The Hackintosh Thread

[dfritchie]

Mine has been rock solid for the last year, used apple broadcom based card. Went from El Cap to Sierra with no problems. Can't say the same for my old Mac Pro, it only runs Windows 10 Pro 64 bit now, El Cap is the last mac OS that can be made to run.

 

[garnerx]

I just upgraded my CPU cooler and managed to squeeze another 300 MHz out of it. I was previously using a Noctua C12, which was pretty good but probably designed for low profile cases. I've now got a Noctua D15, which is absolutely enormous - the size of two C12s stuck together. I managed to close the side of the case with a couple of microns to spare. All that to cool a bit of silicon the size of my thumbnail.

 

[pastrychef]

The Noctua coolers are amazing. I use an NH-D15S (asymmetrical version of the one you have) and I got 5.1GHz from my i7-7700K. Full load temps hit about 77C.

 

[garnerx]

Wow, I assume you delidded that one as well. My 3770K still flakes out above 4.6GHz, even with the giant cooler, but then it's not the greatest chip for overclocking. Full load temps are around 84C, and this with a slightly larger heatsink and two fans.

 

[pastrychef]

Yes, I delidded it. It idles at around 33C and maxes out at about 77C. It's about 3-4C hotter than my old 6700K (clocked at 4.8GHz) was across the board. That one topped out at about 74C.

I can't rave enough about the Coollaboartory Liquid Ultra. I used it between the CPU die and IHS and again between the IHS and the Noctua.

I never messed around much with the Ivy Bridge CPUs. I have an HP system that runs a 3770 (non-K) and the temps seem fine so I didn't bother trying to delid it. Are you using that Noctua with your i7-3770K?

 

[garnerx]

Yes, the Noctua is on the 3770K. I'm using Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut paste, which I got to see if it would improve the performance of my previous Noctua cooler. I didn't make any difference, but when I removed the cooler I noticed that the original paste hadn't spread across properly, I'd been using it for years with only about 70% contact. So maybe I'm just no good at spreading the paste. I was more careful to smooth it all over this time.

I've read that delidding becomes more difficult if you've already been running the CPU with a cooler clamped on top (like it seals the lid down much tighter). I was looking on Ebay to see if I could get a cheap 3770K as a backup, but they're not that much cheaper than when I bought it new.

 

[pastrychef]

I've also tried Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut before and the difference between the Gelid GC Extreme that I had been using was pretty much nonexistent.

I never knew that delidding CPUs that were already in use is more difficult. Thanks for the info.

 

[garnerx]

To be fair it's only in the thread below that they said it was hard to remove after use, and it may be because of the type of cooler they used (see posts 15 and 19).
http://www.overclock.net/t/1280584/project-3770k-de-lid-and-apply-liquid-pro-also-lapped/10

Anyway, it's not likely to happen for me unless the price of a replacement 3770K drops significantly. The GPUs I bought at the same time went for peanuts last year, I suppose it's an indication of how little progress there's been in CPUs.

 

[pastrychef]

Interesting. I would imagine that pressing the IHS down and reducing the gap between CPU die and IHS would be a good thing and help temperatures, but I guess it still doesn't help the fact that the thermal compound doesn't transfer heat well.

Yes, especially for gaming, the Ivy Bridge CPUs still manage to do very well even when compared to more modern CPUs. There has been far more drastic advancements in GPUs.

 

[JamesPDX]

So... Asus os AsRock. Thunderbolt required. I'd build a Thunderbolt 2 system if I could find the parts.

UAD Apollo, Pro Tools 12, and Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 going on here...

 

[pastrychef]

I've only used an Asus motherboard for hackintosh. I was very impressed with the quality and appreciate the overclocking tools that Asus has. I've enjoyed very good compatibility with the board I have. El Capitan, Sierra, and the High Sierra beta all work great.

I don't have any first hand experiences with Thunderbolt on hackintoshes, so I don't want to rely any incorrect info...

 

[Synchro3]

My latest construct. i7-7700K, AsRock Fatal1ty Z270 gaming-itx/ac, DDR 4 2400 MHz.

Noctua CPU cooler not that big, but the GTX 1080 Ti with water cooling (Alphacool Eiswolf 120 GPX Pro M02):

 

[You are the One]

Cool stuff.

 

[pastrychef]

My latest construct. i7-7700K, AsRock Fatal1ty Z270 gaming-itx/ac, DDR 4 2400 MHz.

Noctua CPU cooler not that big, but the GTX 1080 Ti with water cooling (Alphacool Eiswolf 120 GPX Pro M02):

View attachment 710667 View attachment 710668

Nice!

Check to see if the Wifi card is using Broadcom chipset. If not, you can probably replace it with a Dell DW1830 to get AirPort functionality. That's assuming its an M.2 card.

