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

[RuleBreaker01]

For me :
My GPU is in slot 1 then it's shows under SL06 in about this Mac or in Ioreg.

Slot 1 as in @kgp description, that is the slot closest to the CPU?

which motherboard do you have?

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Hi

Just for clarification, an underscore in an ACPI patch is (like) a wildcard?

So is the change I made (swapping the HEX of EC0_ for the HEX of EC0) correct? or should I change it back?

Me being a Clover boot loader novice just interpreted _ as a literal underscore.

EC0_ will be in HEX 4543305f (_ is 5f ), so that 's what you will use in the clover config.
However, you won't find EC0_ in IOReg, it will only show EC0, the _ doesn't appear in the name.
_SB_ is in HEX 5f53425f, but in IOReg it shows as SB only.

 

[prunzi]

both work out of the box, with the typical hackintosh limitation however that macOS doesn't see them as real thunderbolt port and it doesn't support hotplug.

works great otherwise, including windows.
My Apple Thunderbolt screen works fine with it, consistently.

With the Asus Thunderbolt EX 3, I always had to disconnect the TB cable first, otherwise it would give me an error about too much USB power draw and immediately shutdown.
The Asus TB card is also rather fiddly, from time to time after a boot it just wouldn't work...

I've had zero issue like the with the designare

Thank's!!

 

[canyondust]

Sorry that I answer lately but I am very busy at the moment.
What I personally like more is, that everything that was done wrong by Asus,
like the whole VRM overheating story for example was fixed from the beginning on.
Also GIGABYTE never had that hole microcode bugs which had bad behavior with AUDIO Production Software,
so to me this was also one point where I thought ok, they don't give a damn about the users like ASUS does,
@kgp and myself was a long time in contact with them to tell them whats going wrong and how its possible fix this...
Overclocking works also much better with the Gigabyte Board and also cooler.
I hate to use extra cards for Thunderbolt or anything else,
so the 2 Onboard Thunderbolt 3 ports are just perfect for my needs.

There is nothing I could talk about what I don't like with the Designare.
My personal opinion is that its the better motherboard in comparison with the ASUS but its a matter of taste.

Does that board have MSR Ex02 locked? (and if so, have you patched it?)

 

[BoomR]

Hello, @kgp ! It looks like you are definitely keeping up all your amazing work with CustoMac builds - and now your own version of "iMac Pro!" Bravo! I think I may need to go shopping now for some new components to update my current recording studio/DAW build. A couple things:

1. In your opening remarks, you provide the following:

b.) The i7-7800X and i7-7820X already support four channels DDR4-2666 but however also possess only 28 PCI express 3.0 lanes! Thus by using a state-of-the-art 16 lane PCIe graphics adapter and a PCIe NVMe drive, there are nearly no PCI express 3.0 lanes remaining. When adding one or two additional PCIe adapters, one exceeds the 28 available PCI express 3.0 lanes by far! In this case, the resulting configuration might be error-prone!

I am considering i7-7820X, and want to use the following: NVIDIA GTX 970 from existing build (16 lanes) + ThunderboltEX II Dual (TB2 dual-port card) from existing build (4 lanes) + Pro Tools | HD Native card (4 lanes) + Samsung 960 PRO m.2 (4 lanes). That is total of 28 lanes. However, I am not doing video editing on this machine, nor am I doing any gaming, so optimum GPU lanes is not mandatory. What are your thoughts on "forcing" the GPU to "running at 8x"? This would give me a few extra lanes in the event I need to also add back in my Syba FW800/FW400 card?

2. In section E.13 of your amazing guide, you speak to some I/O buffer settings (using Logic Pro X as your example). As a long-time DAW guy, we know that the lower buffer settings (128 and lower) are actually preferred when tracking (aka "recording"), as a means of reducing or eliminating latency when you are monitoring the input (mic or instrument) through Logic (or other DAW). Then when recording is complete and it's time for editing & mixing, we go back in & adjust I/O buffer settings to 512 or maybe 1024, which then optimizes settings for playback-only activities. I've used many different interfaces over the years (USB, Firewire, and now PCIe using Pro Tools HD | Native card), and this still holds true. I think what you have here is basically OK, but it sort of implies that this setting is "static," but in practice... it is not. FWIW....

