The Hackintosh Thread

[lowendlinux]

Nice keyboard!

Thank you!

The case was something that I had to ask for as a gift and my bride sorta choked when I showed her the page with the price..

Yea it's sexy and I love it but I'm not going to do the math

 

[pastrychef]

I finally got my hackintosh completed. Specs are:

Asus Maximus VIII Gene
i7-6700K
64GB RAM
GTX 980
Solarflare 10GbE
Broadcom BMC94360CD
Apple 512GB SSUBX on M.2 adaptor
Silverstone KL06
Noctua heatsink and fans



The only issue I'm having is a sleep issue related to the wifi card. Otherwise, everything has been fantastic. 4900+ single core and 20K+ multi core Geekbench scores.

Power consumption vs my old 12 core Mac Pro 5,1 is:
Idle: ~64W vs ~170W
Internet surfing: ~70-100W vs ~ 210W
Full load: ~153W vs ~410W

Huge thanks to Stork and tonymacx86.com.

 

[navaira]

I'm having memory leaks causing reboot after wake every now and then. It's Gigabyte's fault judging by my research. I'll be investing in an ASUS MB in a while. For now I just switch the Hac off for the night.

 

[h9826790]

Is it possible to overclock a GPU in OS X? If so, how? If not, is it possible to overclock a GPU in Linux and flash the BIOS so the overclocking will work in OS X?

I don't know about Nvidia, but should be the same. On the AMD side, as long as you know how to mod the VBIOS and flash it back to the card. The GPU can be OC in OSX. Of course, as what you've said, you have to do the test, flash, etc in other OS.

 

[pastrychef]

I think I'm done transferring everything from my old Mac Pro to the hackintosh. I had problems transferring my Windows license and had to spend 2 hours on the phone with Microsoft... Anyways, let me explain some of my purchase decisions and some experiences.

I'm really loving this system. It's physically so much smaller than the Mac Pro and doesn't lose any functionality except for lack of optical drive which I never use anymore. The interior layout of the case is very similar to the Mac Pro in that (1) the huge CPU heatsink is sandwiched between 140mm intake and exhaust fans, (2) mid section has its own 120mm fan blowing right at the PCI-e slots, and (3) the top is where my drives and power supply are. I put in a hot plug backplane to make access of my 3.5" drives a breeze. I went with all Noctua fans and I think I made a good choice. I sit approx 3 feet away from the computer and can honestly say I can't hear it at all. From what I've read these are very high quality fans and should continue to perform well for years to come.

The motherboard I chose is mATX and only has three PCI-e slots but since the motherboard itself already has SATA 3, USB 3 (and 3.1), and M.2 SSD connector, I felt I could live with one fewer slot compared to the old Mac Pro. I went with Z170 and Skylake for its compatibility. Getting OS X installed was really very easy. I didn't even really do a clean install on my system. I cloned the drive from my Mac Pro, re-installed OS X on top of it using Unibeast, then ran Multibeast and did a few simple post installation steps and was done!

As I mentioned earlier, installing Windows was more challenging due to issues transferring my license. Fortunately, Microsoft support helped me resolve it and I have my "Bootcamp" drive in my new system. As I did on my old Mac Pro, I use the Bootcamp drive with VMware Fusion within OS X and I continue to do so now without any issues.

Looking ahead, I will enjoy not having to worry about boot screens and/or EFI firmwares for video cards anymore and the video cards themselves will no longer be bottlenecked. While I did spend a good amount cash to get this system together, if/when it comes time to upgrade motherboard/CPU, it should be far less expensive assuming I can reuse my case, power supply, fans, and maybe heatsink. As for upgrading to future OS X releases, I don't foresee any major problems seeing as how compatible Skylake is.

So far, the only incompatibility I've come across is hackintoshes' inability to play DRM protected videos purchased through iTunes. Fortunately, I don't own many and for the few that I do, I still have my iPads, my MacBook, and my AppleTV.

 

[Crosscreek]

I think I'm done transferring everything from my old Mac Pro to the hackintosh. I had problems transferring my Windows license and had to spend 2 hours on the phone with Microsoft... Anyways, let me explain some of my purchase decisions and some experiences.

I'm really loving this system. It's physically so much smaller than the Mac Pro and doesn't lose any functionality except for lack of optical drive which I never use anymore. The interior layout of the case is very similar to the Mac Pro in that (1) the huge CPU heatsink is sandwiched between 140mm intake and exhaust fans, (2) mid section has its own 140mm fan blowing right at the PCI-e slots, and (3) the top is where my drives and power supply are. I put in a hot plug backplane to make access of my 3.5" drives a breeze. I went with all Noctua fans and I think I made a good choice. I sit approx 3 feet away from the computer and can honestly say I can't hear it at all. From what I've read these are very high quality fans and should continue to perform well for years to come.

