In context: In 2021, Apple teamed up with AMD to create new Mac Professional computer systems with essentially the most highly effective graphics playing cards ever in an Apple laptop. The Radeon Professional W6800X Duo was unique to Apple {hardware} for a very long time till der8auer found out the right way to use his GPU outdoors of his Apple ecosystem.
With the graphics card priced at $5,000 on Apple’s web site, we knew Apple was getting one thing particular with the Radeon Professional W6800X Duo. It options two Navi 21 dies linked by way of AMD’s Infinity Material, however with 20 compute items disabled on each dies. The GPU additionally options 32 GB of his GDDR6 reminiscence and 128 MB of Infinity cache.
At a look, the Navi 21 die is featured on each AMD’s RDNA2 flagships, the RX 6900 XT and RX 6950 XT. This die is already sturdy, as demonstrated within the benchmarks. As anticipated, placing two on Apple’s GPUs barely lowers the efficiency of every die, but it surely’s a monster.
The W6800X Duo is sort of a twin card 6900 XT and lots of had been curious in regards to the card’s capabilities. One among his was Roman Hartung, a well-known excessive overclocker der8auer. In a current video, der8auer took his W6800X Duo aside and examined it, but it surely had lots of points.
The GPU makes use of a normal PCIe x16 slot generally discovered on shopper motherboards, however energy supply is unusual. The cardboard options Apple’s personal Mac Professional eXpansion (MPX) module as an alternative of the usual PCIe energy connector. Nonetheless, der8auer reused his 12VHPWR cable to supply the 400 watts the W6800X Duo wanted.
After tackling various points, together with failed driver installations, excessive temperatures, and a tough energy provide, der8auer was lastly capable of get the GPU working correctly. As famous above, lots of modification and soldering was required to get the cardboard engaged on a normal motherboard. Regardless of this, the GPU struggled to finish the benchmark and suffered quite a few crashes and shutdowns.
After many makes an attempt, Hartung pushed the cardboard and accomplished the benchmark. In 3DMark TimeSpy, the W6800X Duo carried out brilliantly, scoring a mean FPS of 97.21. That is 21% slower than his RTX 4090 from Nvidia, however simply over 4% quicker than his RTX 4080. It additionally outperforms AMD’s flagship RX 7900 XTX by about 8%.
Total, the outcomes proven by the W6800X Duo are spectacular. The query arises as to why this card or comparable variants by no means made it to the patron market and was as an alternative restricted to his $5,000 buy inside his Mac ecosystem.In any case, der8auer’s work Extremely rated.