pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i9-9900K + AMD 6600 XT

[pastrychef]

Hi, there @pastrychef.....hope you are doing well......I have a question about a Vega 56 and liquid metal, and I thought you might have some insight.

So, as part of my upgrade to the Radeon VII, I sold my two Sapphire Nitro Vega 64s and purchased a used Vega 56. I didn't pay much, and in testing it, I can tell it's been modded with the Vega 64 bios. That's fine with me as I planned to do that anyway. I can always switch it back to the stock bios if I want (that wonderful little switch in the back of it).

The performance is really decent (a very pleasant surprise). However, even at idle, it runs a bit hot. Not awful, but just hotter than I would think given it's just sitting there (45 degrees, when it's doing nothing). So, I'm wondering about applying liquid metal to it.

Which leads me to two questions:

1. Did you see a large temperature drop after the liquid metal application on your Vega 56?

2. In applying LM, do you apply it to both the GPU and the heatsink/ihs? Because in the past, when I did CPU paste, I always put it only on the CPU. But I'm under the impression that to properly apply liquid metal, applying to both the processor unit and the heatsink covering it is the proper way to do it. Is that correct?

For idle temps, I don't think the liquid metal does much. I think that how your fan is set and how the core and HBM are clocked matter more. I currently have my fan set to be ~800rpm during idle and my temps sit around 42C which equates to ~108F. I don't think that's too bad considering my CPU sits around ~35-36C which equates to 95-97C and it has a much larger heatsink and two big fans.

To me, the important thing is how temperatures are under load. To really maximize performance on the Vega cards, it's very important to prevent them from throttling. I did lots of trial and error testing to try to keep temps under 80C when running Heaven and/or Valley benchmarks. For this, the liquid metal seemed to help quite a bit. I noticed that fans didn't have to work as hard to achieve the same temps and the temps dropped back down faster after applying the liquid metal.

Early on, users used Vega 64 firmware to try and improve Vega 56 performance. The reason it helped was that it allowed users to increase the power limits beyond what was allowed on stock Vega 56 firmware. However, as time progressed, people began to realize that undervolting resulting in better performance and thermals. On my card, I went from a stock 1200mV down to 1010mV. Then, I overclocked my HBM to 920MHz. This resulted in really, really good performance. Better than most stock Vega 64s.

Please try my VGTab kext to see how it performs and how temps are...

 

[mm2margaret]

Please try my VGTab kext to see how it performs and how temps are...

Of course, thanks for the quick reply and the kext.

However, well, I wouldn't use this on 10.14.5 Beta 5......In luxmark 3, fans at 4200 rpm....that seems a bit high. Temps were in the 80s. With the built-in drivers of 10.14.5, fans top out at ~2400 rpm and temps at ~84...

 

[pastrychef]

Of course, thanks for the quick reply and the kext.

However, well, I wouldn't use this on 10.14.5 Beta 5......In luxmark 3, fans at 4200 rpm....that seems a bit high. Temps were in the 80s. With the built-in drivers of 10.14.5, fans top out at ~2400 rpm and temps at ~84...

It sounds like some liquid metal will help. Lol

When applying the liquid metal, use some nail polish on the tiny little components that surround the GPU and HBM dies. If you look closely, you can see I did the same on my card. This will prevent catastrophe if the liquid metal makes contact with them.

 

[mrB0nes]

Thank you very much for making my first Hackintosh running in no time, you guys really convinced me to give it a try and I really love it! Very helpful community, too.

pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) - i7-8700K i9-9900K - AMD Vega 56 build
View attachment 298038View attachment 360742​

...

A special thank you to @eliyu for fixing the problem with high spinning fans

Yea good point. I will try this kext for some time. BTW I made a mistake that the kexts I upload last time had max TDP set to 80%. I will attach one below with Max TDP set to 150%.

 

[mm2margaret]

"...However, well, I wouldn't use this on 10.14.5 Beta 5......In luxmark 3, fans at 4200 rpm...."

It sounds like some liquid metal will help. Lol

Yes, well, I'v been wanting a hovercraft for quite a while, but not when it's my computer....

 

[pastrychef]

Yes, well, I'v been wanting a hovercraft for quite a while, but not when it's my computer....

Lol.

It's not quite like using water cooling... If the amount of liquid metal applied is thin enough, it should not "leak". When applying liquid metal, if you see any sort of "ponding", you have way too much!

Also, I have found that liquid metal tends to adhere to itself... For example, if you put two drops of it on a plate and pushed it together, it would ball up in to a single drop rather than spread out.

If liquid metal is too risky for your taste, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is a good second choice. It should still be better than any OEM thermal compound.

 

[snoopy69]

Hi,
..and for some time now that I have not tried Sleep/Wake and I found out it doesn't work, only the monitor turns off.
I tried with pmset -g assertions but I can't understand the problem.

2019-05-11 17:41:20 +0200
Assertion status system-wide:
   BackgroundTask                 0
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   UserIsActive                   1
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    0
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   ExternalMedia                  0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     0
   NetworkClientActive            0
Listed by owning process:
   pid 94(hidd): [0x000005ae00098385] 00:00:00 UserIsActive named: "com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle.4294969046.3"
    Timeout will fire in 60 secs Action=TimeoutActionRelease
Kernel Assertions: 0x10c=USB,BT-HID,MAGICWAKE
   id=502  level=255 0x4=USB mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14200000 owner=HD Webcam C525
   id=503  level=255 0x100=MAGICWAKE mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=en0 owner=en0
   id=504  level=255 0x100=MAGICWAKE mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=en1 owner=en1
   id=505  level=255 0x8=BT-HID mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=com.apple.driver.IOBluetoothHIDDriver owner=Logitech Bluetooth HID Driver for K760
   id=506  level=255 0x4=USB mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14600000 owner=2.4G Receiver
Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler

 

[pastrychef]

Hi,
..and for some time now that I have not tried Sleep/Wake and I found out it doesn't work, only the monitor turns off.
I tried with pmset -g assertions but I can't understand the problem.

2019-05-11 17:41:20 +0200
Assertion status system-wide:
   BackgroundTask                 0
   ApplePushServiceTask           0
   UserIsActive                   1
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep    0
   PreventSystemSleep             0
   ExternalMedia                  0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep     0
   NetworkClientActive            0
Listed by owning process:
   pid 94(hidd): [0x000005ae00098385] 00:00:00 UserIsActive named: "com.apple.iohideventsystem.queue.tickle.4294969046.3"
    Timeout will fire in 60 secs Action=TimeoutActionRelease
Kernel Assertions: 0x10c=USB,BT-HID,MAGICWAKE
   id=502  level=255 0x4=USB mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14200000 owner=HD Webcam C525
   id=503  level=255 0x100=MAGICWAKE mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=en0 owner=en0
   id=504  level=255 0x100=MAGICWAKE mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=en1 owner=en1
   id=505  level=255 0x8=BT-HID mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=com.apple.driver.IOBluetoothHIDDriver owner=Logitech Bluetooth HID Driver for K760
   id=506  level=255 0x4=USB mod=01/01/70, 01:00 description=com.apple.usb.externaldevice.14600000 owner=2.4G Receiver
Idle sleep preventers: IODisplayWrangler

Does it sleep at all?

 

[snoopy69]

The computer is always on, only the monitor turns off. I tried turning off the keyboard and mouse, but that doesn't seem to be the problem.

 

[pastrychef]

The computer is always on, only the monitor turns off. I tried turning off the keyboard and mouse, but that doesn't seem to be the problem.

Please post your EFI folder.