The motherboard I chose is mATX and only has three PCI-e slots but since the motherboard itself already has SATA 3, USB 3 (and 3.1), and M.2 SSD connector, I felt I could live with one fewer slot compared to the old Mac Pro. I went with Z170 and Skylake for its compatibility. Getting OS X installed was really very easy. I didn't even really do a clean install on my system. I cloned the drive from my Mac Pro, re-installed OS X on top of it using Unibeast, then ran Multibeast and did a few simple post installation steps and was done!

As I mentioned earlier, installing Windows was more challenging due to issues transferring my license. Fortunately, Microsoft support helped me resolve it and I have my "Bootcamp" drive in my new system. As I did on my old Mac Pro, I use the Bootcamp drive with VMware Fusion within OS X and I continue to do so now without any issues.

Looking ahead, I will enjoy not having to worry about boot screens and/or EFI firmwares for video cards anymore and the video cards themselves will no longer be bottlenecked. While I did spend a good amount cash to get this system together, if/when it comes time to upgrade motherboard/CPU, it should be far less expensive assuming I can reuse my case, power supply, fans, and maybe heatsink. As for upgrading to future OS X releases, I don't foresee any major problems seeing as how compatible Skylake is.

So far, the only incompatibility I've come across is hackintoshes' inability to play DRM protected videos purchased through iTunes. Fortunately, I don't own many and for the few that I do, I still have my iPads, my MacBook, and my AppleTV.

I'm doing the same thing this fall. I have my parts list together and just waiting on the Black Friday sales. The only difference for me is I'm making mine dual boot with Windows 10. I have been running Bootcamp with Parallels 11 but the problem is they charge an upgrade fee when a new OS X is introduced. I'm retired so I really don't use mine professionally and so it more of an entertainment system with some gaming. You have built a real nice system.

 

[scott.n]

I think I'm done transferring everything from my old Mac Pro to the hackintosh. I had problems transferring my Windows license and had to spend 2 hours on the phone with Microsoft... Anyways, let me explain some of my purchase decisions and some experiences.

I'm really loving this system. It's physically so much smaller than the Mac Pro and doesn't lose any functionality except for lack of optical drive which I never use anymore. The interior layout of the case is very similar to the Mac Pro in that (1) the huge CPU heatsink is sandwiched between 140mm intake and exhaust fans, (2) mid section has its own 140mm fan blowing right at the PCI-e slots, and (3) the top is where my drives and power supply are. I put in a hot plug backplane to make access of my 3.5" drives a breeze. I went with all Noctua fans and I think I made a good choice. I sit approx 3 feet away from the computer and can honestly say I can't hear it at all. From what I've read these are very high quality fans and should continue to perform well for years to come.

The motherboard I chose is mATX and only has three PCI-e slots but since the motherboard itself already has SATA 3, USB 3 (and 3.1), and M.2 SSD connector, I felt I could live with one fewer slot compared to the old Mac Pro. I went with Z170 and Skylake for its compatibility. Getting OS X installed was really very easy. I didn't even really do a clean install on my system. I cloned the drive from my Mac Pro, re-installed OS X on top of it using Unibeast, then ran Multibeast and did a few simple post installation steps and was done!

As I mentioned earlier, installing Windows was more challenging due to issues transferring my license. Fortunately, Microsoft support helped me resolve it and I have my "Bootcamp" drive in my new system. As I did on my old Mac Pro, I use the Bootcamp drive with VMware Fusion within OS X and I continue to do so now without any issues.

Looking ahead, I will enjoy not having to worry about boot screens and/or EFI firmwares for video cards anymore and the video cards themselves will no longer be bottlenecked. While I did spend a good amount cash to get this system together, if/when it comes time to upgrade motherboard/CPU, it should be far less expensive assuming I can reuse my case, power supply, fans, and maybe heatsink. As for upgrading to future OS X releases, I don't foresee any major problems seeing as how compatible Skylake is.

So far, the only incompatibility I've come across is hackintoshes' inability to play DRM protected videos purchased through iTunes. Fortunately, I don't own many and for the few that I do, I still have my iPads, my MacBook, and my AppleTV.

That's a really nice build. Makes me wish that I'd waited a little and built a Skylake system.

I also had the best results with just moving my existing Mac Pro drive to my hackintosh build and installing Clover on top of it.

As far as DRM protected videos (and also Netflix streaming), that's not really a "hackintosh" issue, is it? Don't Mac Pros with (unflashed?) NVIDIA cards have the same problem?

Does your onboard audio work correctly? Someday I intend to get mine working, but in the meantime I'm using a USB adapter.

 

[pastrychef]

That's a really nice build. Makes me wish that I'd waited a little and built a Skylake system.

