Hello there, I’ll answer your questions one at the time. Here goes:
1. How are your BIOS setup? Specifically, do you have CPU power management enabled (speed step, c1, c6 etc)?
Below are my
BIOS settings, which are the same as for the X299 system and are detailed in section
B.3 of
this guide.
1.) /M.I.T/Advanced Frequency Settings/
a.) Extreme Memory Profile: (X.M.P): Profile1
2.) /M.I.T/Advanced Frequency Settings/Advanced CPU Core Settings
a.) Active Cores Control: Auto
b.) Hyper-Threading Technology: Enabled
c.) Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 : Enabled
d.) Intel Speed Shift Technology : Enabled
e.) Enhanced Multi-Core Performance: enabled/disabled
f.) CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E): Enabled
g.) C6/C7 State Support: Enabled
h.) Package C State limit: C6
i.) CPU EIST Function: Enabled
j.) Energy Efficient Turbo : Disabled
3.) /M.I.T/Advanced Memory Settings/
a.) Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P): Profile1
4.) /BIOS/
a.) Boot Numlock State: Disabled/Enabled (optional)
b.) Security option: Setup
c.) Full Screen Logo Show: Enabled
d.) Fast Boot: Disabled
e.) CSM Support: Disabled
5.) /BIOS/Secure Boot/
a.) Secure Boot Enable: Disabled
6.) /Peripherals/USB Configuration/
a.) XHCI Hand-off: Enabled
7.) /Peripheral/Thunderbolt Configuration/
a.) Security Level : SL0 - No Security
8.) /Chipset/
a.) VT-d: Disabled
9.) /Save & Exit/
a.) Save & Exit
2. How are you handling power management from within macOS? I know many have XCPM fully working, others half way working, and others have just ignored it altogether.
2. Regarding XCPM, it has been a complicated and delicate matter. But it is working like a charm now and I do not have any issues AT ALL.
2a. For getting XCPM fully working you just have to follow the steps detailed by kgp in the first post of this thread/guide. Please note that your config may vary since you are using a Haswell-E CPU, but everything is fully explained in the guide and you will not encounter any problems.
2b. I would also advise you to carefully take a read at two post concerning XCPM:
To see the problem I was having, take a look at posts
#1804,
#1814,
#1829.
To see the solution for that problem, take a look at
this post.
PLEASE CHECK THESE OUT!
So, I think macOS
10.13.5 is probably going to run fine without XCPM fully working. But, if your goal is - as you said - to
get the best performance as you possibly can, you’re going to need it.
My other question would be, how can we test if we are getting full CPU performance under macOS, GB scores enough?
Or would macOS still run fine with no power management?
You can test the performance of macOS by a set of benchmarks and diagnostic tools such as
Geekbench 4,
CINEBENCH,
Black Magic Speed Test and
Intel Power Gadget. Also, take into account getting a good hardware monitoring tool such as
iStats Menu, which works great on both X99 and X299 platforms.
You won’t get bottlenecks without XCPM, however you also won't get the best out of your CPU which is kind of like a bottleneck.. Is that clear enough?
I think it was this thread or the X299 system that KGP also made that someone said if XCPM isn't working then macOS won't be stable. So that's what I'd like to avoid.
True.
@kgp did say that, BUT!!!!.. Read carefully. I believe I also read that same post of some user saying something like
I don't need XCPM since my system is fully working and stable blah blah.. and kgp answered to that guy explaining him that the distribution of macOS installed in his system would not be stable without XCPM fully working, and I also believe that he was referring to 10.13.3 or 10.13.4.
NOT 10.13.5, which is the most current distribution that you can download from the App Store and also the distribution this guide is ment for as it is today. I might be wrong though..
BTW, The SMBIOS has to be set to iMac pro for installation, but we can download the actual macOS 13.5 installer using any machine correct? My probook laptop is running macOS, but I'm using an MBP SMBIOS; want to make sure I can use that to dl, or otherwise grab the files manually from the server as detailed in the guide.
As kgp said,
the macOS High Sierra 10.13.5 (17F77) full package installer apparently can be only successfully downloaded on non-iMacPro systems.
So, you can either use your laptop (which as you said before, has an SMBIOS different from iMacPro1,1) to download the 17F77 installer package or use the method detailed in the first post of this thread/guide, which works great BTW..
P.D: I still don't understand why is it mandatory for you to disable Power Management in the BIOS for Windows to run audio software better, I would think its the opposite.. Or at least that's how it is for macOS.
Cheers man!
