD8000Controller.kext and there is AMDHawaiiGraphicsAccelerator in AMDRadeonX4000.kext. Maybe OS X El Capitan will provide new ids and Fiji codename as well, I haven’t looked yet. The codename is important, at the moment Yosemite doesn't support Fury X (Fiji XT).

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R9 390X seems to have the same device id 0x67B0 as the R9 290X:

https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/173023/msi-r9390x-8192-150521.html

VGA Bios Collection: MSI R9 290X 4096 MB | techPowerUp

So acceleration may actually work, the device id is the last in the AMD8000Controller.kext and there is AMDHawaiiGraphicsAccelerator in AMDRadeonX4000.kext. Maybe OS X El Capitan will provide new ids and Fiji codename as well, I haven’t looked yet. The codename is important, at the moment Yosemite doesn't support Fury X (Fiji XT).

Sometimes I wonder if you are a living encyclopedia, especially on this subject. Thanks goalque, I will investigate more in the matter (before spending $1000,- on unusable hardware :P) Would be great to have a Fiji working in El Capitan

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  • 1 month later...

So after not reporting back for a while. I've almost made my decisions on what hardware to get.. Until..... AMD came a long with a good alternative to the Fury X. For now called R9 Nano, the news articles (slides from AMD) state a performance that is better than the Fury, just a few notches below the Fury X.

As the name suggests it's a small card that would fit into any ITX sized computer case. It has a low 175TDP, 4GB of HBM RAM. It all just sounds to be a brilliant card for small sized e-GPU projects.

More about it here

Has anyone else found anything useful on Fury (X) on Mac OSX?

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So after not reporting back for a while. I've almost made my decisions on what hardware to get.. Until..... AMD came a long with a good alternative to the Fury X. For now called R9 Nano, the news articles (slides from AMD) state a performance that is better than the Fury, just a few notches below the Fury X.

As the name suggests it's a small card that would fit into any ITX sized computer case. It has a low 175TDP, 4GB of HBM RAM. It all just sounds to be a brilliant card for small sized e-GPU projects.

More about it here

Has anyone else found anything useful on Fury (X) on Mac OSX?

My script supports Fiji architecture in theory :)

elif [[ "$controller" == "9000" ]] && [[ "$egpu_names" =~ Tonga|Fiji ]]

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How do you think this wil fare with the internal R9 M370X, that is in my Macbook?

I haven’t seen problems in mixing different family AMD eGPUs, so I think it will be okay with your dGPU which is a mobile version of Cape Verde. The acceleration part for Fiji is missing, but I believe it will be there soon, since a recursive grep search with “Fiji” word showed 9 binary files starting with AMD. For instance, AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver binary includes “Radeon HD Fiji Prototype” string.

Due to script’s generalized PCI match masks, v0.9.6 allows only to use multiple AMD eGPUs that belong under the same codename. Depending on the order of kext loading, there might be a risk that the script applies a wrong kext for your R9 M370X. I have to take this into account. If you happen to have AMD card and it doesn’t work, send me PM and I’ll make a fix.

Remember that some R9 series GPUs aren’t stable with AKiTiO, I keep my fingers crossed for R9 Nano :)

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  • 3 months later...

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