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

[prunzi]

Sorry, some Skylake-X processors already nearly perform natively and therefore also seem to be close enough to the future iMac Pro processors. However I did never mention that Apple will ever "officially" support this CPU type. I am also aware that Skylake-X does not support ECC memory.

The rest already has been answered by @rolandino above in post #2281..

Well.. XEON motherboard, until now do not have TB3, the 2666Mhz ECC DRAM, will be slower then the 3200-4000MHZ is "normal" DRAM, the XEON processor will be north the 20% pricier, stability on X299 for "all day long work" is excellent (I do not have crashes or system reboot even working on 6 opened MACOS programs + Parallel Virtual machine + Altium Designer (Electronic 3D CAD under windows 10 pro 64 bit and very heavy electronic board) all day long... even with overclocking DRAM the stability is not one issue....
I think ECC will be useful if you need simulating models that runs days.... but then... this will a important "company work" and then ....would it be best to "spare some money" for one Hackintosh or would it be better to spend some more for full Apple quality?
I guess in this last scenario the long simulations will be by far more important and valuable than the workstation alone ;-)).

 

[jmpg93]

Run some stability tests under Windows and under macOS. If they cause random reboots, then perhaps you'll have to fix the core voltage of the CPU in the BIOS. This happened to me:

After installation my system was very unstable. It would randomly reboot without any warning. I got a suggestion that the default core voltage in BIOS might not be adequate, and that solved the issue. I set the core voltage to 1.12V with no overclocking and to 1.21V with some mild overclocking, and the system is solid. I am able to run Prime95 for 8 hours with no crashes.

Before adjusting any voltage, I advise you to do some stability tests. Perhaps my problems are related with bad luck in the silicon lottery, and not some specific fault of the motherboard.

Download Prime95 and Geekbench 4, both for Windows and for macOS, and run them both with standard BIOS settings. In my case, Prime95 crashed the system in macOS but ran fine in Windows 10, and Geekbench 4 was the opposite: it ran fine under macOS but crashed under Windows 10. If you find that both programs run fine, perhaps there is no need to set the voltage and your problem might be somewhere else.

To run these tests, keep Intel Power Gadget running in the background, so you can check the CPU's power consumption, temperature, and frequency.

In Prime95, go to the Options menu and choose "Torture Test". Press OK and let it run for some time. The test goes over some different configurations over a period of several minutes. If after say 15min you have no crashes, then you can stop the test (in the Test menu) and try Geekbench. Geekbench CPU test only lasts a few minutes. If you system passes both tests (10-15 min of Prime95 and the CPU test in Geekbench), then you might consider a full torture test of Prime95. In my case it lasted for about 8 hours (I let it run during the night).

If your system crashes during one of these tests, then consider booting into the UEFI and changing the Core Voltage. Set it at 1.2V, reboot and redo the tests again. Keep lowering the voltage until they fail, and use the last known good voltage to do the full Prime95 torture test. In my case, the system is stable at stock speed with 1.12V core voltage.

I was able even to do a very minimal overclocking to 4.4GHz with core voltage at 1.21V. The system is fine.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions. I will try running the tests as you mention, fixing the voltage and report back.
Thanks!

 

[Leukipp0s]

You have to reconfigure the BIOS after each BIOS update anyway. Settings cannot be restored within different BIOS versions!

Hi kgp, thank you so much for your guide!

I've had my hackintosh up and running for a few weeks, and I'm ready to install Windows onto a second drive. However, I've been using the USB to initialize boot from startup: If I remove the USB during power-on, it does not recognize an EFI partition -- but once OSX is loaded, I have everything (including NVIDIA web drivers) working fine, and I can remove the thumb drive (again, I need the thumb drive to boot).

Question 1: How do I create an accurate EFI partition on my main OSX HD to no longer require the thumb drive?

Question 2: How do I do the same for the Windows installation?

Question 3: If I have the thumb drive plugged in and I do not select the Boot from OSX Drive partition on the Clover Bootloader screen, Install OSX will automatically be selected, and then I am met with a memory error. Of course, if I select the drive on which I've installed OSX, everything works perfectly fine. I need to copy the files from the correct and working OSX installation onto an EFI partition (what size?) and somehow resolve the recovery drive memory allocation error if I ever need to use that function.

Getting an EFI partition (to no longer require the thumb drive), installing Windows (to enable the ASUS Prime X299-Deluxe Thunderbolt attachment), and copying over the correct files to enable the recovery installation option (if needed) are the most urgent.

Thanks again, your guide is amazing! Now if only we could get the Asus wifi working. Thanks!

 

[paulotex]

I'm ready to install Windows onto a second drive. However, I've been using the USB to initialize boot from startup:

1)
Have you tried installing the latest Clover on your macOS drive? That usually is enough. But the drive must have been formatted as GPT by macOS. Then, of course, you must place the correct config.plist and kexts on that partition. Usually, most people use Clover Configurator for that.

2)
Windows creates its own ESP when you boot in UEFI mode and installs in a GPT disk. So you should not have to worry about that. But: Windows does not behave well on multiboot system. It tends to destroy the ESP for the other systems. Since you are installing Windows on a different drive, you should be safe, but don't trust it. Keep the USB drive bootable, and don't be surprised if you have to use it to boot after a Windows installation.

3)
I think there are two issues there: the default partition to boot from and you not being able to boot from the installer.

To boot from a default partition, you have to define the partition name in Boot/DefaultVolume (Clover Configurator).

The fact that you can't boot from the USB Installer means that something is not good with it. Post the memory error you are getting (screen pic). Depending on the place during installation, it can be several different things (wrong OsxAptio, missing kexts, wrong config.plist, etc). If everything is good, you might need to simply create a new USB installer. Sometimes this fixes errors too.

