On macvidcars.com offers a service for "special" BIOS flashing for GPU. As I understand, there is one advantage of this: Mac BIOS enables you to see the gray boot screen at startup (where you see the Apple logo and hear the iconic boot chime).
The main reason to flash the BIOS is that many of the cards are artificially limited by having a low Power Target. This means the card can never reach its true potential. Whether this is NVIDIA doing or not, it's hard to tell. Either way, NVIDIA has to sign off on every BIOS since it's encrypted to stop outside modification. That brings me to the main selling point of flashing the BIOS to a different series. Many series have a basic, OC, and an extreme model. In previous generations, most people in the overclocking scene knew most of the time the base model could achieve similar results. Many of the base models for the RTX 2080 have a power limit of 250 watts and 280-300 watts for the 2080 Ti. In comparison, the top RTX 2080 at the time of writing this tops out at 300 watts and 450* watts for the 2080 TI. That is a drastic difference simply because either these AIB partners or NVIDIA decided to artificially limit the cards.
Special Flashing Gpu Bios For Mac
For flashing the BIOS it is suggested to do this process in DOS to avoid any complications. However, if you have the Founders Edition or flashing to a different brand you will most likely need to use the NVFlash ID Mismatch Modified version that allows you to flash regardless of what you have. It adds a layer of risk because you must do it in Windows and the program won't stop you for flashing a bad BIOS.
This is the hard part of the guide since no one BIOS fits all. The first thing you should know is all these BIOS links listed below and in general, this guide is only for Reference PCB cards or cards the same VRM Controller as the Founders Edition. Second, if you have a Non-A variant of the GPU, you cannot flash it to the A variant. Example; TU104-400-A1, TU104-400A-A1. This is because NVIDIA has effectively classified it as a different GPU altogether, therefore the "A" video card BIOS will not work on a Non-A card. You will need to find out what card you have before flashing. Some have reported NVFlash will give a GPU Mismatch error, other times it will just blindly flash and brick the card. For those who do have an A variant, they can flash their cards by following this tutorial. Those who don't are out of luck. This mainly because of the "OC" models of non-A variant cards also have a low power limit. Therefore making it pointless to flash those cards at all.
Now the actual flashing part. Type nvflash64 -6 (ROM NAME).rom and hit Enter. For this tutorial, my BIOS I wanted to flash was called EVGA.rom (EX: nvflash64 -6 EVGA.rom). It will ask you a few times if you really want to do this. Follow the prompts and wait for it to finish flashing.
IMPORTANT: If something went wrong during flashing, do NOT turn off/reboot your computer. Instead, let us help you recover. We can be contacted via IRC (#flashrom on libera.chat, webchat) or email. Please allow for a few hours until someone responds on IRC, we're all volunteers.
I've seen numerous guides on the internet about flashing the BIOS on the video cards and also ones that speak about adding the EFI BIOS, but in the haphazard forum approach, it isn't clear how this all works. To some degree, I've recently come away with the notion that you don't get rid of the existing BIOS, but rather add an EFI partition to it that the Mac would recognize. If that assumption is correct, then it would lead me to believe that adding an EFI BIOS that works on a similar card (R9 280X or 7950 which are both close but not quite) should work since I'm assuming that the existing BIOS would be similar enough to hook in. Failing that, I'm not clear how you would get a card-specific EFI BIOS for boot screen support.
You will need to contact your graphics card manufacturer for the latest custom UEFI / video BIOS for your graphics card. Flashing a graphics card with an incompatible or untested version can permanently damage your graphics card. Most graphics card related fixes are provided through display driver updates. If you are experiencing issues with your graphics card, then before flashing a new video BIOS update, we recommend downloading and installing the latest drivers for your card.
Years ago, I posted a guide on how to install a GeForce 760 or 770 into a 2008 Mac Pro. I included a fair amount of benchmarks to boot. It's lasted me well over three years and made the jump to a 2010 Mac Pro, but I finally pulled the trigger on a 1060. You can install a 10x0 series into a 2008 Mac Pro as well, but this guide specifically focuses on the 2010-2012 Mac Pros. The main differences between the two are the PCIe power port positions and the lack of the annoying PCIe bar hanger latch. Upgrading only took me a few short minutes, the longest part of the process was plugging/unplugging all my connected devices. There's hardly any special skills or knowledge needed.
If you're upgrading from a stock card, you may be unaware that the PCIe bus doesn't deliver enough power thus PCIe power additional cables are required. The Mac Pros include two power ports for PCIe power but use special low profile cabling often referred to "Mini PCIe" located on the motherboard. To effectively power your GPU, you need to draw power from BOTH ports. To reiterate, you cannot simply use a Y cable from a single motherboard PCIe power port. This seems to be the biggest point of confusion for users.
Ever since NVidia has shipped it's web drivers, gone are the sketchy days of flashing a 6970 and using a rom creator. Installing off-the-shelf GPUs has gone from tribal knowledge to common knowledge for the Mac Pro user since I wrote my "how to" guide for the 760. Ironically, it wasn't until Apple killed upgradability that the dream of off-the-shelf GPUs could be bought without the infamous Apple-tax. I debated even not calling this article a "how to". The downside is despite the EFI compatible ROMs preloaded on the 700+ GeForce cards; they're not EFI boot screen compatible on OSX sadly. The only game in town is macvidcards.com which according to all accounts on MacRumors is a legit source, but I find the idea of hoarding an EFI hack a little irksome. It's hard to complain too much as NVidia has quietly kept the Mac Pro and Hackintosh community happy, self-included. There's no specialized knowledge needed to upgrade your GPU or abnormal risks of a bad firmware flash. The only caveat is you'll want to keep an EFI card around for major OS updates.
Before following this section, please make sure to setup your libreboot ROM properly first. Although ROM images are provided pre-built in libreboot, there are some modifications that you need to make to the one you chose before flashing. (instructions referenced later in this guide)
How can you increase the hashrate of a video card or GPU rig? One option is to adjust the GPU settings that can affect the hashrate. This can be done by flashing the video card. Also, besides a faster mining speed, flashing can help to reduce power consumption, so that you will spend less on electricity bills (this is especially important if you are the owner of a large farm). This article will tell you how Hiveon OS flash video cards and improve their performance.
Hiveon OS flash bios video card. How? Hiveon OS allows you to flash VBIOS of your video card in the user panel on your farm page. To easily change the VBIOS of your GPU in the Hiveon OS panel, download your current VBIOS in the Overclocking tab. Once you modify it (or find the desired VBIOS), click the Flash VBIOS button and select the VBIOS you want to upload.
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I got a little problem with my rx580. It seems like undervolting does not work at all. A direct edit of the values like 65288 to a fixed voltage does not work anymore. I got that. But even setting the max value to 1000mv an using a offset of 120 does not work. The card does not go any lower then 1031mv. It does not matter if i edit the bios or set lower values in Wattman. They simply get ignored. I know that the card should be working with [email protected] Radeon Driver is v21.3.1.
Hello,I want to modify my Sapphire nitro+ 6800 VGA's BIOS (11305-01-20G, -radeon-rx-6800-16g-gddr6): I changed it via MPT (few things) and then saved it but when I want to open the stocked bios (.rom file) via RBE then I have the "Not supported" message. Can you help me solve this problem? I used Hive OS and I cannot really update the setting via MPT in Windows. If I know well HiveOS supported only the .rom file extension.MPT: v.1.3.4RBE: v.1.0.7 2ff7e9595c
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