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

[neliuz]

@neliuz your TB3 card works in slot 3 in the GB because you aren't using any TB3 device, just the DP output. As I mentioned yesterday, you could disable TB in the BIOS and it would still work the same.
For that you have no need for the TB3 card to start with, may as well plug your screen directly to the AMD GPU

I am using the startech USB-c to Thunderbolt converter to make my Apple Thunderbolt display to work. I dont see how i could connect the thunderbolt display to my GPU ?

 

[levifig]

a.) In my personal opinion, the difference between the Prime and Prime Deluxe does not just consist in a few bells & whistles ...

Agree. I was referring to the Hackintosh side of things... It was pretty similar from a config standpoint. I do understand and recognize the differences between the 2 boards, at a hardware level.

b.) What are the advantages of the Rampage VI Apex in terms of OC? Both, Rampage VI Apex and Extreme are know not to be very handy in terms of OSX. In my opinion, e.g. the Asus X299 Sage, the Gigabyte X299 Designare EX or even the ASRock x299 Professional Gaming definitely would have been the better decision.

I looked into the Designare EX. I would be paying for things I wouldn't want (TB3, etc) and losing on OC features I do want. In terms of OC, that's what this board (Apex) is geared for. It has a bunch of neat features for OC'ing, and it's a known XOC (Extreme Overclocking) board, so it tends to get better/more stable overclocks of both CPU and RAM (check most benchmark rankings and this boards and the EVGA Dark are the most popular 2, from both professional and amateur overclockers).

FWIW, the DIMM.2 slots are a joy to work with (no more having to remove PCI cards to access M.2 slots), the onboard controls (safe boot, retry, voltage read endpoints, slow mode, etc) are fantastic, and the quality, overall, is superb. It is basically a cheaper ROG Extreme but with all the bells and whistles minus a few things (4 DIMM slots vs 8, etc).

Good luck in any case with your endevour

I'm asking how I can help myself (and others) users of this board. I got it to boot fine with no DSDTs (using the installer USB Clover, but booting to my current install) and my GTX770. I want to help create the appropriate DSDTs for this board and get the 1080 Tis working (which worked with the X299-A) and smoothly, that's all. Just asking for pointers on how to customize the "official" X299 DSDTs and configs to work with this board. I'm guessing it'll be more similar to the ROG Extreme than the Prime Deluxe, but I'm willing to put in the time and effort to get them done.

Hope I can get some guidance... Thanks.

 

[eiriasemrys]

Great to know.
I experience lock up when I OC a tad too much, and the AVX offset is a bit too low. So for example, on my setup with the 7980xe, I use the "Per Core Usage" running at 4.6GHz for up to 8 cores.
I need to have the AVX2 offset at 4 for things not to hang.

Try this maybe.

Just curious, what are the exact settings you have for your OC?

 

[WoodCabin]

Just curious, what are the exact settings you have for your OC?

Hi @eiriasemrys, I've seen that you have a x299 system running with a Titan X Maxwell, I have a friend who is mounting a system with a graphics card like yours but has problems to restart and to shut down the system, in either case, the system seems to restart, the screen is shown in black but the oled meter on the motherboard continues to show the temperature, does not turn off or restart. I wonder if you would be so kind as to advise me on a solution or publish your EFI folder to be able to compare with my friend, thank you very much, regards.

 

[0herbert0]

Hi @kgp!
Please would you confirm I've understood you properly:

• as I'm about to do a clean install, I should not connect the TB 3 extension card to the Asus Mainboard (see C.4 section)
• I should remove the entries detailed in C.14 section

and then what ? I install High Sierra and when I'm done I connect the TB3 extension card and only complete the
E.9.2.11) - ThunderboltEX 3 Controller PCI Implementation section to make it work ?

Thanks in advance for your advice

 

[0herbert0]

Sorry @kgp , I read more carefully and you explain everything in E5 !

Hi @kgp!
Please would you confirm I've understood you properly:

• as I'm about to do a clean install, I should not connect the TB 3 extension card to the Asus Mainboard (see C.4 section)
• I should remove the entries detailed in C.14 section

and then what ? I install High Sierra and when I'm done I connect the TB3 extension card and only complete the
E.9.2.11) - ThunderboltEX 3 Controller PCI Implementation section to make it work ?

Thanks in advance for your advice

 

[0herbert0]

Besides, about APS vs HFS+ :

in C.8 section you say we can opt for an APFS system disk implementation
but in D.4.1 you advice to prepare a virgin destination drive for by formatting it with HFS+...
So if I choose APFS, do I need to create a USB Flash drive installer formatted with APFS too ?

Many Thanks

 

[RuleBreaker01]

I am using the startech USB-c to Thunderbolt converter to make my Apple Thunderbolt display to work. I dont see how i could connect the thunderbolt display to my GPU ?

If your TB card is in slot 3, that means youre not using TB, so the Web cam, speakers, firewire, Ethernet port, none of them are working. You're using your TB display as a plain DP screen.

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Update with ASRock Fatal1ty board.
I have sleep working.
It kept waking up due to the XHCI and GBE1 (ETH0) PRW method in the original DSDT that did:
Return (GPRW (0x6D, 0x04))

I changed that into:
Return (GPRW (0x69, 0x04))

That and TB3 hotplug working (still no go with USB-C on the TB3 card though)...

Is there a way to easily remove the PRW method of a particular device using clover, rather than having the modify the entire DSDT (which makes upgrade painful) ??

@kgp question for you... I can see with the Intel Power Gadget that the frequency changes all the way down to 1.2GHz, yet, following "E.1) HWP (Intel SpeedShift Technology) CPU Power Management Configuration"

X86PlatformPlugin.kext isn't loaded (kextstat|grep -y x86plat returns nothing). I have plugin-type checked in Clover, and in the CP00@0, I can see that the plugin-type property was inserted.
sysctl -n machdep.xcpm.vectors_loaded_count also returns 0.

Any suggestions, or entry in the BIOS I should be looking at?

thanks

Actually, when I boot on my 10.13.3 partition, it all shows properly. But not on 10.13.4
And in 10.13.3 sleep doesn't work, but it works in 10.13.4

 

[neliuz]

If your TB card is in slot 3, that means you're not using TB, so the Web cam, speakers, firewire, Ethernet port, none of them are working. You're using your TB display as a plain DP screen.

That is what i am telling you it does work! I also changed it to slot-3 in the ssdt.aml file in the efi folder..