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

[izo1]

The 9980xe still only has 44 PCIe lanes (https://ark.intel.com/products/1891...dition-Processor-24-75M-Cache-up-to-4-50-GHz-)
It can also use the X299 so I wonder for Asus, ASRock and other will be providing BIOS upgrades so that a CPU swap over is possible.

Interestingly enough their marketing slides say 68 lanes. Maybe they are counting M.2 x4 lanes separately?

Regarding BIOS updates to support the new microcode, that will definitely happen. Intel forces its partners to update.

For example Gigabyte doesn’t seem to care about the Designare EX but I’m sure a new BIOS update is coming to support these new CPUs.

 

[Il.F]

a part from those 5 points, is somethingelse more required before copying kexts and amls in their respective folders and setting audio inject 7?

Hey, I've built a few hacks for friends and colleagues using ASUS X299-A M/B and did everything according to this perfect guide (thx @kgp).
I've used AppleALC.kext method for audio and it's working even when I'm booting via USB stick.
Here is my list of kexts and HDEF.aml.
The only difference from the current guide is that I must still use patches for bios. macOS is not working w/o these patches (for some strange reason).

 

[RuleBreaker01]

Interestingly enough their marketing slides say 68 lanes. Maybe they are counting M.2 x4 lanes separately?

It does state "up to 68 lanes", maybe that's included when including the lanes accessible via the PCH

 

[pieropontra]

Hey, I've built a few hacks for friends and colleagues using ASUS X299-A M/B and did everything according to this perfect guide (thx @kgp).
I've used AppleALC.kext method for audio and it's working even when I'm booting via USB stick.
Here is my list of kexts and HDEF.aml.
The only difference from the current guide is that I must still use patches for bios. macOS is not working w/o these patches (for some strange reason).

thanks a lot, but... what patches do you mean?

 

[izo1]

It does state "up to 68 lanes", maybe that's included when including the lanes accessible via the PCH

Yeah it’s definitely 44 lanes for the cpu and 24 lanes from the chipset, same as before.

It’s just marketing crap on the slides. So not much has changed besides Soldering and base clock increase.

 

[Il.F]

thanks a lot, but... what patches do you mean?

These patches for bios via UEFIPatch from https://github.com/LongSoft/UEFITool

 

[pieropontra]

These patches for bios via UEFIPatch from https://github.com/LongSoft/UEFITool

Unfortunately, I don't know how to use this stuff at all

 

[kgp]

I don’t think it’s a big jump for you since it seems you’re overclocking anyway. If you’re happy with the temps without delidding then you’re good.

I have a 10 core so a 18core with 3.0ghz base clock would be a big jump for me so the new solder will definitely help on my end and I don’t want to overclock since it never is stable for me.

It’s interesting that Intel didn’t even change the price even with AMD giving a better value with Threadripper. Intel doesn’t seem to care.

Also surprisingly they didn’t release a promised 22core for the x299 series which is sad. I really wanted that one and don’t want to change motherboards.

If I wasn’t Hackintoshing I would jump on the AMD 2990WX for $1799 right now. 32c/64t is insane.

Most applications in the industry are more geared towards Intel like Adobe apps so it’s going to be interesting what happens next.

My i9-7980XE is delidded anyway. Thus, I expect to gain just a minimal improvement in CPU temperature performance, if at all. The current i9-7980XE base clock specs are for the undelidded i9-7980XE anyway..

 

[mcity]

My i9-7980XE is delidded anyway. Thus, I expect to gain just a minimal improvement in CPU temperature performance, if at all. The current i9-7980XE base clock specs are for the undelidded i9-7980XE anyway..

Just went through Intel product page and compared the new 99xx with the 79xx processors. The 99xx is much better with thermal handling. For ex. T Junction of 7980xe is 94c while 9980xe is 84c and my 7940x is 102c while the 9940x 88c and the lower T Junction is visible across all variants. That 99xx is improved at least 10c or more in handling thermal while achieving 10 to 15% higher clock speed. How delided cpu's will perform is yet to be proved until someone report it in real world test.
Mcity

 

[kgp]

Just went through Intel product page and compared the new 99xx with the 79xx processors. The 99xx is much better with thermal handling. For ex. T Junction of 7980xe is 94c while 9980xe is 84c and my 7940x is 102c while the 9940x 88c and the lower T Junction is visible across all variants. That 99xx is improved at least 10c or more in handling thermal while achieving 10 to 15% higher clock speed. How delided cpu's will perform is yet to be proved until someone report it in real world test.
Mcity

I guess there is some basic misunderstanding? All i9-99xx are soldered and can't be delidded. Former discussions referred to a necessary but yet missing comparison between delidded i9-79xx and the new soldered i9-99xx. And that was also my initial question, will there be any noteworthy difference in the thermal performance between the actual delidded i9-79xx and the new soldered i9-99xx? Everything else is just obvious and expected.. you know what I mean?