How to build your own iMac Pro [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[kgp]

What MB is better to setup ? gigabyte x299 ud4 or asus prime delux or prime A?
I think if I need ''sync all core'' for a good mac? I have allready a GA x299 ud4 but i can change with asus x299 prime A. Or is better x299 prime delux? I don't make overcloking

I would directly go for the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe, which is 100% compatible with this guide. The ASUS specific "Sync All Cores" BIOS functionality is absolutely mandatory for top-end XCPM performance.

 

[kgp]

great, installation working great, however when I try to create account in the setup procedure, reboot occurs everytime. after reboot the setup procedure starts again and creating account will cause the reboot again. what is wrong?

Which account you are talking about?

 

[mgregrs]

... I would get random reboots with even mouse clicks at stock speeds. With Multicore only enabled, random reboots occur less frequently, but reliably when I'm in Photoshop, opening or (augh!) saving files.

*** Please don't forget about some stability problems cause our AMD Vega cards,
which will certainly fixed soon with new 10.13 updates

 

[braindeadmac]

*** Please don't forget about some stability problems cause our AMD Vega cards,
which will certainly fixed soon with new 10.13 updates

I haven't encountered anything unstability attributable to the VEGA card, but I suspect it's a refelction of the applications I use.

 

[ImaPirate]

Hey punk! Once I disabled the ASUS Multicore enhancement and Sync All Cores options, my stabilty issues are entirely resolved. My particular chip doesn't seem to like overclocks at all, although I haven't delidded yet. So here I am in 2017 with roughly the same Geekbench scores that I had in 2013 with my 'Deep Thought' EVGA SR-2 build--granted it uses 1/3 the electricity and costs about 1/3 as much. However, the ASUS Deluxe X-299 is much, much better than that experience. Power management, sleep, build in USB and SATA just works.

Well with the it looks like I might go the Asus Prime Deluxe route and do that instead and resell my AORUS 9 board. Man, this will be the THIRD board (actually FIFTH board). Aside from that you're right the X299 ULTRABEAST (on idle) uses about 1/3 less wattage as well. It's only until you stress test where it becomes a wattage sucking beast and uses 1/3 more wattage than my 5 year old SR-2 HACKINBEAST. I can't believe we've been using these machines that are still going strong this long. I still haven't even changed the coolant. Just added more when needed. I haven't even changed the TIM - LOL!

 

[ImaPirate]

Well, everything works flawless under 10.13 SU with the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe and the i9-7980XE, as long I do not enable the multi core enhancement BIOS feature. With the latter BIOS feature enabled, my system would reboot just a few moments after login. However, under 10.12.6 there are absolutely no issues even with the multi core enhancement enabled and the Geekbench score boost is tremendous, i.e. 51.000 (disabled) vs. 58.000 (enabled)! Nevertheless, with the i7-7800X, I could use the multi core enhancement also under 10.13 even before SU. Give time to the mainboard developers and also to Apple to fix remaining issues.

In any case, with the multi-core enhancement disabled, your system should work flawless and absolutely stable... If you still face reboots, something else might go wrong... The reason might be one of the 10.13 beta versions your are still using, but I doubt that the latter is really the cause.... Although within this beta version you will not have for e.g. native XHC USB support in any case. Thus a board-specific XHC USB Kext might still be mandatory for XHC USB2.0 and 3.0 functionality.

Also the Skylake-X and XCPM support dramatically improved within 10.13 SU for many Skylake-X processors. E.g., the i9-7900 or the i7-7820X do not require anymore any kind of aml stepping, everything is already natively implemented.

I am indeed very happy with the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe...

I think we can be proud and totally satisfied with what we reached so far! At least my build behaves absolutely stable and works flawless with respect to my personal requirements and expectations. I still would like to improve some minor issues, the multi-core enhancement functionality with the i9-7980XE under 10.13 would be one of those... Full sleep/wake functionality also with the TB EX 3 is another thing I am currently aiming at and latest results are indeed very promising.

Well, whatever is causing the random restarts, I'm going to (again for the FIFTH time), gut my system and get the Asus Prime Deluxe board and EK Monoblock and sell my AORUS 9 and Monoblock and go from there.

 

[mgregrs]

Well, whatever is causing the random restarts, I'm going to (again for the FIFTH time), gut my system and get the Asus Prime Deluxe board and EK Monoblock and sell my AORUS 9 and Monoblock and go from there.

I still have my 1st MB Gigabyte X299 Aorus Ultra Gaming- if you want a bigger collection
... but more serious: Today I'm sure - I will never regret 2nd MB ASUS X299 Prime Deluxe

 

[lucatze]

Here an update concerning my RAM issues!

The RAM itself is totally fine, checked it with memtest86. Its even certified by Asus. So after some googling I suspected some issue with PCIe cards and USB3.

In addition to the GPU I'm using an USB3.0 Add in Card and SDI Decklink. After removing both of the cards, voila, no more RAM Errors in Rember. Also did some checksums on huge files over USB 3 and external SSD WHILE running Rember. No failure. Did the same tests after adding the SDI card in the PCIe 1x slot. No failures. Adding the USB3 card in the GREY PCIe 16x slot. No failure! ONCE I'm connecting any usb3 device to my USB3 Add In Card... BAMS... immediately Rember failure. I should say, I have Asus Multicore Enhacement enabled and Sync by Core Usage. My system was even stable with the RAM failure but would produce failures in rendered video footage from time to time.

Im not using OsxAptioFix2Drv.efi but Test2-2016.efi which solved a strange finder behaviour. I have actually no clue what the difference is but it worked for me. Hope I could help somebody and yes, I think its an issue that might be solved with upcoming OSX updates or somebody has to take a closer look at OsxAptioFix. According to some research, that driver allocates memory according to used PCIe devices but I might be wrong.

UPDATE: Ha, this becomes very interesting. It seems to be rather a problem of the amount of connected USB3 devices and not only that:
3 populated USB3 Ports: Rember OK (I'm not counting the pure USB2 ports)
Adding 4th device (a card reader): Rember Fails
Replacing Codex Reader with Transcend one: Rember Fails
Adding CFast Card to former empty Card Reader: Rember OK

So it pretty much feels like a USB3 driver problem. Does anybody have an idea what alternative driver I could try? I remember kgp mentioning something about that.

UPDATE 2: Just connected a regular All in One Card Reader, which again leads to instability. Only populated card readers are handled correctly by the USB3 driver. Idle ones somehow fail.... All these readers worked perfectly on my Sierra Built.

 

[ZoNeMsTeR]

I finally got everything working except Thunderbolt and WiFi (since I don't have a Broadcom card, however, I run everything on a RJ45 anyway).
Had a little problem with the Video Card installation, I had to remove both OsxAptioFixxxx.efi to enable the SIP to run the drivers, but I finally got it and it works flawlessly. I have one final question; will there be any other way to enable Thunderbolt then one described, I hate Windows and don't want to see it for the next 10 years, so can someone come up with a different way, or maybe shorter workaround of it?
Thanks for the hard work KGP.

Here some screen shots of the benchmark;

 

[Menno87]

Thanks for your prompt answer. I've had too much to do to work with my AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 video card. I also have an AMD R9 285 card that should work as I have one in each of my Mac Pros. If things do not work you have told me what I need to do to fix the problem.

Thanks in advance for your help.

You have to create an ssdt that fakes device id 67C0 (Some other WX 7100 device id) instead of 67C4 (Retail WX 7100 device id). I'll PM an example when I get home. After that it works fine with whatevergreen. It's also mentioned somewhere in the beginning of the whatevergreen support topic on that other forum.