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

[kgp]

Hi again,

So..... I’ve spent pretty much the last 48hrs setting up and testing my DAW software on the box and I’ve noticed a few things.

Thunderbolt seems to be working well now, I even managed to get my LG monitor to connect via thunderbolt. The PCIe related settings seemed to have helped ensuring reliable detection of thunderbolt devices, but at the expense of sleep functionality. Now when waking from sleep I don’t resume connection to attached devices.

Audio over DP came back, then disappeared again, I think I have an idea what is going on with that but need to investigate further. I’ll try one of the other methods @kgp suggests in his guide. It’s really not a big issue for me.

Now for the biggest issue.

While I’m still getting great benchmarks 40k+ on geekbench and 2.4k+ on cine (at 4.5ghz), I noticed that performance in my audio applications was noticeably worse than on my 2011 iMac (i7 2600). This doesn’t appear to specific to OS X either, I get the same issue within my windows partition. As an example an audio project consuming 8% cpu power on my iMac requires closer to 20% on this build. Comparing this build to my iMac, 7900X spends far too long running at lower frequencies with normal applications, around 3ghz on the iMac vs 1.2-2ghz. If I run a cinebench test, it causes the cpu to run at max frequency and my DAW actually consumes LESS cpu power, far less!

This appears at least with my limited knowledge, to be a cpu power management issue.

If I disable speedshift in the bios, windows will run the cpu at whatever frequency I set but OS X seems to ignore the bios setting and attempts some sort of power management. A better approach I guess would be to be able to define cpu states, again there is software to this in windows, it seems like it could be achieved with a custom SSDT with this build, but again my knowledge is fairly limited so I could be way off base.

I hope that makes sense. I’ve done a few searches and power management/p-states appear to be a bit of problem with the Skylake-X platform. If anyone has any advice on how to disable power management in clover/osx or in relation to this, even if it’s to say I’ve misdiagnosed the issue, I’m happy to hear it!

I don't see any relation between CPU power management and audio applications. By the way, do you use onboard audio?
I also did not notice ever any power management/p-states problems on the Skylake-X platform! Just the opposite is the case! XCPM performs absolutely flawless and brilliant with Skylake-X and X299. Why one would like to destroy such beautiful performance? No other platform can compete with the brilliant Skylake-X/X299 XCPM results!

Your are spreading absolute nonsense around, which I totally dislike. Please avoid such misleading statements and conclusions along this thread!

Try to find the real source for your audio issues and first at all, properly implement the on-board audio chip in your system!

Likely it is your board or it's BIOS causing the problems. Or the source of your issues just might be deviating BIOS settings, as you use because of unknown reason a non-ASUS board, which is not 100% compatible with both my guide and instructions!

 

[kgp]

I guess now I need some help!

My hackintosh is not booting anymore. Directly after choosing and starting High Sierra in Clover, the screen goes blank, you hear a "click" and the machine does a reboot.

Things I've tried so far without success:

- boot from backup, same result
- removed all grafic cards and just tried to boot with AMD RX560
- removed all ram and changed ram modules, so a ram error can be exluded

This happened from one day to another, no changes made in OSX or Bios. Windows runs still like a charm.

Thoughts?

BIOS reset?

 

[justdatruth]

I don't see any relation between CPU power management and audio applications. By the way, do you use onboard audio?
I also did not notice ever any power management/p-states problems on the Skylake-X platform! Just the opposite is the case! XCPM performs absolutely flawless and brilliant with Skylake-X and X299. Why one would like to destroy such beautiful performance? No other platform can compete with the brilliant Skylake-X/X299 XCPM results!

Your are spreading absolute nonsense around, which I totally dislike. Please avoid such misleading statements and conclusions along this thread!

Try to find the real source for your audio issues and first at all, properly implement the on-board audio chip in your system!

Likely it is your board or it's BIOS causing the problems. Or the source of your issues just might be deviating BIOS settings, as you use because of unknown reason a non-ASUS board, which is not 100% compatible with both my guide and instructions!

With all due respect sir, I think you need to read my post again.

I merely stated what I have observed in my build, no one is criticising your guide and I caveated my observations appropriately.

There is really no need for your rudeness or confrontational approach.

My audio, both on-board and over thunderbolt is working perfectly well, I have a small fairly insignificant issue with audio over HDMI/DP, a not uncommon problem if a cursory search of this forum is to be believed.

As regards my comments regarding power management being absolute nonsense, again I merely state what observe. That despite having great benchmarks and pretty looking power management charts, performance in the applications I’ve tested isn’t what it should be, WINDOWS or OSX.

