New Raedon MPX modules for mac pro

New (vastly over-priced) MPX modules for the mac pro.
https://www.apple.com/au/shop/mac/accessories/mac-components

Still, am wondering how (say) a W6800x might go alongside a Vega II? ie, mix & matching cards.

I wouldn't invest in any old (Intel) technology by Apple any more.
Go PC or wait for the next generation of M1(X?) killer machines.

unfortunately it will be a long time before there will be an apple silicon machine
that will reach the performance of the MP2019 with one or more W6x00X
under resolve (or other video and 3D software).

I would also rather go for an MP2019 at the moment,
except if only H264/H265 material is processed.

Thanks, but I already own a 7,1 2019 MP & have been more than happy with this for the last 18 months, M1X or other Apple promises are not going to happen & certainly not in the next four years or so (likely how much time it will take to get it right).

In any case, the OP was about mix and matching GPUs for Resolve Studio - the possibility of upgrading one of my Vega IIs with a W6X00X. Blackmagic used to insist on matched GPUs or is not, then one for the display etc.

New (vastly over-priced) MPX modules for the mac pro.
https://www.apple.com/au/shop/mac/accessories/mac-components

Still, am wondering how (say) a W6800x might go alongside a Vega II? ie, mix & matching cards.

I have an AMD 6900XT 16GB (consumer card) in my Hack Pro and it outperforms the Radeon Pro Vega II 32GB by about 40% in 3D rendering according to 3D rendering benchmarks in Octane Render X:



Not shown in the chart is a Pro Vega II Duo 64GB (2 x 32GB Pro Vega II) time of 9 seconds, ie 20% faster than my 6900XT 16GB.

A dual 6800XT MPX should be 40 - 50% faster than a Pro Vega II Duo, and will simply obliterate a single Pro Vega II.

Not sure about Resolve benchmarks but I'd assume the differences will be in the same ballpark.

This thread does make me want to ask BMD whether they are testing with the new 6800/6900 GPUs in macOS? I noticed for example that in Fusion Studio, my 6900XT is shown as an "OpenGL" GPU:

I can select Metal and that works so it might just be a display issue in the GPU list. But it does make me wonder if there needs to be any specific tweaks for the new GPUs in Resolve/Fusion, and whether that might improve performance further.

have an AMD 6900XT 16GB (consumer card) in my Hack Pro and it outperforms the Radeon Pro Vega II 32GB by about 40% in 3D rendering according to 3D rendering benchmarks in Octane Render X. Not sure about Resolve benchmarks but I'd assume the differences will be in the same ballpark.

This thread does make me want to ask BMD whether they are testing with the new 6800/6900 GPUs in macOS?

Thanks for this, appreciated. So Q for BM?

Once upon a time, there were recommendations that multiple GPUs needed to be identical lest one of these fall back to the lowest speed of the other card. Alternately, one card could be used for screen-only IO, the other for GPU rendering. These days I'm not so sure this is still the case (& for these Apple MPX Raedons)

So, I have 2 x Vega IIs (not a Duo) and the xtra IO is for recording studio (many thunderbolt and USB devices). The GPU throughput on Resolve is reasonable, but am mulling the option of keeping one Vega II and possibly replacing the other with (say) a W6800x or even a Duo. & yes of course the price is mad-as but still ....

Once upon a time, there were recommendations that multiple GPUs needed to be identical lest one of these fall back to the lowest speed of the other card. Alternately, one card could be used for screen-only IO, the other for GPU rendering. These days I'm not so sure this is still the case (& for these Apple MPX Raedons)

So, I have 2 x Vega IIs (not a Duo) and the xtra IO is for recording studio (many thunderbolt and USB devices). The GPU throughput on Resolve is reasonable, but am mulling the option of keeping one Vega II and possibly replacing the other with (say) a W6800x or even a Duo. & yes of course the price is mad-as but still ....

Yeah I've been wondering about that too. I still have my old 8GB Vega 64 and I was thinking of adding it to see if that unbalanced config would be any better than only having the 16GB 6900XT. But I'm not expecting it to, especially with the difference in VRAM.

I read somewhere recently on this forum that Resolve just divides all work equally between both GPUs, so if one is much more powerful you'll be bottlenecked by the slower card. So then I guess it depends on the performance differential to decide whether that's better than a single GPU. In my case I imagine it'll definitely be worse to use the weaker GPU; not certain about your situation.

I don't know if you use any other GPU-needing software? But even if Resolve doesn't improve with two mismatched GPUs, one option that might be useful would be to dedicate one or two W6800X's to Resolve, and then the VII could be used in any other software you might want to run in parallel - Fusion Studio, Blender, Cinema4D, etc. Which could be a performance benefit overall if you need/want to run multiple software in parallel.

And/or, if you use OFX plugins, you might have the option to dedicate certain GPUs to those? Neat Video for example allows you to specify which GPU(s) to use for it - so if you use that OFX you could for example dedicate the VII to Neat Video, while the 1 or 2 x 6800 is doing Resolve stuff.

Lots of possible permutations. I don't know exactly what will be the best combo, but if you can afford a W6800x or a duo W6800x, there's no way it's not going to be a massive performance boost. It's a nice problem for you to have

I installed 2 Radeon VII when I got the Mac Pro.
Sold them for more then I paid back then.
Just replaced them with 2 brand new sealed 6900xt AMD Reference cards from eBay at a fair price.

Hard to justify the cost of MPX modules...

Jerry