If this is important, I highly recommend keeping an original card around (or flashed).

The NVidia (nor the AMD RX 580) card will not allow you to see the EFI boot screen with the card plugged in (the screen you see if you hold down the option key and the Apple logo).

The NVidia drivers currently require 10.12 Sierra or above to use the 1000 series cards.

NVidia cards (GeForce 700 through 1000 series) only require installing the web drivers whereas the Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 580 8GB is (so far) is the only RX 580 that works without any hacking/flashing.

Both AMD and NVidia make EFI compatible graphics cards that will work on OS X.

I cannot recommend purchasing an NVidia GPU if you have any desire to run 10.14+. If you want to run 10.14+, it is AMD or bust. When I wrote this guide, a year ago in 2018, this was before Apple stonewalled NVidia from releasing drivers for Mojave.

Important! There are currently no drivers for the off-the-shelf GeForce GPUs for MacOS 10.14.x.

I suggest taking a look at the GPU section as it covers AMD chipset cards and flashable cards.īefore you get started, there are a few things one should be aware of: Lastly, I've created the Definitive Mac Pro upgrade guide, which includes a lot of information about GPUs (and plenty more) not covered in this article. There's hardly any special skills or knowledge needed. Upgrading only took me a few short minutes, the longest part of the process was plugging/unplugging all my connected devices. The main differences between the two are the PCIe power port positions and the lack of the annoying PCIe bar hanger latch.

You can install a 10x0 series into a 2008 Mac Pro as well, but this guide specifically focuses on the 2010-2012 Mac Pros. 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. I included a fair amount of benchmarks to boot. Years ago, I posted a guide on how to install a GeForce 760 or 770 into a 2008 Mac Pro. For posterity, I've left the upgrade guide below largely intact with a few minor edits to help reflect more current information. My GPU section of the Definitive Mac Pro Upgrade Guide contains more info on this spat, as well as current information. I highly recommend AMD video cards over NVidia as this seems unlikely to change.

NVidia states that it is actively being blocked from releasing drivers for its GeForce cards for 10.14.x+. Sadly, Apple and NVidia relations have seemed to have come to a head.

Updated 04/03/19: When I wrote this guide, NVidia drivers were still being released for the current version of macOS, 10.12-10.13.

Nvidia driver for mac 10.12.6