I have a Mac Pro 4,1 which uses UEFI and has no legacy BIOS support. I'd like to purchase a graphics card which uses UEFI GOP by default instead of Legacy VBIOS since, otherwise, I won't see my boot screen when macOS boots.
How does one find UEFI-ready cards? This isn't usually an advertised feature of a card (I've found one card which advertises that it's UEFI-ready). There are many GPU comparison sites, but none seem to list UEFI support on cards.
Please note:
- This is not a shopping question where I'm asking you to tell me which card to buy--I'm asking how to determine which cards support a feature using existing resources on the internet. The answer to this question will still be applicable many years to come.
- This is not a Mac-only question. This applies to anyone looking for a UEFI ready card. Perhaps they want to enable secure boot or fast boot on their PC.
- I know UEFI-compatibility is really determined by what's in the option ROM on the card--and this is programmed by the specific card vendor (i.e. Gigabyte, PNY, EVGA, etc), and that one may re-flash (in some cases using a software utility and in others using an EEPROM programmer) a card with a UEFI-ready ROM image (or send the card to someone who will do this for you for $200).
Some ideas I've thought of:
- Call each vendor and ask which of their cards are UEFI-ready. Since the answer probably isn't part of their call-center script, I'm not hopeful.
- Search though troves of forum posts from various dates looking for people who've experimented with various cards.
- Try to find option-ROM images online that people have posted and start dissecting them looking for UEFI GOP firmware sections.
