Asus X299 - Support

[mgregrs]

So... good news: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/PRIME-X299-DELUXE/specifications/
For Asus X299 Prime Deluxe I and II

Officially 256GB of memory supported
it was officially changed on Asus Global site

PS: It's on ASUS Global, so for French, German, Polish, Spanish or other language ASUS page
things was not updated yet - but as we know it will be done soon


PS2: I checked for SAGE/SAGE10G - info not updated at this moment.

 

[mgregrs]

256GB is going to be a hard hit on the IMC of the CPU, maybe ASUS has done a better job with their latest X299 boards

128GB did not work on 2 Prime Deluxe II's.

I think new BIOS can solve a lot of these problems (which some people had before)

 

[izo1]

I think new BIOS can solve a lot of these problems (which some people had before)

It's not a BIOS issue, it's a hardware limitation with X299 and related to the quality of the IMC on the CPU, the chipset and DIMM slots.

I had discussions with ASUS and G.SKILL for many hours about this.

They can write on paper that a board supports 128GB/256GB, but in the real world it's unknown if memtest will throw memory errors and cause system freezes.

The IMC is located on the CPU (and varies in quality per CPU) and if it gets hammered with 8 DIMMs, it will get pushed to the limits.

However, 128GB is working fine (and no errors in memtest) with SAGE/10G. The WS series is probably more thoroughly tested than the other lines.

This is the reason why Intel has the Xeon line because it's specifically made for large amounts of ECC memory and PCIe lanes.

 

[mgregrs]

It's not a BIOS issue, it's a hardware limitation with X299 and related to the quality of the IMC on the CPU, the chipset and DIMM slots.

I had discussions with ASUS and G.SKILL for many hours about this.

They can write on paper that a board supports 128GB/256GB, but in the real world it's unknown if memtest will throw memory errors and cause system freezes.

The IMC is located on the CPU (and varies in quality per CPU) and if it gets hammered with 8 DIMMs, it will get pushed to the limits.

However, 128GB is working fine (and no errors in memtest) with SAGE/10G. The WS series is probably more thoroughly tested than the other lines.

This is the reason why Intel has the Xeon line because it's specifically made for large amounts of ECC memory and PCIe lanes.

And did you use Memory lower than or equivalent to 2933MHz? Because I'm not surprise if it was not stable with 3600 for example. I'm not advanced in that subject but I think (hope) with new CPUs we will see less of this kind situations (and of course with new motherboards) with max possible RAM GBs used.
Ah, and BTW: I think changing motherboard to ASUS PDII was waste of time for a lot of users on X299 scene... at some moment.
x moths ago...
At this moment (as I think about myself for example) it's better to wait 4-5 months and then update MB for something well tested with nice updated list of details / features, etc

 

[Loloflatsix]

Any surprises while updating?

Everything was fast during the process and well after the update.

 

[Loloflatsix]

It's not a BIOS issue, it's a hardware limitation with X299 and related to the quality of the IMC on the CPU, the chipset and DIMM slots.

I had discussions with ASUS and G.SKILL for many hours about this.

They can write on paper that a board supports 128GB/256GB, but in the real world it's unknown if memtest will throw memory errors and cause system freezes.

The IMC is located on the CPU (and varies in quality per CPU) and if it gets hammered with 8 DIMMs, it will get pushed to the limits.

However, 128GB is working fine (and no errors in memtest) with SAGE/10G. The WS series is probably more thoroughly tested than the other lines.

This is the reason why Intel has the Xeon line because it's specifically made for large amounts of ECC memory and PCIe lanes.

And did you use Memory lower than or equivalent to 2933Mhz? Because I'm not surprise if it was not stable with 3600 for example. I'm not advanced in that subject but I think (hope) with new CPUs we will see less of this kind situations (and of course with new mb) with max possible RAM GBs used
Ah and btw: I think changing MB to ASUS PDII it was waste of time for a lot of users on X299 scene... at some moment
x moths ago...
At this moment (as I think about myself for example) it's better to wait 4-5 moths and then update MB for
something well tested with nice updated list of details / features etc...