 

[lamidue]

I did the ssdt with turbo. however I am facing another issue. After install my fw soundcard and reboot I can not boot. here the place where booting process stops

Hi there. I built a machine using the ASUS Prime x299 Deluxe. I managed to use my FireWire audio interface (Saffire 24 Pro DSP) connected to a Delock PCIe card. Not without problems though.

a) My system lists the Firewire device during boot (as in your screenshot right before it crashes)
b) Factory routings output + input works
b) I can't enter the Mix Control (Focusrite's virtual routing system for their audio interfaces) as it claims no device is connected to the firewire port (NO HARDWARE DETECTED). Still, the audio interface works.

This + your experience, leads me to believe that Firewire PCIe cards or drivers doesn't get along with the OS. You might have to try different drivers or a new audio interface, preferably USB. I'm not at all experienced with drivers or deeply technical stuff like the author of the thread, so I don't know how to effectively debug / uncluttered this issue. Above is just something I wanted to contribute with as I think it makes sense to share experiences.

 

[flymovies]

BIOS reset?

Just have tried your advice, but it does not help. Since I have the same effect on both installations (operational and backup), I would also assume the NVME is working properly, so we can exclude that error-source as well.

 

[kgp]

With all due respect sir, I think you need to read my post again.

I merely stated what I have observed in my build, no one is criticising your guide and I caveated my observations appropriately.

There is really no need for your rudeness or confrontational approach.

My audio, both on-board and over thunderbolt is working perfectly well, I have a small fairly insignificant issue with audio over HDMI/DP, a not uncommon problem if a cursory search of this forum is to be believed.

As regards my comments regarding power management being absolute nonsense, again I merely state what observe. That despite having great benchmarks and pretty looking power management charts, performance in the applications I’ve tested isn’t what it should be, WINDOWS or OSX.

Sorry, if my reply was too straight and direct. I feel sorry if I offended you in any way.

Your applications performance might depend on the sophistication and correct implementation of each application but also mainboard, graphics card and thunderbolt audio under OSX or Windows, which should be steadily improved within the near future by the manufacturers and within the further development of Windows and OSX.

Please don't forget that Skylake-X/X299 is a totally new system approach and we should be more than happy and satisfied with having reached that high level of sophistication within relatively short time!

Really no reason for developing conspiracies or judging and blaming each tiny detail.

I still do not see any reason for accusing a perfectly working CPU Power Management as being responsible for issues you supposedly observe.

All the best,

KGP

 

[poshook]

With all due respect sir, I think you need to read my post again.

I merely stated what I have observed in my build, no one is criticising your guide and I caveated my observations appropriately.

There is really no need for your rudeness or confrontational approach.

My audio, both on-board and over thunderbolt is working perfectly well, I have a small fairly insignificant issue with audio over HDMI/DP, a not uncommon problem if a cursory search of this forum is to be believed.

As regards my comments regarding power management being absolute nonsense, again I merely state what observe. That despite having great benchmarks and pretty looking power management charts, performance in the applications I’ve tested isn’t what it should be, WINDOWS or OSX.

I can confirm that under windows 10. My i7-7820x uses x12 ratio (1200MHz) over all cores even the audio application (Ableton Live 9) is in red CPU load and I can hear many audio drop outs. I must change power settings for CPU to be always at 100% of performance to be able to play the project. It does not react to background processes but to overall system CPU load. So in Ableton Live I see 100% CPU load but in task manager I see 4% and CPU goes at 1200 MHz

 

[kgp]

I can confirm that under windows 10. My i7-7820x uses x12 ratio (1200MHz) over all cores even the audio application (Ableton Live 9) is in red CPU load and I can hear many audio drop outs. I must change power settings for CPU to be always at 100% of performance to be able to play the project. It does not react to background processes but to overall system CPU load. So in Ableton Live I see 100% CPU load but in task manager I see 4% and CPU goes at 1200 MHz

As I stated in my former reply above, be a happy with what you have for now and with what we have achieved in relatively short time and please do not only complain about any tiny issue or detail. The Skylake-X/X299 application performance will certainly readily grow within short time by the support of hardware manufacturers, macOS software developers and of course also by the further macOS Development by Apple related with the iMac Pro..

If you are inpatient and not willing to wait, act and provide solutions instead of complaining .. This would help all of us

Thanks in advance!

 

[poshook]

As I stated in my former reply above, be a happy with what you have for now and with what we have achieved in relatively short time and please do not only complain about any tiny issue or detail. The Skylake-X/X299 application performance will certainly readily grow within short time by the support of hardware manufacturers, macOS software developers and of course also by the further macOS Development by Apple related with the iMac Pro..

If you are inpatient and not willing to wait, act and provide solutions instead of complaining .. This would help all of us

Thanks in advance!

Sure man. This is no criticism at all. I really enjoy what you did here. This is just loud thinking about how the platform works in content creation field like audio. No offense at all. Thank you again man

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Just have tried your advice, but it does not help. Since I have the same effect on both installations (operational and backup), I would also assume the NVME is working properly, so we can exclude that error-source as well.

Have you tried to boot the system from your installation usb flash drive and choose the system drive and see if its going?