MacOS 12.3 update causes problems for some PCI-E GPU users

Apple's update to macOS Monterey 12.3 poses problems for a small number of Mac users, and some PCI-E GPU cards provide the same speed not only in the eGPU chassis, but also in the Mac Pro.

After updating macOS to version 12.3 on Monday, AppleInsider received emails from readers complaining that the operating system had stopped working best with their graphics cards.

An email claimed that after the update, their Mac processor's integrated graphics card ran faster than their "$2800 W6800X card". In another case, users found that the performance of their unidentified AMD RDNA cards degraded by 94% in the updated benchmark.

This problem seems to have existed throughout the testing of macOS Monterey 12.3, and the MacRumors forum post that began on February 2nd saw some users report the problem. These problems seem to be reflected in the eGPU chassis and PCI-e cards in some Mac Pro settings.

Although it is a problem for some advanced users, it does not seem to be a common problem among users who use AMD graphics cards in the workflow, nor is it integrated graphics cards in iMac. There are relatively few forum posts and complaints, indicating that only a very small number of users are currently affected.

AppleInsider tests show that performance degradation does occur, but not in all cases. Testing in various combinations of GPU and eGPU chassis found that performance degraded in some cases, but not in others.

If the PCI-E card is running at full speed, whether it is in the Mac Pro or eGPU chassis, it will continue to do so. Changing the shell will not affect the speed.

After checking with a contact, it was found that Apple's own W6900X MPX module worked well in their Mac Pro, however, the Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT ran at about half the speed on the same system.