Yes, we should wait for more information about this topic on Cascade Lake-X processors and the extended memory capacity they can provide.

With my 64GB RAM Corsair Dominator 3000MHz I experimented a crash at booting on macOS when I tried the XMP Profile 1 3000 MHz enable in BIOS. So I solved this issue with memory. I trIED it at 3000 MHz ,and all was good after that.

Edit 2: Before, I also returned on RMA a 16GB of 2x 8GB RAM because they were not on the same FW revision as others.

 

[djbuddha]

Personally I only like Sidecar as option (at this moment) so Mojave is and will be great system
as others for longtime, personally I do something on Catalina, but for main-work I use only Mojave,
and I think (in my case) it's never worth to make full transmision on Catalina or any other until 10.15.3.
(At this moment) I prefer spent my free time on OpenCore preparation, a lot of tests etc...

So you have Sidecar functioning on your hack? I don’t need it for my purposes- just really curious.

 

[mgregrs]

It's quite fun, because I never didn't go further to check and search more info about more memory
and some people who tested more than 128GB or ECC ram.

It's even more funny when I found that video

and some guy who have 256Gb of RAM (mentioned at 8:28) in January 2018

It's seems like crazy thing, we not only "were" able to use more than 128GB of memory but ECC on the same time.
Of course it must be very well adapted with a lot of details but when I think about @izo1 who could "tomber sur" "meet" very standard Asus technician... as KGP and others who tried a lot "different then standard" high-end things ...

And even more funny thing - I had X299 one of best their mb as first mb, then I bought great ASUS PD1
and sell Aorus X299 mb for half of price to make a place ... instead of keep it for tests or 2nd config...

So you have Sidecar functioning on your hack? I don’t need it for my purposes- just really curious.

I will try to simplify response about that (iPad used: iPad Pro 2018):

- 1st tests : connection OK, black screen (well known)
- 2nd part of tests: Cool it works great
- 3rd part of test, after few changes etc - SideCar won't work

It's not something what I need but, it's was something interesting for new Catalina,
but on the same time I make a lot of test with my new Clover or OpenCore config, ACPI, kexts etc,
so I'm not surprised if I change something wrong...
To be clear - I don't know what could cause problem now, but with all little thing changed everyday
it's not to easy to spot 1 thing ... and on the same time Sidecar - it's not so important for me at this moment.

I'm sure I will back to this next week... and I'm sure I will share more info, when it will works great

 

[Loloflatsix]

Yeah for me too Sidecar is painful ... but I have an old iPad 2 with iOS 9.3.5 so for fun I have to do other tests when I have time ...

@mgregrs you should try OcQuirks :It takes advantage of OpenCore without pain or delay to modify the very complex OpenCore config.plist according to your system.

 

[izo1]

And did you use Memory lower than or equivalent to 2933Mhz? Because I'm not surprise if it was not stable with 3600 for example. I'm not advanced in that subject but I think (hope) with new CPUs we will see less of this kind situations (and of course with new mb) with max possible RAM GBs used
Ah and btw: I think changing MB to ASUS PDII it was waste of time for a lot of users on X299 scene... at some moment
x moths ago...
At this moment (as I think about myself for example) it's better to wait 4-5 moths and then update MB for
something well tested with nice updated list of details / features etc...

I tried 128GB 3600, 3200 kits with XMP and with stock 2133 speeds, and it wouldnt run above 2133 on any of them on 2 prime deluxe II's. I dont know if both of them were defective, but when speaking with ASUS and GSKILL they both said thats a lot of RAM for the CPU to handle especially at those speeds, even though both kits were in the QVL list (which is worthless btw). SAGE/10G had no issues with 3200, though, but I did not try 3600 as I had returned those already.

I had a Designare EX X299 board and the bios died on that board so I had switched to Prime Deluxe II when it came out.