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

[kgp]

Of course ...
Look at screen below:
On the right: with whatevergreen and on the left: without...
PS: only one thing changed by wtevergreen is a card name ... Performance is the same...

View attachment 290632

BTW: I connected 3rd backup SSD and I don't have that weird bug like @vikikang, @lucatze , @Bagi1992
I will reinstall another copy on my evo 960 today and we will if I will find their lag...

@kgp Have you a magic command to prepare USB with 10,13,2 beta version?
after download and before PC restart (because after restart I'm almost sure, system will not boot so, I have to do it before... )

I am also not able to witness any lag as mentioned by @vikikang, @lucatze , @Bagi1992

By the way these are the new OpenGL Scores for my Nvidia with Geekbench 4.2.0

And once more the absolutely thrilling Metal 2 results

Also the CPU scores have once more raised with the new Geekbench version.

I am very close to the results of @ImaPirate , which might be mainly due to the new Geekbench release...

 

[AlBeast]

Sorry, but when enabling MCE one the ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe, also CPU Core Ratio changes to "Sync All Cores"! And that's the crucial point, "Sync All Cores" syncs the max. turbo frequency to all cores! Only with MCE on "Auto" instead of "disabled", the Geekbench score boost is indeed marginal on ASUS boards! 100% verified by my tests... Further note that "Sync All Cores" is a ASUS-only BIOS feature! This might be also the reason, why in your benchmark results presented above, all ASUS boards are leading by far... I might well be that MCE is differently implemented on non-ASUS mainboards. This however goes beyond my actual knowledge.

Right you are, it IS the same as setting the max turbo for one-core to be applied to all, and you set the max turbo for "All Cores" in the same manner of principle, but then it's a manual overclock, rather than optimized P-states for all-cores. They kind of overlap, but the MCE is especially useful if you don't overclock. I'd be interested to see how a ~18 core Xeon would perform with this kind of setting and appropriate cooling. They have very reasonable turbo's, but then there's the question of per-CPU motherboard manufacturer implementation, which leads to varying results per board.

There's some relation between XMP and MCE as well, but I haven't dug into it.

Bit too off-topic perhaps for this thread, but the more we know, right

 

[kgp]

Right you are, it IS the same as setting the max turbo for one-core to be applied to all, and you set the max turbo for "All Cores" in the same manner of principle, but then it's a manual overclock, rather than optimized P-states for all-cores. They kind of overlap, but the MCE is especially useful if you don't overclock. I'd be interested to see how a ~18 core Xeon would perform with this kind of setting and appropriate cooling. They have very reasonable turbo's, but then there's the question of per-CPU motherboard manufacturer implementation, which leads to varying results per board.

There's some relation between XMP and MCE as well, but I haven't dug into it.

Bit too off-topic perhaps for this thread, but the more we know, right

 

[mgregrs]

10.13.1 reinstalled, few benchmarks done and...

- No lag - mentioned by @vikikang, @lucatze , @Bagi1992
- No performance difference with new Geekbench 4,2
- iMsg/FaceTime still don't work
(EmuVariableUefi-64.efi was on my system drive, ethernet -> en0 checked)
config.plist configured properly... - now I'm almost sure my accounts are s**ks (too new or confirmed by SMS, not by other apple device so maybe this is it), not my cfg..
Thank you anyway.. for help and advices few days ago

- Vega bug always exist with, but it's not so big problem for me.. at this moment
- Audio works great :]

BTW: I would like to prepare USB drive with 10.13.2beta installer but I have no Idea how to do it
because it's only update, not a full installer like 13.0 beta versions....
if you have some idea... thx for share..

 

[ImaPirate]

Hello ImaPirate
I remember you from the EVGA SR-2 threads.
My EVGA SR-2 MB gave out about a couple months ago and I bought the GB AORUS Gaming 7 with the 12 core CPU.
I just came back from vacation.
What is and is not working on your motherboard?
If you have the GB TB3 AIC card installed, what are your BIOS settings and how did you do the firmware update that someone here was writing about?
Congrats to your Geekbench record!

My installer Chris said: “He is asking about the Thunderbolt addin card and whether you got it working or not.” That’s why I didn’t understand what those abbreviations meant, as I’m not using any of those types of cards or devices at this current moment. I’m just happy that USB 3.0 and 3.1 work just fine. Hope that information helps.

By the way I just got a Cinebench score of CPU 4292 cb !!!

On a side note, I know that some who read this may already know this or will believe something different or not agree. I just wanted to mention that if you're going to build a Wattage Sucking system like what I built, then you might want to pick up a good (Min) 1200W to (Max) 1600W PSU. Why? Less power draw over and load on your PSU over time. What do I mean by that? Simple if your system is drawing 250 Watts (on average on idle) and 550 Watts (on average under load) like my current system is, it uses less power load (or a lesser percentage is used) if you're using a 1600W PSU vs 1000W PSU or 1200W PSU. Sure, purchasing a 1000W PSU is cheaper, but over time you're going to save more on your electric bill and extend not only the life of your PSU, but your entire system overall. Here's a perfect example of one of the stress tests that I performed yesterday using LuxMark's CPU and GPU test. It went up to 1009 Watts! (Don't pay attention to the total of the money it's showing, as I didn't program that part of it). Mind you BOTH GPUs and CPU were being used at their max capacity; something that you're typical system will never encounter! I'm still amazed that even under this type of extreme load, that my CPU never went above 54˚C!