I also had the best results with just moving my existing Mac Pro drive to my hackintosh build and installing Clover on top of it.

As far as DRM protected videos (and also Netflix streaming), that's not really a "hackintosh" issue, is it? Don't Mac Pros with (unflashed?) NVIDIA cards have the same problem?

Does your onboard audio work correctly? Someday I intend to get mine working, but in the meantime I'm using a USB adapter.

I wasn't entirely sure installing Clover on top would work. I just blindly gave it an shot. lol Clover is an amazing piece of software!

I don't know about the DRM videos and unfleshed cards. I've only ever tried with flashed cards.

Yes, onboard audio works. Multibeast has the drivers. I had a cheap USB audio adaptor on hand in the event I had any issues with audio but it works great and I never had to resort to using USB audio.

After I get a bit of rest, I'll be prepping my old Mac Pro for sale.

 

[dfritchie]

I migrated all my data after a few days of testing. Haven't touched the old Mac Pro in about a week now. The kids use it now

 

[navaira]

So far, the only incompatibility I've come across is hackintoshes' inability to play DRM protected videos purchased through iTunes.

Mine work (although I have no clue why ) I couldn't play Apple Music videos, but towards the end of the trial that started working too.

 

[pastrychef]

Mine work (although I have no clue why ) I couldn't play Apple Music videos, but towards the end of the trial that started working too.

Hmm... Interesting. I hope I get lucky too. lol

Btw, earlier, I tested AirPlay by streaming some Game of Thrones content from YouTube to my AppleTV in it worked perfectly.

 

[jblagden]

That's a really nice build. Makes me wish that I'd waited a little and built a Skylake system.

I also had the best results with just moving my existing Mac Pro drive to my hackintosh build and installing Clover on top of it.

As far as DRM protected videos (and also Netflix streaming), that's not really a "hackintosh" issue, is it? Don't Mac Pros with (unflashed?) NVIDIA cards have the same problem?

Does your onboard audio work correctly? Someday I intend to get mine working, but in the meantime I'm using a USB adapter.

Would DRM work if one monitor was plugged into integrated graphics and the other monitor is plugged into the graphics card?

 

[lowendlinux]

I watch a lot of Netflix and it works on with drive

 

[scott.n]

Just did some quick Netflix testing. In Safari, it doesn't play but asks me to install Silverlight. It plays in Chrome without issue. This is using the GTX 970, running 10.11.5.

The Silverlight prompt is DRM-related, I think. Netflix plays on my MacBook Air in Safari without Silverlight.

 

[jblagden]

Just did some quick Netflix testing. In Safari, it doesn't play but asks me to install Silverlight. It plays in Chrome without issue. This is using the GTX 970, running 10.11.5.

The Silverlight prompt is DRM-related, I think. Netflix plays on my MacBook Air in Safari without Silverlight.

You don't have Silverlight installed in Safari?

 

[scott.n]

You don't have Silverlight installed in Safari?

No.

 

[TheStork]

I think I'm done transferring everything from my old Mac Pro to the hackintosh. I had problems transferring my Windows license and had to spend 2 hours on the phone with Microsoft... Anyways, let me explain some of my purchase decisions and some experiences.

I'm really loving this system. It's physically so much smaller than the Mac Pro and doesn't lose any functionality except for lack of optical drive which I never use anymore. The interior layout of the case is very similar to the Mac Pro in that (1) the huge CPU heatsink is sandwiched between 140mm intake and exhaust fans, (2) mid section has its own 140mm fan blowing right at the PCI-e slots, and (3) the top is where my drives and power supply are. I put in a hot plug backplane to make access of my 3.5" drives a breeze. I went with all Noctua fans and I think I made a good choice. I sit approx 3 feet away from the computer and can honestly say I can't hear it at all. From what I've read these are very high quality fans and should continue to perform well for years to come.

The motherboard I chose is mATX and only has three PCI-e slots but since the motherboard itself already has SATA 3, USB 3 (and 3.1), and M.2 SSD connector, I felt I could live with one fewer slot compared to the old Mac Pro. I went with Z170 and Skylake for its compatibility. Getting OS X installed was really very easy. I didn't even really do a clean install on my system. I cloned the drive from my Mac Pro, re-installed OS X on top of it using Unibeast, then ran Multibeast and did a few simple post installation steps and was done!

As I mentioned earlier, installing Windows was more challenging due to issues transferring my license. Fortunately, Microsoft support helped me resolve it and I have my "Bootcamp" drive in my new system. As I did on my old Mac Pro, I use the Bootcamp drive with VMware Fusion within OS X and I continue to do so now without any issues.

Looking ahead, I will enjoy not having to worry about boot screens and/or EFI firmwares for video cards anymore and the video cards themselves will no longer be bottlenecked. While I did spend a good amount cash to get this system together, if/when it comes time to upgrade motherboard/CPU, it should be far less expensive assuming I can reuse my case, power supply, fans, and maybe heatsink. As for upgrading to future OS X releases, I don't foresee any major problems seeing as how compatible Skylake is.

