Finger hovering over a 10k Mac Pro..... or a 3970X

[Gr1f]

Whatever about the MacPro 7,1... yes, it's mad money, yes, the base model specs are a joke and by the time you spec anything like a real world requirement you're up to 10k with an host load of 3rd party bits like M.2 x 4 cards, SSD cards, Ram etc. My current BTO is up to just under 10k. Add to this the fact that the Apple will probably come out with an M1 version of the MacPro in a year or so.... it's even harder to justify.

I've been reading and watching a LOT of content on an AMD based Hackintosh and so very tempted. My one concern is I guess down to reliability. I can imagine a day I need to pump some work out and something breaks. That said I do have a Backup MacBookPro.

I work primarily with core Adobe Products, PShop, Illy, Indesign, After Effects. Then Cinema 4d with Arnold Render and Sketch and the usual comms/browsers.

So here's the spec I'm thinking of

Part List - AMD Threadripper 3970X, Radeon Pro VII, Fractal Design Define R6 ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

Part List - AMD Threadripper 3970X, Radeon Pro VII, Fractal Design Define R6 ATX Mid Tower

uk.pcpartpicker.com

AMD Threadripper 3970X
MSI TRX40 board
G.Skill Trident Z RGB 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-4000 CL18 Memory
2 x Sabrent Rocket 4.0 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
AMD Radeon Pro VII 16 GB Video Card
Fractal Design Define R6 ATX Mid Tower Case
Corsair AXi 1600 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Some sort of Wifi/Bluetooth card?

Convince me?

 

[Aluveitie]

If you rely on Adobe products for professional work I would consider using virtualization with KVM when going with AMD instead of bare metal.
Adobe uses Intel specific instructions which have to be patched, and with the latest versions that got harder as they sign their libs. With virtualization you don't have those issues. For a start you can look here: https://github.com/Pavo-IM/Proxintosh

 

[kn225]

consider using virtualization with KVM when going with AMD instead of bare metal

This.

I have a baremetal 3950X and recently patches on MTRR made me realize that even though things "work", there may always be something lurking we haven't found. In that case, GPU performance was affected and I could tell some parts of the OS were not so smooth until that patch came out and suddenly that "weirdness" goes away.

For example, I have an Arctis 7 and Rival 500. I did not find a way to make the Steelseries Engine detect those on Hackintosh. Under KVM, it works out of the bat. Just another example of things that don't work as you expect until you try it. Also on USB there is "overload" of the bus or whatever it is if I move the mouse in circles fast. The mouse lags behind. Despite my attempts to fix it, another little problem that I don't have with the KVM.

Also, if you KVM you can always upgrade your hardware in any way you want and the passthrough to the VM will take care of any compatibility. For example, I can upgrade to a 5950X without a concern because KVM will take care of it.

Your mileage may vary and maybe my Hackintosh is just missing something, but it is not as if I haven't put over 50 hours on this thing and it is still not perfect.

Now, with that said, there is a learning curve and effort to put the KVM together. PCI passthrough is a must and you will want a second GPU no matter how terrible it is just to allow the passthrough of the main GPU. Also I would recommend HD passthrough if you can.

In my case my KVM receives GPU, Bluetooth / Wifi controller, USB headset.

But once done, KVM works just like the Hackintosh with the advantages of snapshots before OS upgrades, etc.

I use my hack every day, but the constant headaches after upgrades start to be boring, and not 100% compatibility. Is there a penalty? Yes, a bit on processing and close to none on the PCI passthrough devices.

One more thing, I would steer away from Proxmox or other extra overly complicated VM managers. You don't need all of that. Just get a good up to date linux distro, I downloaded Debian, but Ubuntu or whichever one you choose should work just fine. My tests were with kernel 5.9.

By the way, if you go that route there several methods to prevent modules from loading to the devices you want to pass to the VM. I would suggest "pre:" requirement for the main modules noting "vfio_pci" as a prerequisite on modprobe.d.

GL

 

[rajovo]

Omg I'm so tempted by KVM. Do you think After Effects and FCPX would work okay in KVM on 3900x, RX 580 and 64 GB RAM?

I have skimmed through the aforementioned link and I just don't understand how can GPU performance in KVM be higher than bare metal. Can you please elaborate?

 

[Gr1f]

As much as I would really like the challenge of building a Hackintosh and seeing just how fast that CPU is I'm coming to the conclusion that "it just works" will outweigh any desire to screw a bunch of hardware together and futz around with opencore.

I'm gonna push the Apple button for now. In a few months, I'll start collecting the bits for a self-build if even to use as a render box, that on it's own would save me a ton of hassle. Mind you, then you start thinking about GPU / Nvidia.... that's another day's discussion.