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

[GDS]

was looking to upgrade fully my old rig
and BOOM you did before

again thank you @kgp for your involvement in hack. community
so will acquire same config than you i9-7980XE and so on
and btw EKWB: good choice

i will see "maybe" for a dual Vega (but waiting the advice of @ImaPirate, to see if the fact to have no more CUDA calculation will make problem to my future rig and programs used)

 

[ImaPirate]

@ImaPirate
I guess I found THE topic I was waiting for...

I run now on 2699v4, 2 titan X, and some NVme
everything under water (EK-WB)

i was wondering to go to 2 Vega + i9-7980XE
cause my 2 titan X maxwell have tons of problems with HT of the 2699 (Nvidia drivers are not OK with HT activated

so from your experience, do you recommend a rig with 2 Vega than 2 Titan Xp?
I use tons of programs using CUDA but the fact that I need to turn OFF the HT of the 2699v4 to have them fully reliable is pointless


thank you

Well at least I’m not the only one has gone through all of this! In any case just follow KGP’s guide and only buy what I purchased and you’ll be just fine. Keep posting your progress here and on the other post that KGP posted when you need help. Just to let you know, I did have an installer help me install everything using clover, as I am not experienced in a lot of programming stuff. I just build great systems.

 

[GDS]

thx a lot
you are right @kgp's guide is easy to follow and the best helping hand possible

but my question was more concerning the problem of choice of graphic cards:

2 x VEGA 64: super easy for install (no more drivers problems), cheaper than 2 1080ti
but openCL only
or
2 1080Ti: Nvidia drivers... which need to be considered (upgrade etc etc)
CUDA (most of my programs of rendering have benefits of this)

all of them will be clearly OC
everything on EK-WB (partnership with) and all in a Tower 900


so considering your experience,
do you think that for professional use, a duo of Vega 64 is not so far than a duo of 1080Ti
on a base of a X299 and i9-7980XE, NVMe, etc etc
and with the interest of no more problems of graphic driver

i dont trust synthetical test, I only focus on real use (360° VR, AR, MR), photogrammetry,
so some points less on synthetical tests is impossible to feel in real use


thank you

Well at least I’m not the only one has gone through all of this! In any case just follow KGP’s guide and only buy what I purchased and you’ll be just fine. Keep posting your progress here and on the other post that KGP posted when you need help. Just to let you know, I did have an installer help me install everything using clover, as I am not experienced in a lot of programming stuff. I just build great systems.

 

[ImaPirate]

thx a lot
you are right @kgp's guide is easy to follow and the best helping hand possible

but my question was more concerning the problem of choice of graphic cards:

2 x VEGA 64: super easy for install (no more drivers problems), cheaper than 2 1080ti
but openCL only
or
2 1080Ti: Nvidia drivers... which need to be considered (upgrade etc etc)
CUDA (most of my programs of rendering have benefits of this)

all of them will be clearly OC
everything on EK-WB (partnership with) and all in a Tower 900


so considering your experience,
do you think that for professional use, a duo of Vega 64 is not so far than a duo of 1080Ti
on a base of a X299 and i9-7980XE, NVMe, etc etc
and with the interest of no more problems of graphic driver

i dont trust synthetical test, I only focus on real use (360° VR, AR, MR), photogrammetry,
so some points less on synthetical tests is impossible to feel in real use


thank you

I'd say the best thing for you is to contact AMD directly and find out what apps truly work best with these cards. I primarily use Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and InDesign and I can say first hand with Photoshop that even with a 1.3GB sized file I was able to render an effect and save it within less than 30 seconds. That's saying a lot for file that size, as they won't allow any given file over 1.4GB. Now with Premiere, Final Cut Pro and the like, you'd have to check out the YouTube reviews for that one. It's toss up. At the end of the day, it's about compatibility. Sure the Vega Frontier cards are $1,000 and they're not even water blocked (that's another $135.00 for each EK water block for those cards), but to me it's worth it in the end.

Plus, you have to know that only ONE card will be working (no matter if it's nVidia or AMD). I'm only using two cards because I'm using three monitors and plugging in three DisplayPort cables in just one card won't work. You have to plug one of of the DisplayPort cables in the second card. Why? Because it's a Hackintosh, that's why. They do have their limits on what they can and cannot do. Hope this helps. I may try the Titan X (Maxwell) 12GB cards to see what happens but I'm afraid of what it might do to what I have already set up. Everything is working smoothly and I don't want to jack something up! Again, hope this info helps.

