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

[flymovies]

@RuleBreaker01 and @mgregrs

Thanks a lot ;-) I was trying hard over the last couple of days to push my rig further, but silicon lottery can be a bit**. I think I have reached my final stage now with a new and final highscore on the 7900x.

There is no way to hit the 5,0Ghz, not even on 2 cores, but I have now:

2x 4,9 Ghz at 1,295V
8x 4,7 Ghz at 1,275V

Temperatures do not go beyond 89°C, which is really nice. I have noticed, however, that pushing towards 1.33V did not help the 2 cores. The sweetspot was really at 1,295V, but every chip is different. Notice though that not always more helps more ;-)

New high score sheet (final version):

 

[mgregrs]

I have my CPU delidded from Silicon Lottery

https://siliconlottery.com/collections/skylake-x/products/7900x47g

and EKWB Extreme 360 Starter Water Cooling Kit,

Here is my build look like,

View attachment 288256

My temp when I close the side with 100% CPU stress test stable at 102 after 7 hours, never crash,

The AVX and AVX 512 I set at 1,

my RAM at 3600,

Corsair DOMINATOR Platinum 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 3600 (PC4-28800) C16 for Intel 100 Series CMD32GX4M4B3600C16

View attachment 288254

If you wanna load up my profile setting, make sure you adjust the RAM voltage, DRAM Timing control match with yours spec,

Have fun!

MMMM I'm sooooo impatient for my new WC system - it's not cheap at all and I have to wait
1 month more but it worth
Thanks a lot for details!
I didn't know about siliconlottery... it will be interested for my few clients...
(personnaly... with "my CPU" I prefer do everything alone)

and your profile... i can't wait to make a little test
(just a little because without better cooling it's not a good idea... )

Bravo @flymovies this is a crazy score
and big pleasure to see that
I still think, our processor is one of the best choices of X299 platform, and here we have results
It could be cool if someone add another one button: "Love it", next to like it

 

[flymovies]

MMMM I'm sooooo impatient for my new WC system - it's not cheap at all and I have to wait
1 month more but it worth
Thanks a lot for details!
I didn't know about siliconlottery... it will be interested for my few clients...
(personnaly... with "my CPU" I prefer do everything alone)

and your profile... i can't wait to make a little test
(just a little because without better cooling it's not a good idea... )

Bravo @flymovies this is a crazy score
and big pleasure to see that
I still think, our processor is one of the best choices of X299 platform, and here we have results
It could be cool if someone add another one button: "Love it", next to like it

There is one more thing (but this is as beautiful, as it will get): 45.000 points breakthrough!!!!

It took another round of extreme trial + error + fine tuning:

I had to go down to 4.8 Ghz on the two cores again, but pushed the system with a 101 multiplier instead of 100.

Now we have:

2x 4.848 Ghz at 1.29V
8x 4.747 Ghz at 1.275V
Multicore enabled
AVX ratio at 2

Temps at around 94°C degrees now at full throttle.

It won't get any nicer than that, I guess.

 

[heisetax]

Directly go for 10.13 if you can and your 3rd party software is fully functional...

Please update your profile or signature providing Skylake-X/X299 System Information (mobo, GPU, GPU)! Thanks in advance!

I'll check my software to see if the needed software will work. OS 10.13 sounds to be the easier one to install, no fakecpu needed. Your Guide seems so much more involved than my i7 7700k Asus 170 system. I usually wait for system updates, but hardware or software requirements are what really determine when & if updates are done. I believe that all of my systems will work with OS 10.13. I like to keep all systems on the same OS version when possible.

Thanks for your prompt reply. I just had too many things to work on my system. I have the same Corsair AX860i power supply. I'll test my video cards on my i7 system to see which works best on my my computers. Hopefully my system update will show.

 

[Yoga]

I really advice to precisely follow and carefully study my guide from A to Z. There is not really anything to be skipped, apart from Thunderbolt related implementations in your case or things you might know already.

Note that the distributed EFI-Folder is incomplete, even in case of identical hardware settings. Several things which cannot be generalised and vary from build to build, need to be set, configured and implemented subsequently during the system configuration process!

A carefully reading of the entire guide is unavoidable.

All I needed to know - thanks :¬)

 

[heisetax]

I eventually went with a WX 5100 because I only needed a card with 4 display ports. The device id 67C7 was not recognized and I had to spoof the closest one 67C0 with a dsdt edit as described in the FAQ from whatevergreen. The Pro WX 7100 is mentioned in the whatevergreen code so I guess it shouldn't be a problem. If it's not working you have to make a dsdt edit for your card.

Any particular case you need a PRO WX card instead of just a RX 580? Just asking because that will be more compatible and easy.


// Edit

I tried the 1080ti today. It's working fine on a single 4k monitor with DisplayPort.
Sadly it's not working with the gigabyte alpine ridge. Still works with AMD only.

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.

 

[ImaPirate]

Hi KGP, Congrats on this detailed build and the amazing amount of detail that you provided! Excellent job. Just to let you know, I too just got the i9-7980XE with the current Gigabyte 9 board and the HS beta still works but having issues with installing the retail HS. I have someone helping me with this install and hope we can find a resolve soon. If I have any questions, I'll let you know. Again, thanks for the amazing post and hope I can soon surpass a GB of 58,000+!

