Sonoma & 6950 XT Tutorial

pulsar7377

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AMD OS X Member
Nov 20, 2020
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Hey there,

We have a lot of experts in this forum but for the others like me, here is a quick tutorial for the owners of a 6950 XT wishing to install Sonoma and get their GPU to work properly.

I have recently updated from Ventura to Sonoma. It went "ok" apart from the recurrent issue with the 6950 XT GPU.
To make it short, the 6950 XT is not supported and need to be spoof to the 6900 XT Device-Id... so it is recognized as a 6900 XT.
I already had that issue in Ventura but for some reason I could not reuse the SSDT I made for Ventura with Sonoma. So, I decided to start all over again.

You have basically 2x options: one super easy and one that will require a little bit more work.

Option #1:

add this kext:
AMDRadeonNavi2xExt.kext

Pro: Super easy and fast
Cons: Not compatible with DRM content (from what I read online)

Option #2:
Generate a PCI Bridge and modify the SSDT-GPU-SPOOF file

If you really want to go with option#2, I advise to do the installation using the option#1 so you can boot Sonoma and get the information about the 6950 XT PCI path.
Otherwise, you will need to get that information in Windows which I will not cover here.

1. what you will need. (files attached)
- Hackintool
- SSDTTime.
- SSDT-GPU-SPOOF.aml
- MaciASL or other SSDT editor

2. Let's get to it
- Launch Hackintool and get the IOReg Name and Device Path of the GPU (PCIe Tab)

Screenshot 2023-12-18 at 18.51.55.png

- Now you need to boot Windows (I have a dual boot so I am not sure how you would do it on a machine with only MacOS...)
* Launch SSDTTime.bat
* Choose the option Dump DSDT
* Then PCI Bridge. paste the Device path found with Hackintool
* Copy the PCI Bridge file (SSDT-Bridge.aml) to a flash drive

- Reboot to Sonoma
* Open the file SSDT-Bridge.aml using MaciASL
* Modify the 3 followings line with the information found in the IOReg Name /PCI0@0/GPP8@3.1/BRG0@0/BRG1@0/GFX0@0.

Screenshot 2023-12-18 at 19.11.37.png

* Save it, the PCI Bridge is done
* Let's now open the SSDT-GPU-SPOOF.aml
* If you edit the file attached, just change the line in YELLOW, if you edit the one downloaded from the OpenCore website you will also need to modify the lines in BLUE
0xBF, 0x73, 0x00, 0x00 is the DeviceId of the 6900 XT

Screenshot 2023-12-18 at 19.22.18.png

* Save it, the SSDT SPOOF is done

Done! just add those 2x SSDT and you should have a working 6950 XT in Sonoma, I did a GeekBench 6 Metal and got a score of 250,000 which is what it is supposed to be.
 

Attachments

Good guide, it will hopefully help some people.

However, you don't need to be able to dual boot to Windows to create the SSDT-Bridge.aml table.

You can undertake the same process to create the SSDT-Bridge.aml in macOS using the 'SDTTime.command' option, the same as you can when using the 'SSDTTime.bat' option in Windows.

This is the screenshot of the options available in SSDTTime in macOS.

Screenshot 2023-12-19 at 21.06.27.png Selecting option '9' will will start the process to create the SSDT-Bridge.aml table.

The rest of the process is the same as you wrote above.
 
Thank you so much for this! Got today my RX 6950 RT and didn't run well. Just used the easy way with the AMDRadeonNavi2xExt.kext :ROFLMAO:

Maybe later I do the other method to get the most of the card but not needed in MacOs. I use it more for gaming in Windows.

Bildschirmfoto 2025-02-03 um 20.44.10.png


Bildschirmfoto 2025-02-03 um 20.41.42.png
 
Hi, that is very interesting, because i planned to go to Windows with a Nvidia card full time due the high price of the Apple silicon to have good graphic performance because i use Davinci resolve. I know it takes time to do this test but it will give me a real world estimation to upgrade to 9950xt with a 6950xt or not.
 
1738653932346.png

this is what i need to have my 6950xt working well

it is possible to install osx from scratch only using not supported internal GPU (from 7950x and 9950x) with no acceleration, then to find proper address for 6950xt or 6650xt gpu and spoof it as picture above (6950xt)
 
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I know it takes time to do this test but it will give me a real world estimation to upgrade to 9950xt with a 6950xt or not.
1738655788080.png

but i think it can go faster and tests proposed are not the best (imho)
however in other tests, pushing a bit my ddr5 over my default 3600 Mhz i have seen about 5 minutes as the best results
above are my benchamarks with CPU/GPU @stock values
 
Last edited:
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View attachment 16265

but i think it can go faster and tests proposed are not the best (imho)
however in other tests, pushing a bit my ddr5 over my default 3600 Mhz i have seen about 5 minutes as the best results
above are my benchamarks with CPU/GPU @stock values
Wow what a beast! I think your setup is the total maximum of an Hackintosh!!
 