 

[Gigamaxx]

I'd say the best thing for you is to contact AMD directly and find out what apps truly work best with these cards. I primarily use Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and InDesign and I can say first hand with Photoshop that even with a 1.3GB sized file I was able to render an effect and save it within less than 30 seconds. That's saying a lot for file that size, as they won't allow any given file over 1.4GB. Now with Premiere, Final Cut Pro and the like, you'd have to check out the YouTube reviews for that one. It's toss up. At the end of the day, it's about compatibility. Sure the Vega Frontier cards are $1,000 and they're not even water blocked (that's another $135.00 for each EK water block for those cards), but to me it's worth it in the end.

Plus, you have to know that only ONE card will be working (no matter if it's nVidia or AMD). I'm only using two cards because I'm using three monitors and plugging in three DisplayPort cables in just one card won't work. You have to plug one of of the DisplayPort cables in the second card. Why? Because it's a Hackintosh, that's why. They do have their limits on what they can and cannot do. Hope this helps. I may try the Titan X (Maxwell) 12GB cards to see what happens but I'm afraid of what it might do to what I have already set up. Everything is working smoothly and I don't want to jack something up! Again, hope this info helps.

Have you upgraded to Latest version of beta HS? I'm getting some Windows level benches in all areas except the OpenGl. It is the normal 10-15 percent lower than Windows which generally applies to all cards. Uningine Valley now runs fairly smoothly no more tearing or bug issue with the anti-aliasing in ExtremeHd mode.

 

[kgp]

was looking to upgrade fully my old rig
and BOOM you did before

again thank you @kgp for your involvement in hack. community
so will acquire same config than you i9-7980XE and so on
and btw EKWB: good choice

i will see "maybe" for a dual Vega (but waiting the advice of @ImaPirate, to see if the fact to have no more CUDA calculation will make problem to my future rig and programs used)

Welcome to the future my friend

 

[dcheng]

Recently my Ethernet has been shorting out and any attempts to reset my internet automatically restart my computer. Has anyone gotten this problem?

 

[mgregrs]

Recently my Ethernet has been shorting out and any attempts to reset my internet automatically restart my computer. Has anyone gotten this problem?

No never... My 2 eth works perfect
Which one you use actually I219 or I211 ?
Higher you have I211
Lower I219
If you use I211, do you use Small Tree kext? (some people had problems with old kext)

 

[lucatze]

@maffel Try following:
- USB2.0 Port (what you already did I suppose)
- deactivate on board sound in bios (I don't think that will make a difference but you never know)
- try your sound card on a recent macbook/imac with same operating system (might be an osx issue)
- detach ALL devices except mouse keyboard and your soundcard
- try another USB sound card, to check if the problem is related to your specific device or a general bug

 

[maffel]

Which keyboard you use?
I use Novation Impulse 49, but I will need something bigger, so maybe you can propose something interested

I have an alesis v49, generally Alesis is great quality for a fair price. They have bigger and more advanced models also.

Uff... I really don't know what you guys are doing!

I was playing 4K movies for hours also on youtube, was listening my iTunes music for days. Not one single issue!

a.) Try to use Safari or Firefox! How many times I already recommended not to use currently Chrome under 10.13

b.) If this does not help change board! Nobody recommended to go with Gigabyte X299.

Cheers,

KGP

For me Safari is the issue, or playing sounds with quicktime or itunes, chrome works just fine.

@maffel Try following:
- USB2.0 Port (what you already did I suppose)
- deactivate on board sound in bios (I don't think that will make a difference but you never know)
- try your sound card on a recent macbook/imac with same operating system (might be an osx issue)
- detach ALL devices except mouse keyboard and your soundcard
- try another USB sound card, to check if the problem is related to your specific device or a general bug

I've done all those things.
Something peculiar happened yesterday when i booted with pretty much all kernel patches enabled. Apple power management got enabled, with two powerstates and performance is horrible, 12 000 in Geekbench but somehow the issue with audio playback in Safari disappeared. I suspect it has something to do with powermanagement and specifically XCPM.