 

[kgp]

Hi KGP, Congrats on this detailed build and the amazing amount of detail that you provided! Excellent job. Just to let you know, I too just got the i9-7980XE with the current Gigabyte 9 board and the HS beta still works but having issues with installing the retail HS. I have someone helping me with this install and hope we can find a resolve soon. If I have any questions, I'll let you know. Again, thanks for the amazing post and hope I can soon surpass a GB of 58,000+!

For sure we will bypass the 58,000 I was not playing with OC at all so far Too many other things on my list before... Also Multicore Enhancement does not successfully work yet with the i9-7980XE on the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe under 10.13... Waiting for a BIOS update..

Let me know about your progress I am sure we can easily reach 60.000 and beyond!

Would you be so kind to provide your Skylake-X/X299 system specs in your profile or signature (just mobo, cpu, gpu)? Thanks

 

[ImaPirate]

For sure we will bypass the 58,000 I was not playing with OC at all so far Too many other things on my list before... Also Multicore Enhancement does not successfully work yet with the i9-7980XE on the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe under 10.13... Waiting for a BIOS update..

Let me know about your progress I am sure we can easily reach 60.000 and beyond!

Would you be so kind to provide your Skylake-X/X299 system specs in your profile or signature (just mobo, cpu, gpu)? Thanks

Funny, I built a Dual CPU system before I finally gave up and sold everything and then used the same case and built a very similar X299/7980XE system before I found out about yours. The only thing is, I am currently using the AROUS 9 and not the ASUS board. It's still a good board and now that I have everything almost built, I think I may just continue using it. I'm also using 2 x AMD Vega Frontier GPUs. The reason for two is because I'm using 3 x 28" ASUS Gaming Monitors and you need two GPUs to run all three monitors side, by side, by side.

I have someone who used Clover to install everything for me (as I'm just a good builder, not a good installer). He only uses the guides that are posted on here on TonyMac. As you know the 7980XE CPU was very hard to get and had to wait a month for it but finally got it. I took it a step further and delidded it and added Cool Laboratory's Liquid Pro (Don't use Liquid Ultra - only use Liquid Pro). So my temp's are very good. I see that on your post page 103 - Post #1028, I'm facing the same screen error where it doesn't go any further than "PCI Configuration begin." I let my installer know about this and he will read up on this in the morning. We are using the latest version of High Sierra (just download tonight) as Apple made some slight revisions to HS that were causing sight install issues that (I think) have been cleared up with this newer update.

If you could let me know what page and section my installer needs to read in order for you not to explain yourself all over again, that would be helpful (as you have quite a bit of detailed info on your initial post). I've always prided myself on being the fastest GB score breaker here and now that I see what you've done, this is very encouraging news that I'm not the only one doing this and that more and more people are embracing this challenge and doing this on their own, thanks to guys like you. Thank you for your quick reply and hope that we can continue to break records and look forward to your reply here soon!

 

[kgp]

@TheOfficialGypsy ,

well, man! The system now reached full forced system sleep/wake functionality with the ThunderboltEx 3 PCIe Adapter already for several days without revealing any issue!

Note that your SSDT-X299.aml to what reason ever still seems to break the else stable and now rock solid sleep/wake functionality.

The only modification since my last report consisted in "DISABLING" the "Above 4G Decoding" in the mainboard BIOS.

All other considerations remained without change and are once more summarised blow:


Full ACPI Table but disabling the PC0x -> PCIx DSDT Replacement patches for unpopulated PCIe slots, thus with respect to the PC0x -> PCIx replacements, just enabling:

Comment:            Find*[Hex]     Replace [Hex]
PC00 -> PCI0        50433030       50434930
PC02 -> PCI2        50433032       50434932
PC03 -> PCI3        50433033       50434933

----

BIOS Settings:

/Advanced/Platform Misc Configuration/

a.) PCI Express Native Power Management: Enabled
b.) Native ASPM: Enabled
c.) PCH DMI ASPM: Enabled
d.) ASPM: L1
e.) DMI Link ASPM Control: L1
f.) PEG - ASMP: ASPM L1​

/Advanced/ Thunderbolt(TM) Configuration/

TBT Root por Selector                               PCIE16_3
Thunderbolt USB Support                             Enabled
Thunderbolt Boot Support                            Enabled
Wake From Thunderbolt(TM Devices)                   Off
Thunderbolt(TM) PCIe Cache-line Size                128
GPIO3 Force Pwr                                     On
Wait time in ms after applying Force Pwr            200
Skip PCI OptionRom                                  Enabled
Security Level                                      SL1-No Security
Reserve mem per phy slot                            32
Reserve P mem per phy slot                          32
Reserve IO per phy slot                             20
Delay before SX Exit                                300
GPIO Filter                                         Enabled
Enable CLK REQ                                      Disabled
Enable ASPM                                         Enabled
Enable LTR                                          Disabled
Extra Bus Reserved                                  65
Reserved Memory                                     386
Memory Alignment                                    26
Reserved PMemory                                    960
PMemory Alignment                                   28
Reserved I/O                                        0
Alpine Ridge XHCI WA                                Disabled

/Boot/

Above 4G Decoding              Off

-----

Now it would be your turn to revise your SSDT-X299.aml until stable sleep/wake functionality has been also achieved after implementing the latter aml-file.

Cheers,

KGP

Update: Having written the above, I just once more encountered sleep/wake issues with the TB EX 3 even without your SSDT-X299.aml