Also, remember to disable CFM (BIOS compatibility mode) in your UEFI, so you don't boot in legacy mode by mistake. If you don't disable it, you might get all kinds of weird erros in Windows and macOS.

 

[kgp]

Hi kgp, thank you so much for your guide!

I've had my hackintosh up and running for a few weeks, and I'm ready to install Windows onto a second drive. However, I've been using the USB to initialize boot from startup: If I remove the USB during power-on, it does not recognize an EFI partition -- but once OSX is loaded, I have everything (including NVIDIA web drivers) working fine, and I can remove the thumb drive (again, I need the thumb drive to boot).

Question 1: How do I create an accurate EFI partition on my main OSX HD to no longer require the thumb drive?

Question 2: How do I do the same for the Windows installation?

Question 3: If I have the thumb drive plugged in and I do not select the Boot from OSX Drive partition on the Clover Bootloader screen, Install OSX will automatically be selected, and then I am met with a memory error. Of course, if I select the drive on which I've installed OSX, everything works perfectly fine. I need to copy the files from the correct and working OSX installation onto an EFI partition (what size?) and somehow resolve the recovery drive memory allocation error if I ever need to use that function.

Getting an EFI partition (to no longer require the thumb drive), installing Windows (to enable the ASUS Prime X299-Deluxe Thunderbolt attachment), and copying over the correct files to enable the recovery installation option (if needed) are the most urgent.

Thanks again, your guide is amazing! Now if only we could get the Asus wifi working. Thanks!

Answer to question 1: See my guide, Section C.11.b) !

Answer to question 2: The Windows installer package creates its own ESP, however not necessarily on the drive, which is meant

for the Windows installation. Thus, unplug all other drives before the Windows installation! See Section E.5.1) - E.5.5) in the originating post of this thread/guide!
​

Answer to question 3: Please don't mix BIOS Boot Menu (F8, primer to Clover Boot menu) and Clover Boot menu. In the BIOS

Boot Menu, you define, which EFI folder you select for Booting, in the Clover Boot menu you define, which partition you boot with the EFI-Folder selected in the BIOS boot Menu. To follow my current guidelines, you need an EFI-Folder on both, macOS USB Flash Driver Installer and 10.13 System Disk. Else, I don't understand your Question 3 at all, do you?​

Good luck,

KGP

 

[kgp]

I don’t know what some of you guys do with your Builds...
18 tracks played simultaneously and no problems at all!

Your problems are not related to the guide.
In my opinion you just missed something or totally messed up your setup.

I would direct your answer to Logic Pro X functionality under 10.13.2 on Skylake-X/X299 systems in post #2303 to both @olofd and @warphead !

Thanks,

KGP

 

[prunzi]

@prunzi your CPU OC is not finished, so it can be very very difficult to be stable, when you should add few very important changes I will send you more info after sleep... I had last day and night very very busy...
I'm happy if you have better performance! (but it must be stable too )
XMP - stay with profile 1, it's not time to touch it....

BTW:
for ALL people which don't know about some bug after login - Apple logo and that load line which load very slow.. for few seconds:
here (below) is a Clover patch for that: tested on my PC 1h ago, and after 5-6 boot tests I can confirm
on my PC at this moment problem is gone.. * patch for new Clover
PS1: of course I use -v always so it's 1s after that and before login screen
PS2: (last few days I use my 850Pro for OSX so, that's is the reason why I felt that, because with NVME
it can be (maybe) very difficult to see/feel...)

PS3: Apple has released for download macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 Beta 1 - they go fast

Time to sleep, see you later
Have a nice day!!

Hi, actually the CPU - my pc - is very, very stable.... I do not have crashes whatever I do or I run all' the day long.
But, you are right, I changed al little bit how to run the turbo on the cores and voillat... the new Geekbench.

BTW:
I do not understand what is your patch intended for ? For which error? What will be improved on Clover? and for which

Clover version is it intended?

 

[lamidue]

Do we have anyone else here that can try Logic on their x299 system and verify if there is a general issue here?

Working power-managment is one of my biggest concerns about this build. you really can't run without it on x299 and I belive Logic is one of the most frequent use-cases for Hackintoshes in general.

It seems people have different experiences with Logic on x299. I built this machine for use with Logic.
How's performance? I monitor CPU using Intel(R) Power Gadget. Idle the CPU runs around 1.2 GHz
a) When I run Cinebench the frequency ramps up to 4.5 GHz
b) When I run heavy audio projects in Logic the CPU frequency remains around 1.2

I have no idea why this happens, and would greatly appreciate if someone would share their knowledge on the topic

 

[mgregrs]

I had no problems with the BIOS update on my setup, normal boot...of course I forgot to save new configuration with new processor to USB, so had to re-enter all the BIOS settings again....I also have AMD Vega. My multi-core Geekbench score is up about 20% after BIOS update, can't explain that readily based on the info ASUS published. I wouldn't exclude the possibility that I had a mistake in my previous BIOS settings as the root cause of that.

Thanks! You were right - I have slightly better performance in Geekbench OpenCl benchmark (1k-2k more)

 

[mgregrs]

Hi, actually the CPU - my pc - is very, very stable.... I do not have crashes whatever I do or I run all' the day long.
But, you are right, I changed al little bit how to run the turbo on the cores and voillat... the new Geekbench.

BTW:
I do not understand what is your patch intended for ? For which error? What will be improved on Clover? and for whichView attachment 299261 Clover version is it intended?

..I was talking about BIOS setting for better stability with your OC
but what I see now - it change a lot
NOW you have a correct and great performance (and I hope stability too)
If after few days everything will be stable, we don't need to change nothing

PS: I would like to write more detail but again I have RDV in few minutes (next busy morning)