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

[shael]

Should I buy now 2 monitors just to test it for you? Or what do you want ?
If I unplug my monitor I can use all outputs.
Buy the card and test it on your own!
You always can return the card within 14 days and get your money back if there is something that you don’t like...
On my setup everything works what I need and I don’t have any issues with the Vega‘s 64

wasnt asking that. and newegg is the only supplier who stocks the card and there is a no return policy

 

[shael]

3 Monitors works fine. I even have a LG Ultrafine 5K + 2x LG 24UD58-B 4K Screens connected on 1 Vega frontier edition.

YOU SIR ARE A GEM. much love..

 

[kgp]

wasnt asking that. and newegg is the only supplier who stocks the card and there is a no return policy

By with amazon, and you can return the GPU within one entire month...

 

[spyderfyre]

for those who can not accept that the performance in the audio programs is not as it should be I have a small solution it is not the fine art but it works

1) the bios settings must be exactly as they are described by KPG in the guide
2) put the core multiplier down in my case from 45 to 39
3) Undervolting the cpu with the help of cinebench you can find your lowest volt limit in my case 1.000v
4) Mount your EFI disk open config.plist and under Kernel and Kext Patches -> KernelToPatch Enable (xcpm_bootstrap Sierra © Pike R. Alpha) set to Enabled
5) Reboot

Attention show your CPU Temps if you have a god cooling solution you will have no problem

Attention the cpu is permanetly on his highest clock you set in the Bios!

I take no responsibility for any damage to the cpu

@kpg

forgive me for this post

Well, after following your suggestions my DAW (Propellerhead Reason) runs like a dream. It is exactly as I imagined it would run when I was specking out my system.

No more pops and clicks even at LOW buffer size with HIGH sample rates.

Here are my resulting CPU stats:
- Temperature went from an average of 28°C to 47°C
- CPU usage (with hyperthreading disabled in DAW) went from 800%-1150% at times) to a steady and comfortable/steady 500% ))
- Power Consumption in intel power management went from 20W to less than 100W.

Conclusion:
Songs that were virtually unplayable are performing perfectly however one does have to compromise on power consumption while knowing that the cpu will have to run at higher temperatures since its stuck on one idle speed of whatever is set in bios.

Perform this at your own risk and make sure to monitor your temperatures carefully especially in the beginning. A good liquid cooling system is almost a must when performing such clock maneuvers.

@kgp I can report that this ACTUALLY works with my music program (Reason) also. I cautiously recommend it to other DAW users that have high DSP issues.

Thank you @warphead
And thank you @kgp for this AMAZING guide!!!!

Edit: also note that I have hyperthreading turned off from the DAW not in bios (if even possible). That was at the recommendation of the DAW developers.

 

[levifig]

Followed the guide with my 7820X on an X299-A and it's working pretty well. On the DSDT front, I just removed the 2nd Ethernet and Broadcom stuff (don't have it), but left the 3 Asmedia 3.1 chipsets, even though my board only has one.

As an aside, I noticed that I needed `OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi` on my Install USB but `OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi` on my boot drive… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also had to set the Nvidia Web Driver in the Nvidia panel to save it to Nvram. Changing it in Clover (System Parameters > NvidiaWeb) didn't seem to make a difference… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Things seem to be running pretty smooth. Got 36k+ in Geekbench (4.6GHz @ 1.2V) and I'm going to keep fiddling with it soon… I already bought a delid service; just have to find the time to send it in (this is my main PC).

On a side note, my Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe drive seems to be underperforming: I'm getting about 1GB/s write and 1.5GB/s read… And even those numbers seem to keep dropping if I keep running the test. I was expecting 2.5GB/s+ for the read and at least near 2GB/s write speeds. Is there something I need to do to improve the NVMe performance? The disk shows up correctly in `System Information > NVMExpress… Thanks for the help!

I'll keep reporting back with new findings with this CPU and motherboard!

Cheers!

 

[kgp]

Followed the guide with my 7820X on an X299-A and it's working pretty well. On the DSDT front, I just removed the 2nd Ethernet and Broadcom stuff (don't have it), but left the 3 Asmedia 3.1 chipsets, even though my board only has one.

