iMac Pro X299 - Live the Future now with macOS 10.14 Mojave [Successful Build/Extended Guide]

[kgp]

Back from Rome, quick update to 10.14.5 Public Beta on X99 with Radeon VII.

Native Radeon VII implementation, including Hardware Acceleration, Display HotPlug, multi-monitor support, DP/HDMI Audio and system sleep/wake on X99.

For further details, remarks and benchmark results see: post #671

EFI-X299-10.14.4-Release-iMacPro1,1-250319.zip also fully valid for 10.14.5 Public Betas.

There are Slot-1 and Slot-5 SSDT-X299-Radeon-VII.amls for the Deluxe and Sage 10G, respectively in the respective X299 SSDT Github repositories, yet to be successfully verified by somebody.

Enjoy and have fun,

 

[pieropontra]

Back from Rome, quick update to 10.14.5 Public Beta on X99 with Radeon VII.

Native Radeon VII implementation, including Hardware Acceleration, Display HotPlug, multi-monitor support, DP/HDMI Audio and system sleep/wake on X99.

For further details, remarks and benchmark results see: post #671

EFI-X299-10.14.4-Release-iMacPro1,1-250319.zip also fully valid for 10.14.5 Public Betas.

There are Slot-1 and Slot-5 SSDT-X299-Radeon-VII.amls for the Deluxe and Sage 10G, respectively in the respective X299 SSDT Github repositories.

Enjoy and have fun,

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Preliminary Radeon VII (EK-Vector Radeon VII RGB - Nickel + Acetal / Backplate) benchmarks. Looks very promising. Performance will definitely get better over time. (Memory MHz is displayed wrong or actually running slower by default FYI). It is running slower than the Vega FE under macOS, but that's fine it will get better. Windows is flying like butter.

As far as gaming in Windows, it's an incredible card and trades blows with the 2080 (from various internal tests with slight overclocking). It's not a 2080Ti level card, but it is a computational beast of a card that still has to be taken advantage of with the wide memory bandwidth (1TB/sec).

Premiere Pro performance (OpenCL > Metal) is very good, and it will get better. Did not have time for FCPX or Davinci Resolve tests (If anyone's interested I can do some).

Definitely worth every penny, took a while to install because the EK-Phoenix is semi-closed loop and it took a lot of draining and getting rid of the air bubbles to get it to a good/silent place so the pump is inaudible.

Overall very happy and looking forward for better performance in macOS.

Hope this helps anyone making a decision about this card (and/or watercooling)

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Oh Lord... LuxMark at 50K is pretty incredible! my Vega 64 LC @ 1800Mhz reaches just 29K !!! Anyway, to delete PowerTable from your SSDTs, is it sufficient to delete the code block related to using MaciASL?

 

[kgp]

Oh Lord... LuxMark at 50K is pretty incredible! my Vega 64 LC @ 1800Mhz reaches just 29K !!! Anyway, to delete PowerTable from your SSDTs, is it sufficient to delete the code block related to using MaciASL?

Sure..

 

[mm2margaret]

Back from Rome, quick update to 10.14.5 Public Beta on X99 with Radeon VII.

Native Radeon VII implementation, including Hardware Acceleration, Display HotPlug, multi-monitor support, DP/HDMI Audio and system sleep/wake on X99.

The 10.14.5 Beta 1, is a huge move forward!! 10.14.5 is going to be an epic macOS upgrade.......

 

[kgp]

New X299 10.14.5 Beta EFI-Folder distribution adding Radeon VII GPU Temp sensor information for iStatMenus.

EFI-X299-10.14.5-Beta-iMacPro1,1-050419.zip

1.) I just modified Kozlek/Interferenc FakeSMC/HWSensor source code distribution for adding Radeon VII GPU Temp sensor information and subsequently added new FakeSMC.kext and HWSensor.kexts to /EFI/Clover/kexts/Other. The new GPU Sensor kext should now support all Vegas and also the new Radeon VII, when using iStatMenus.

2.) Implementing Clover_v2.4k_r4918.

Enjoy and have fun,

 

[tonyarnold]

Based on the current user feedback for the ASUS WS X299 Sage 10G, yes. TTR HotPlug + Sleep/Wake.

It has been a while - how did the Sage fare? Do you know if it still requires the CSM enabled workaround for setups like mine? I'm still tossing up if $1K AUD is worth it for fixing an annoyance like this (pragmatically, no, I guess).

 

[izo1]

In case anyone needs this firmware for the Sonnet Solo10G, here it is. It has the AQC-107S chipset.

You will need the diag tool for flashing under Windows, which can be found here.

Hope this helps someone.

 

[kgp]

It has been a while - how did the Sage fare? Do you know if it still requires the CSM enabled workaround for setups like mine? I'm still tossing up if $1K AUD is worth it for fixing an annoyance like this (pragmatically, no, I guess).

I never used CSM in my life.

Still studying the TTR/Sage 10G behaviour.

a.) No problems concerning TB and USB-C HotPlug.

b.) System now also wakes without issues from sleep with TB2 Lacie Rugged 5TB HDD connected to the TTR via Apple's TB3 to TB2 adapter.

However:

c.) Dell Portable Thunderbolt 3 SSD 500GB ejected during sleep but can be reconnected after system wake via HotPlug.

d.) Biggest problem seems again LG5K2K when connected via the TTR. Black screen during boot after cold boot and black screen on system wake. Have to unplug/replug monitor power cable to make it work again after sleep.

To me c.) and d.) look like a firmware incompatibility issue between the LG5K2K and the TTR or Vega.

Everything else is working perfectly.

BTW.. I also invested 1.5K EUR to investigate this for the rest as the usual crash test dummy without having really the respective financial resources. Also note that any active contribution by anybody in solving remaining TTR issues would be highly appreciated.

 

[izo1]

Some further temperature testing with a watercooled Radeon VII on 100% load, if anyone's interested in results, see below.

In addition, Radeon VII supports 3840x1600 (and other resolutions) UEFI displays upon preboot. For example, the Clover menu fully displays at 3840x1600. Unlike the previous Vega Frontier Edition (RX Vega also was confirmed by others to have the same issue).

Also H264/H265 encoding are not available for now, which will be fixed I presume as we get closer to final builds of .5

Also some services like Amazon Prime Video are not working (HDCP) in Safari, and there is crackling sound from the DisplayPort audio side of things.

 

[vincek8s]

I never used CSM in my life.

Still studying the TTR/Sage 10G behaviour.

a.) No problems concerning TB and USB-C HotPlug.

b.) System now also wakes without issues from sleep with TB2 Lacie Rugged 5TB HDD connected to the TTR via Apple's TB3 to TB2 adapter.

However:

c.) Dell Portable Thunderbolt 3 SSD 500GB ejected during sleep but can be reconnected after system wake via HotPlug.

d.) Biggest problem seems again LG5K2K when connected via the TTR. Black screen during boot after cold boot and black screen on system wake. Have to unplug/replug monitor power cable to make it work again after sleep.

To me c.) and d.) look like a firmware incompatibility issue between the LG5K2K and the TTR or Vega.

Everything else is working perfectly.

BTW.. I also invested 1.5K EUR to investigate this for the rest as the usual crash test dummy without having really the respective financial resources. Also note that any active contribution by anybody in solving remaining TTR issues would be highly appreciated.

I've been also having sleep issues, apparently caused by GBE and only happening after updating to 10.14.4. I'm waiting for some new monitors to come up for thunderbolt, I'll gladly help debugging once I decide on one