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

[kgp]

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!

Nice to hear from you after long time, man! Welcome aboard the iMac Pro rocket..

Most of your questions have already been answered by others ...

Thus, just many thanks for the colourful flowers and happy Skylake-X/X299 building with all of us..

BTW..

I cannot convince you to go for the i9-7900X instead of the i7-7820X?

 

[RuleBreaker01]

I figured why the nvidia drivers weren't working on my box and didn't detect my 1080Ti ; I had performed an import of an old Mac Pro which used that video card in a eGPU.
For the card to work in the external PCIe box, I had to install the NVIDIAEGPUSupport kernel externsion.

This had been copied in my /Library/Extension.

After deleting this file, all went back to normal

 

[BoomR]

Nice to hear from you after long time, man! Welcome aboard the iMac Pro rocket..

Most of your questions have already been answered by others ...

Thus, just many thanks for the colourful flowers and happy Skylake-X/X299 building with all of us..

BTW..

I cannot convince you to go for the i9-7900X instead of the i7-7820X?

Thanks and nice to hear from you! I wasn't sure if my question about lanes would have been discussed - so I will be patient and continue my studying of this thread! BTW, after further research, I discovered that, even though my ProTools HD | Native card physically is X4, it actually only requires 1 lane.

RE: 7820X - I'll know more Wednesday after I check my bank account. My 2nd half 2017 bonus pays out this coming week. If I get a good bonus, then who knows....??? !!!! LOL

 

[prunzi]

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 ASUS 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.

Actually you was very fast... Thank's a lot.

 

[sbarends]

Hey KGP and all other contributors thanks for the insane amount of effort you guys put in this and still do. My X299 iHackPro is working flawlessly thanks to you!

I have one question though: I check this thread every now and then for updates (mainly BIOS-updates etc.) because you update stuff pretty frequently. The one thing I'm missing is a changelog in the main post. I know it says when it was last edited, but reading through the whole thing every time to find out what changed is kind of tedious. I completely understand if you don't want to or don't have the time, but it would be greatly appreciated!

Anyways, thanks again for the great work, you guys rock!

 

[kgp]

Hey KGP and all other contributors thanks for the insane amount of effort you guys put in this and still do. My X299 iHackPro is working flawlessly thanks to you!

I have one question though: I check this thread every now and then for updates (mainly BIOS-updates etc.) because you update stuff pretty frequently. The one thing I'm missing is a changelog in the main post. I know it says when it was last edited, but reading through the whole thing every time to find out what changed is kind of tedious. I completely understand if you don't want to or don't have the time, but it would be greatly appreciated!

Anyways, thanks again for the great work, you guys rock!

You can find a detailed change log along the thread! Sorry, but this must be really sufficient. It just requires that you fly over the individual posts, something that might offer additional information in any case.. .

I really cannot commit further efforts.

Current efforts already exceed by far my available time.

My guide development and support is for free.. I also have a real life apart ..

Thus mouth flying paradise grilled chicken support must be somewhat limited ..

Thanks for your comprehension,

KGP

 

[RyanC]

Until some Logic-X user experience comes in with the imac pros and these hacks? What are you talking about ,man?

@DSM2 and I myself already repeatedly confirmed that Logic-X behaves as expected on Skylake-X/X299. All former bugs like the SKZ7 Intel bug have been removed by ASUS microcode updates, thanks to our common efforts.

Did you read Section E.12 of my guide and post #5471 at all?

Cheers,

KGP

No I haven't read the whole thread. My question was what DAW he's using as logic isn't the only DAW. Also you show only 30 tracks for a processor that has 36 threads...Additionally in Logic the buffer setting is only relevant for recording, LPX has a dual buffer and the playback is always fixed to a higher buffer. I'm not sure I understand the bug you are getting there

In any case Apple did announce 18 core support-

https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/14/apple-logic-pro-x-update-imac-36-core/

My suggestion was also that he may want to wait for more user experience if he can as well because modern DAWS are optimized for multithreading and while there may still be some issues as you point out, I think it's hardly a forgone conclusion that the 18 core chip is a bad choice or poor value for audio work.

You have done great work here (as always), and no disrespect intended, but there are a lot of variables for real world audio work, especially beyond beyond basic plugins included with LPX etc, so as far as I can tell the jury is still out on the value here. I do appreciate your diligence on this front of course...

 

[argansos]

it shows SL05 instead of my GFX0, because in the config.plist I made a SL05->GFX0 replacement (just like described in the first post).
If you want the proper name to show, you can either upgrade to 10.13.4 beta 3 (but be aware that if using a SMBIOS of iMacPro,1 then only the first DP port and the first HDMI port work, the 2nd DP port no long work). One solution for this is to change the SMBIOS back to MacPro6,1...
I made a SSDT replacement that will show the name of the graphic card properly in About This Mac, I'm not sure there's any points. it makes zero difference in usage

Could you share your dsdt with me? thanks.

By using the dsdt to get the right name, it may cause no difference in usage but it affects the sleep/wakeup function.

 

[justdatruth]

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to chime in again with a smalll update as Ive been away from this thread for a considerable amount of time.....

My hack had been working well with imac 17,1 (albeit with some cpu-related shennanigans), but not well enough for me to really trust the machine in a production environment. However upon returning from my holidays I decided to take the plunge and go the imac pro 1,1 route.

Now everything is working better, no need for any cpu-related custom scripts, freqvectors or even an SSDT. Ableton/Logic are working as I'd expect them too, geekbench/cinebench scores are right where they should be, thunderbolt is stable all around I'm much happier with imac 1,1.

Thanks again to @kgp and all the other contributors to this guide

Please, can you share your SSDT & config.plist... I updated my computer with similar mobo. Thx a lot
At this moment, I was unable to load from clover

Hey @juantrix, do you still need this. I dont use an SSDT but I shoyld be able to get you a copy of my config at some later today. Where are you getting stuck in boot process?

 

[kgp]

No I haven't read the whole thread. My question was what DAW he's using as logic isn't the only DAW. Also you show only 30 tracks for a processor that has 36 threads...Additionally in Logic the buffer setting is only relevant for recording, LPX has a dual buffer and the playback is always fixed to a higher buffer. I'm not sure I understand the bug you are getting there

In any case Apple did announce 18 core support-

https://9to5mac.com/2017/12/14/apple-logic-pro-x-update-imac-36-core/

My suggestion was also that he may want to wait for more user experience if he can as well because modern DAWS are optimized for multithreading and while there may still be some issues as you point out, I think it's hardly a forgone conclusion that the 18 core chip is a bad choice or poor value for audio work.

You have done great work here (as always), and no disrespect intended, but there are a lot of variables for real world audio work, especially beyond beyond basic plugins included with LPX etc, so as far as I can tell the jury is still out on the value here. I do appreciate your diligence on this front of course...

The Logic-X hyperthreading test with 30 tracks was originally created by @DSM2 for testing the Logic-X performance on his 10 core (20 thread) I9-7900X (10 core/20 thread) CPU, which turned out to be flawless within the expected software/hardware limitations.

This tiny detail just for clarification.. you are free to add more tracks to test the Logic-X 18 core (36 threads) performance at any time...

Cheers,

KGP