 

[Drag'nGT]

I hear a lot of varying conversation about GPUs in the Hackintosh community. I have heard repeatedly that Apple codes FCP (iMovie & Photos too?) to work best with AMD graphics (QuickSync?). Hence why I see render times on older machines that rival builds I've found with a 7700k and NVIDIA cards. But, there are many Apple machines that have NVIDIA graphics. And did I hear correctly that the NVIDIA 10series of cards will be in the next MacPro?

So what gives? What is the more precise answer? Thanks!

 

[JamesPDX]

My latest construct. i7-7700K, AsRock Fatal1ty Z270 gaming-itx/ac, DDR 4 2400 MHz.

Noctua CPU cooler not that big, but the GTX 1080 Ti with water cooling (Alphacool Eiswolf 120 GPX Pro M02):

View attachment 710667 View attachment 710668

Nice. Is Thunderbolt working for you?

 

[pastrychef]

I hear a lot of varying conversation about GPUs in the Hackintosh community. I have heard repeatedly that Apple codes FCP (iMovie & Photos too?) to work best with AMD graphics (QuickSync?). Hence why I see render times on older machines that rival builds I've found with a 7700k and NVIDIA cards. But, there are many Apple machines that have NVIDIA graphics. And did I hear correctly that the NVIDIA 10series of cards will be in the next MacPro?

So what gives? What is the more precise answer? Thanks!

My understanding is that FCPX works better with AMD video cards. Period. That's not to say you won't get acceleration from Nvidia cards in FCPX, but it's just better with an AMD card.

I have not heard of any significant differences in iMovie or Photos using AMD or Nvidia.

If the app you use is heavily dependent on GPU, find out which GPUs work best with the apps you use.

While AMD holds the advantage for FCPX usage, Nvidia holds the advantage with other apps, specifically apps that make use of Cuda and Adobe apps. This plus the fact that, currently, Nvidia cards generally work a little better in hackintoshes, is probably why you see lots of hackintoshes using Nvidia.

I have not read of or seen any indication that 10-series Nvidia cards will be included with the next Mac Pro.

 

[JamesPDX]

I hear a lot of varying conversation about GPUs in the Hackintosh community. I have heard repeatedly that Apple codes FCP (iMovie & Photos too?) to work best with AMD graphics (QuickSync?). Hence why I see render times on older machines that rival builds I've found with a 7700k and NVIDIA cards. But, there are many Apple machines that have NVIDIA graphics. And did I hear correctly that the NVIDIA 10series of cards will be in the next MacPro?

So what gives? What is the more precise answer? Thanks!

IDK about the next gen mMP, but know that DaVinci Resolve -even the free one with editing and built-in Fairlight audio is GPU and OS agnostic as long as it's AMD or NVIDIA and Mac, Windows, Linux. You could build a Linux machine just for video and stick 8 GPUs in there and have a real beast. It would be louder than an iPad Pro, but you could work with any professional format and export the same. It's quite possibly the Avid/FCPX/Premiere killer. Check it out with the exotic aspect ratios. See Open Gate format.

So here's the thing: If I were building a machine just for video, I'd build a big-ass Linux box with 8 identical video cards in there so I could just crush projects instead of staring at BIOS screens and/or spinning beachballs. And you can just use 32-bit cards, you don't need 64-bit GPUs for DaVinci. And that's great news if you're a video editor.

 

[kwikdeth]

My understanding is that FCPX works better with AMD video cards. Period. That's not to say you won't get acceleration from Nvidia cards in FCPX, but it's just better with an AMD card.

I have not heard of any significant differences in iMovie or Photos using AMD or Nvidia.

If the app you use is heavily dependent on GPU, find out which GPUs work best with the apps you use.

While AMD holds the advantage for FCPX usage, Nvidia holds the advantage with other apps, specifically apps that make use of Cuda and Adobe apps. This plus the fact that, currently, Nvidia cards generally work a little better in hackintoshes, is probably why you see lots of hackintoshes using Nvidia.

I have not read of or seen any indication that 10-series Nvidia cards will be included with the next Mac Pro.

Precisely this post. it comes down to what you're using. Apple has FCP, which makes extensive use of OpenCL frameworks for its graphics acceleration. AMD is far better with OpenCL on the mac than Nvidia. Nvidia has their own competing system, CUDA, which is supported more by Adobe products.