So far, the only incompatibility I've come across is hackintoshes' inability to play DRM protected videos purchased through iTunes. Fortunately, I don't own many and for the few that I do, I still have my iPads, my MacBook, and my AppleTV.

Nice, concise write-up, which should be the core of your User Build Description. Not to take away from pastrychef's write-up, I've listed two of my Build Descriptions below for those interested in the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII Skylake motherboards which I highly recommend.

mATX: Stork's Gene Build > ASUS MAXIMUS VIII GENE - i5-6600K - Gigabyte GTX 950

ATX: Stork's MyHero Build: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO - i7-6700K - GTX 760

Note: the GTX 760 in MyHero build is a place holder for a GTX 1000 series card once Nvidia supports them in their web drivers or Apple supports them in Sierra.

So, like pastrychef, I'm going to see if I can sell my Mac Pro 3,1 or I will turn it into a case mod for either of the above systems.

 

[Crosscreek]

Note: the GTX 760 in MyHero build is a place holder for a GTX 1000 series card once Nvidia supports them in their web drivers or Apple supports them in Sierra.

I'm curious of your choice of ASUS over Gigabyte for the motherboards in these two builds.

I'm planning a build for this November and weighing all the options for it.

 

[jblagden]

No.

Why not install Silverlight to see if Netflix will work on a Hackintosh that has Silverlight? Also, are you able to play DRM-protected iTunes videos on your Hackintosh?

 

[TheStork]

I'm curious of your choice of ASUS over Gigabyte for the motherboards in these two builds.

I'm planning a build for this November and weighing all the options for it.

I was a long time user of Gigabyte motherboards. However, two guys at the tonymac86 site MacMan and Gordo74 convinced me to try an ASUS Skylake motherboard. So, after a little research, I chose the mATX ROG Maximus Gene for my first try. I'm very impressed with the Skylake ROG series BIOS, and, unlike previous years, the Skylake ROG series turned out to be easy-peasy to install El Capitan and have a successful hackintosh.

However, sometimes it's the little things that cause a person to chose one item over the other. As I wrote in my build descriptions, the ability to update the BIOS over the internet and/or by putting the BIOS on a USB thumb drive and pushing a button gets an 11 for convenience. Second on my list, is the case header removable plug so you don't have to enlist the neighborhood 4 year old with small hands to put the case Front Panel wires on with the motherboard header after it's installed in the case (and try to read that damn small print on the motherboard).

Eventually, I'm going to try OC'ing the HERO system. From my reading of the BIOS build in Tweaker capability outlined in the User Manual (yes, I read it!), OC'ing should be a piece of cake for even me.

So, it's a bunch of conveniences that add up. I know the ROG Maximus series is ASUS' top of the line, but...you know, I'm worth it.

 

[pastrychef]

I've never really own a real PC so I have zero experience with any of the motherboard manufacturers. What convinced me to go with Asus despite Gigabyte's reputation of being great for hackintosh was Stork's build description for his Maximus VIII Gene, the great reviews I read about that particular motherboard, and its automated overclocking abilities. Being a complete noob to building PCs, I figured anything that's "automated" would be good.

 

[ekwipt]

I successfully built and installed El Capitan 10.11.5 yesterday on a Gigabyte X99-E-SLI using an Intel Core i7 6800X Broadwell-E chip, I haven't seen many people on the forums around build one yet with Broadwell-E.

I'm a total noob in Hackintosh and used various guides, including one by the user TheStork a few posts above. Wil post some more details when I have time.

Looking to test if everything is working to full speed before I start installing programs.

Can anyone shed some light on some ways to test that the system, is running at full tilt without overclocking, I bought a cheap and silent graphics card until there's some drivers and comparison numbers on the new graphics cards from Nvidia and ATI, will be running FCPX, Motion, Compressor, Davinci Resolve and probably Adobe Apps down the track.

Very happy with the results so far!

 

[pastrychef]

Nice! I really wanted Broadwell-E but shied away from it since I read of so many others who had trouble getting their systems up and running.

For testing, I suggest queueing up a few videos for Handbrake to convert to high quality settings and let it run. Handbrake has no problems pegging all the CPU cores to 100%.

I look forward to reading more about your build!

 

[pastrychef]

I tried the Asus A.I. Suite and its auto tuning. First I turned off the a/c and let the summer heat up my apt to an uncomfortable 85F then ran the suite and it got my system up to 4.7GHz. Then I ran Handbrake for about an hour and a half and all seemed great.

 

[ekwipt]

I've noticed that my RAM isn't running at full speed, this is the first thing I will work on