As an aside, I noticed that I needed `OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi` on my Install USB but `OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi` on my boot drive… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also had to set the Nvidia Web Driver in the Nvidia panel to save it to Nvram. Changing it in Clover (System Parameters > NvidiaWeb) didn't seem to make a difference… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Things seem to be running pretty smooth. Got 36k+ in Geekbench (4.6GHz @ 1.2V) and I'm going to keep fiddling with it soon… I already bought a delid service; just have to find the time to send it in (this is my main PC).

On a side note, my Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe drive seems to be underperforming: I'm getting about 1GB/s write and 1.5GB/s read… And even those numbers seem to keep dropping if I keep running the test. I was expecting 2.5GB/s+ for the read and at least near 2GB/s write speeds. Is there something I need to do to improve the NVMe performance? The disk shows up correctly in `System Information > NVMExpress… Thanks for the help!

I'll keep reporting back with new findings with this CPU and motherboard!

Cheers!

Your NVMe should show speeds in the order of 1800 MB/s write and 2200 MB/s read...

 

[flymovies]

Followed the guide with my 7820X on an X299-A and it's working pretty well. On the DSDT front, I just removed the 2nd Ethernet and Broadcom stuff (don't have it), but left the 3 Asmedia 3.1 chipsets, even though my board only has one.

As an aside, I noticed that I needed `OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi` on my Install USB but `OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi` on my boot drive… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also had to set the Nvidia Web Driver in the Nvidia panel to save it to Nvram. Changing it in Clover (System Parameters > NvidiaWeb) didn't seem to make a difference… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Things seem to be running pretty smooth. Got 36k+ in Geekbench (4.6GHz @ 1.2V) and I'm going to keep fiddling with it soon… I already bought a delid service; just have to find the time to send it in (this is my main PC).

On a side note, my Samsung 960 EVO M.2 NVMe drive seems to be underperforming: I'm getting about 1GB/s write and 1.5GB/s read… And even those numbers seem to keep dropping if I keep running the test. I was expecting 2.5GB/s+ for the read and at least near 2GB/s write speeds. Is there something I need to do to improve the NVMe performance? The disk shows up correctly in `System Information > NVMExpress… Thanks for the help!

I'll keep reporting back with new findings with this CPU and motherboard!

Cheers!

Welcome to the NVME problem club! I even only had 700MB/s with the Samsung NVMEs Pro 960 1TB in both NVME onboard slots installed. The only way for me to get back to full speed was to buy the Asus Hyper X16 M2 card. There was no other way, even with support from Samsung. I guess the issue is on Asus side, but we do not have proof yet.

@DSM2, you had asked earlier about our BIOS dumps to investigate the NVME speed issue. Did you find anything we can use to investigate further?

 

[kgp]

Welcome to the NVME problem club! I even only had 700MB/s with the Samsung NVMEs Pro 960 1TB in both NVME onboard slots installed. The only way for me to get back to full speed was to buy the Asus Hyper X16 M2 card. There was no other way, even with support from Samsung. I guess the issue is on Asus side, but we do not have proof yet.

@DSM2, you had asked earlier about our BIOS dumps to investigate the NVME speed issue. Did you find anything we can use to investigate further?

@levifig , @flymovies

Asus Prime X299 Deluxe + Samsung EVO 960 1TB (APSF), OoB:

I don't understand which NVMe problem your are talking about?

 

[warphead]

Thank you @warphead

Perfect

so i have question at all you Musician, is someone using a access virus ti 2 over USB in combination with the ASUS Prime x299 Deluxe and 10.13.2?

if yes you have the problem if you open the plugin in your daw it takes about 1 - 2 minutes until the Access Virus is ready for use?

on an original mac this problem does not occur on 10.13.2

what I have already tried, tried on different usb connections, diffrent USB hubs

I can exclude a defect of the Access Virus TI I have 3 pieces of it

 

[kgp]

I rised a ticket and discussion concerning SMBIOS iMacPro1,1 Clover Implementation.

See:

Ticket 434: https://sourceforge.net/p/cloverefiboot/tickets/

Apparently yet a iMacPro dump is missing.

Open discussion: https://sourceforge.net/p/cloverefiboot/discussion/1726372/

You can comment/support the ticket or discussion...


I also asked mackie100 for SMBIOS iMacPro1,1 Clover Configurator Implementation:

http://mackie100projects.altervista.org/clover-configurator/#disqus_thread

His answer was, that this will be done, as soon as Clover will support SMBIOS iMacPro1,1.

Cheers,

KGP