One reason you dont see better AMD support in Hackintoshes is that most of the AMD parts being used in Macs are custom. There is no PC equivalent to the Dx00 series used in Mac Pros, even though they are more or less functionally identical to the 7xx0/R9-2x0 series cards. This causes all kinds of headaches to get them working for Hackintoshes due to small variations in the product line. Nvidia doesnt segment their product line like that, so this is why generally support is good... if they make one chipset out of a family work, they all work. So say for example if one Mac ships with a GTX650, most anything out of the 6x0 and 7x0 lines will work because those are (mostly) all just variations of the same GPU with more or less cores and shader units enabled. Even the Titan is basically just a very souped up version of the current top of the line consumer GPU with ECC memory added.

 

[sevoneone]

My understanding is that FCPX works better with AMD video cards. Period. That's not to say you won't get acceleration from Nvidia cards in FCPX, but it's just better with an AMD card.

I have not heard of any significant differences in iMovie or Photos using AMD or Nvidia.

If the app you use is heavily dependent on GPU, find out which GPUs work best with the apps you use.

While AMD holds the advantage for FCPX usage, Nvidia holds the advantage with other apps, specifically apps that make use of Cuda and Adobe apps. This plus the fact that, currently, Nvidia cards generally work a little better in hackintoshes, is probably why you see lots of hackintoshes using Nvidia.

I have not read of or seen any indication that 10-series Nvidia cards will be included with the next Mac Pro.

Pretty much this.

If your goal is to build a solid FCPX workstation, find two R9-270X or 280X cards for cheap. They should drop in and work out of the box and make Final Cut very happy. My current hackintosh is an overclocked Sandy Bridge with a single R9-270X and 24GB of RAM. Final Cut is very fast working with 720p and 1080p content, ok with light 3k/4k work. It seems adding a second card is what makes the biggest difference in FCPX even over getting a higher specced card. I have used another hack that was Haswell with dual R9-280X and the 4k experience was much better. Much more than the difference between a single 270X and single 280X.

However, if your primary use is anything other than FCPX or Motion, your best bet is to probably buy the best Nvidia card you can afford

 

[Synchro3]

Nice. Is Thunderbolt working for you?

Not yet. But I will try a special UEFI for the ASRock Z270 this weekend.

So far the Hackintosh with i7-7700K is better than a native iMac 2017 with i7-7700K (CPU):

GTX 1080 Ti not overclocked.

Geekbench 4 CPU (no OC): https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/3905497
Geekbench 4 OpenCL: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1081327
Geekbench 4 Metal: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1081348
Geekbench 4 CUDA:https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/compute/1081354

And the Intel HD 630 is working too (Metal):


CUDA_Z:

 

[JamesPDX]

Wow! Two questions:

1. Did you build a i7 6700K series before this one?
2. If so, is the performance boost (and reported heat boost) worth it over the i7 6700's? Or are you just running benchmarks so far?

 

[Synchro3]

1. This is my first Hackinthosh, so no 6700K build before. But the clover installation should be largely the same as with the i7-7700K. I followed this guide for the ASRock Z270 board (except the installation of FAKEPCIID.kext, no more needed in 10.12.6 with Kaby Lake CPU's): http://hackintosher.com/builds/asrock-fatal1ty-z270-hackintosh-build-guide/

2. For everyday tasks (internet browsing, MS Office etc) you won't notice any difference between a Hackintosh and an older Mac Pro 4,1/5,1. But if you use OpenCL/CUDA/OpenGL a Hackintosh with a GTX 1080 Ti pulls away from older machines.

Geekbench just makes comparisons easier, respectively is a good indication.

 

[robo456]

1. This is my first Hackinthosh, so no 6700K build before.

Hey Synchro!

I've been out of the scene for quite a while (last one was a C2D!). My main PC is about ready for an upgrade so I was going to buy components that were compatible with both Windows and Apple... I usually read up on tony's website, but that hackintosher looks pretty good too.

My question, if I was going to have 2 SSD's, one for Windows, one for Apple, will that be an issue (like do I need to flash the bios anymore, etc etc, or is it pretty much use clover to select which drive to boot off of?)

Thanks!
--rob

 

[Synchro3]

My question, if I was going to have 2 SSD's, one for Windows, one for Apple, will that be an issue (like do I need to flash the bios anymore, etc etc, or is it pretty much use clover to select which drive to boot off of?)

Thanks!
--rob

No issue with multiple drives with different systems, I've installed first Windows 7 and Windows 10 each on a SSD.

I installed in my Mac Pro (the easiest way) macOS Sierra on a SSD, then the Nvidia web drivers, then I installed Clover EFI Bootloader on the EFI partition of the Sierra-SSD. I mounted the EFI partition with Clover Configurator and replaced the folders in the EFI-partition with ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 EFI, and activated the Nvidia web drivers (in Clover under 'Sections' check 'nvda_drv=1').

Then I updated some files according this guide: http://hackintosher.com/guides/updating-hackintosh-sierra-10-12-6/

Only then I installed the SSD in the PC, macOS up and running.