View attachment 16265

but i think it can go faster and tests proposed are not the best (imho)
however in other tests, pushing a bit my ddr5 over my default 3600 Mhz i have seen about 5 minutes as the best results
above are my benchamarks with CPU/GPU @stock values

I think a 5950 x with an nvidia RTX 5080 can be a good choice to start to upgrade and not too expensive, as i already have the motherboard and the memory


A 222 - M2 Ultra (24CPU 60GPU) - 19.1 Studio (@Miguel_García_Iraburu)
A 231 - i7-14700K RTX 4090 - 19.1 Studio (@tyupalov)
A 232 - M2 Ultra (24CPU 76GPU 128GB) - 19.1 Studio (‪@DarrenMostyn‬ )
A 233 - Ryzen 7950x3D RTX 4090 - 19.03 Studio (@Nick_Lavigne)
A 238 - MBP 16" M4 Max (12CPU 40GPU) - 19.1 Studio (@Team2Films)
A 250 - 13900KS RTX 3090 - 19.1 Studio (@IvStam-zi7gq)
A 258 - i7 13700K 32GB DDR5 6000mhz AMD 7900 XTX - 19.1 Studio (@TheCarGuyOnline)
A 263 - 5950X 7900XTX 32GB DDR4 3600(CL14) - 19.1.2 Studio (@compaholic83)
A 276 - M3 MAX (16CPU 40GPU, 128GB RAM) - 19.1 Studio (@espio1968ify)
A 286 - Ryzen 7950X 3D RTX 4090 - 19.1 Studio (@cptnwrngbob)
A 296 - Ryzen 9 5900X 64GB RAM Radeon RX 7900 XTX - 19.1 Studio (@vwgtidude)
A 299 - M1 Ultra (20 CPU 48 GPU) - 19.1 Studio (@cpaq)
A 300 - Ryzen 9 7900X, 96GB RAM, RTX 4070 Ti Super 16gb - 19.1 Studio (@HRCreativos)
A 325 - Ryzen 9 5900X 128GB DDR4 RAM RTX 3090 - 19.1 Studio (@KaurH)
A 338 - M4 Max 14" MBP (14 CPU 32 GPU 36GB) - 19.1 Studio (‪@DarrenMostyn‬ )
A 353 - i9-14900K 64 GB Ram RX 6900-XT SE 16GB - Studio 19.1 (@driedekker)
A 362 - M2 Max 16" MBPro (12 core CPU 38 GPU 96GB) - 19.1 Studio (‪@DarrenMostyn‬ )
A 385 - Threadripper Pro 12C 128gbRAM / 2 x RTX A4000 16GB - 19.1 Studio (@RalfSwy)
A 396 - M1 Max (10 CPU 32 GPU 64 GB RAM) - 19.1 Studio (@TomMehlum)
A 396 - i7 13700k AMD 6900XT - 19.1 Studio (@jasonsedmak3077)
A 398 - M4 Pro (MPB 14 CPU 20 GPU 48GB) - 19.1.1 Studio (@Drone-Vids)
A 398 - M2 Max (Studio 12CPU 30GPU 32 GB) - 19.1 Studio (@telmoibarburu1038)
A 430 - M1 Max (10 CPU 32 GPU 32GB RAM) - 19.1 Studio (@Team2Films)
A 490 - i7 13700K RTX 64GB 4070 Ti - 19.1 STUDIO (@juricavidakovic2762)
A 617 - M2 Pro Mini (12CPU 16 GPU 32GB RAM) - 19.1 Studio (@TechRealityGlasgow)
A 657 - Ryzen 5800x RTX 4070 32gb ram - 19.1 Studio (@AlexDiazVideo)
A 709 - i9-11980HK (Laptop) RTX 3080 - 19.1 Studio (@TechTrainTracks)
A 880 - M4 Mini (10CPU 10GPU) - 19.1 Studio (@MrAlexTech)
A 1072 - M1 Pro (10 CPU 16GPU 16GB) - 19.1 Studio (@vaidotassegenis)
A 1642 - i7-12700 32GB RTX4060 8GB - 19.1 Studio (@benekex)
A 1687 - M1 Air (4CPU 4GPU) - 19.1 Studio (@Ftothedance)
 
in amazon it an absurd prize for rtx 5080..so i think a dual rx 6950 xt and OSX would do a better job at less price :)
 
wait and see
 
1739371648792.png
 
Screenshot 2025-02-12 at 3.13.07 pm.png
Screenshot 2025-02-12 at 3.19.43 pm.png


a dual 6950xt system :) :)
 
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