 

[kgp]

10.13.1 reinstalled, few benchmarks done and...

- No lag - mentioned by @vikikang, @lucatze , @Bagi1992
- No performance difference with new Geekbench 4,2
- iMsg/FaceTime still don't work
(EmuVariableUefi-64.efi was on my system drive, ethernet -> en0 checked)
config.plist configured properly... - now I'm almost sure my accounts are s**ks (too new or confirmed by SMS, not by other apple device so maybe this is it), not my cfg..
Thank you anyway.. for help and advices few days ago

- Vega bug always exist with, but it's not so big problem for me.. at this moment
- Audio works great :]

BTW: I would like to prepare USB drive with 10.13.2beta installer but I have no Idea how to do it
because it's only update, not a full installer like 13.0 beta versions....
if you have some idea... thx for share..

For sure one can download and install the full package installer like during the earlier 10.13 beta process.. I am rather convinced that the latter is the case. But maybe you will be only able to do it once your iCloud, iMessage and Facetime problem is solved

 

[kgp]

My installer Chris said: “He is asking about the Thunderbolt addin card and whether you got it working or not.” That’s why I didn’t understand what those abbreviations meant, as I’m not using any of those types of cards or devices at this current moment. I’m just happy that USB 3.0 and 3.1 work just fine. Hope that information helps.

By the way I just got a Cinebench score of CPU 4292 cb !!!

On a side note, I know that some who read this may already know this or will believe something different or not agree. I just wanted to mention that if you're going to build a Wattage Sucking system like what I built, then you might want to pick up a good (Min) 1200W to (Max) 1600W PSU. Why? Less power draw over and load on your PSU over time. What do I mean by that? Simple if your system is drawing 250 Watts (on average on idle) and 550 Watts (on average under load) like my current system is, it uses less power load (or a lesser percentage is used) if you're using a 1600W PSU vs 1000W PSU or 1200W PSU. Sure, purchasing a 1000W PSU is cheaper, but over time you're going to save more on your electric bill and extend not only the life of your PSU, but your entire system overall. Here's a perfect example of one of the stress tests that I performed yesterday using LuxMark's CPU and GPU test. It went up to 1009 Watts! (Don't pay attention to the total of the money it's showing, as I didn't program that part of it). Mind you BOTH GPUs and CPU were being used at their max capacity; something that you're typical system will never encounter! I'm still amazed that even under this type of extreme load, that my CPU never went above 54˚C!

View attachment 290703

Well done, man! You are absolutely in the expected range!

One important question though: Apparently you are using CPU Core Ratio set to " Sync All Cores" . But is your system stable with the latter BIOS setting, the i9-7980XE and 10.13? Might my system instability with "Sync All Cores" be related with my 860W power supply? Although freezes and reboots occur mainly during idle (1.2Ghz) and benchmarks perfectly work up to a max. load of 4.4.GHz with all cores for several minutes?

 

[mgregrs]

For sure one can download and install the full package installer like during the earlier 10.13 beta process.. I am rather convinced that the latter is the case. But maybe you will be only able to do it once your iCloud, iMessage and Facetime problem is solved

"For sure one can download and install the full package installer like during the earlier 10.13 beta process.."
- OK thx for info... I thought mabybe you know path and can share it but np, I will find it

"But maybe you will be only able to do it once your iCloud, iMessage and Facetime problem is solved"
sorry I didn't understand that joke... :/ Maybe I'm only too tired with it, that's why I don't feel so great some jokes about that...
Btw I shared my config before, just for little check by you... if you don't find some little details which causes my iMsg problem...
but on the same time I feel in 99% -that is problem of new account and account verification.
I'm almost sure, it will works when I will change my smartphone on iPhone... soon...

BTW: New installation works very well with new BIOS implementations
Sleep/wake works much better than before, after 10-15 sec.

I think a rest of things works great... the. last one which wasn't tested by me - is Thunderbolt
which works very nice on Windows... but on OS X: "Thunderbolt: No drivers are loaded."
which is a little weird because if I remember well, it was ok before (1 moth ago)
I have to test it..

 

[Bagi1992]

10.13.1 reinstalled, few benchmarks done and...

- No lag - mentioned by @vikikang, @lucatze , @Bagi1992
- No performance difference with new Geekbench 4,2
- iMsg/FaceTime still don't work
(EmuVariableUefi-64.efi was on my system drive, ethernet -> en0 checked)
config.plist configured properly... - now I'm almost sure my accounts are s**ks (too new or confirmed by SMS, not by other apple device so maybe this is it), not my cfg..
Thank you anyway.. for help and advices few days ago

- Vega bug always exist with, but it's not so big problem for me.. at this moment
- Audio works great :]

BTW: I would like to prepare USB drive with 10.13.2beta installer but I have no Idea how to do it
because it's only update, not a full installer like 13.0 beta versions....
if you have some idea... thx for share..

Thanks man! I have to do an update as soon as possible!

 

[Dan968]

Hello to @ALL,
thanks to @kgp for the great guide...I think to build up a system soon with ASUS x299 Prime Deluxe.
Hope not to be off-topic, but I have 2 questions:
someone have tried the RAID hardware configuration through BIOS setup? can macOS see the RAID Disk/Volume?
other question is about a 10GbE ethernet card...what the best for macOS X?
This: ASUS XG-C100C...it uses the chip aquantia AQC107...maybe the same chip will be used inside iMac Pro...has anyone had the opportunity to try it?
Thank You very much!