I'm only on page 3 of your post, but look forward to digging deeper in preparation to make my own build. Once again, many thanks for all the hard work and for your very detailed and comprehensive guide! I'm hoping one day soon (once iMac Pro has been around for a while) that X299 build will eventually be a "simple" Unibeast/MultiBeast process, too! Cheers!

 

[canyondust]

These Settings were used with the onboard Deluxe Motherboard -> 1024 Samples.
You can't work like a pro with it, just to notice that !

Some of the guys here thought they can run the onboard chip with 128 Samples and so on...

You can totally work like a pro at 1024 samples... if you're just mixing

But If you're really a pro (or enthusiast), you're not using the onboard chip anyway.

 

[canyondust]

Hello, @kgp ! It looks like you are definitely keeping up all your amazing work with CustoMac builds - and now your own version of "iMac Pro!" Bravo! I think I may need to go shopping now for some new components to update my current recording studio/DAW build. A couple things:

1. In your opening remarks, you provide the following:

I am considering i7-7820X, and want to use the following: NVIDIA GTX 970 from existing build (16 lanes) + ThunderboltEX II Dual (TB2 dual-port card) from existing build (4 lanes) + Pro Tools | HD Native card (4 lanes) + Samsung 960 PRO m.2 (4 lanes). That is total of 28 lanes. However, I am not doing video editing on this machine, nor am I doing any gaming, so optimum GPU lanes is not mandatory. What are your thoughts on "forcing" the GPU to "running at 8x"? This would give me a few extra lanes in the event I need to also add back in my Syba FW800/FW400 card?

2. In section E.13 of your amazing guide, you speak to some I/O buffer settings (using Logic Pro X as your example). As a long-time DAW guy, we know that the lower buffer settings (128 and lower) are actually preferred when tracking (aka "recording"), as a means of reducing or eliminating latency when you are monitoring the input (mic or instrument) through Logic (or other DAW). Then when recording is complete and it's time for editing & mixing, we go back in & adjust I/O buffer settings to 512 or maybe 1024, which then optimizes settings for playback-only activities. I've used many different interfaces over the years (USB, Firewire, and now PCIe using Pro Tools HD | Native card), and this still holds true. I think what you have here is basically OK, but it sort of implies that this setting is "static," but in practice... it is not. FWIW....

I'm only on page 3 of your post, but look forward to digging deeper in preparation to make my own build. Once again, many thanks for all the hard work and for your very detailed and comprehensive guide! I'm hoping one day soon (once iMac Pro has been around for a while) that X299 build will eventually be a "simple" Unibeast/MultiBeast process, too! Cheers!

FWIW I've tried my GTX1080 in both 16x and 8x and the difference in performance for me (even in high end gaming) is practically less than a rounding error. (in my system anyway, YMMV)

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Does that board have MSR Ex02 locked? (and if so, have you patched it?)

the gigabyte x299 boards aren't locked

 

[canyondust]

@canyondust That’s why I recommend to use 1024 if you wanna use the onboard chip... I don’t use it at all... I use an UAD Apollo.

Sweet! Original or MkII? I'm on an RME ADI-2 Pro and it's rock solid. My build has been a dream workhorse.
Slightly off topic: I'm on a locked Gigabyte Z170 build and I just started using Aptiomemoryfix, which states to consider patching MSR Ex02, so I've been thinking of doing it, but it seems moderate risk and I don't know what I could gain from it in practical terms. Do you have thoughts on it?

 

[DanyH]

hello guys, anyone with Gigabyte Aorus gaming 9 WITH 10.13.3 SA? I would like to find a solution to resolve the problem with the sleep/wake=reboot after update to 10.13.3 SA. ( 1080ti driver 159 with lag problem- restored to 106)