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[SUCCESS] Triple boot | Gigabyte-Z170-HD3P | i7 6700K@4GHz | 32GB 2400MHz DDR4

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Dec 23, 2012
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Motherboard
Gigabyte Z170 HD3P
CPU
i7-6700K
Graphics
Pascal Titan X
Mac
  1. iMac
  2. MacBook Air
Classic Mac
  1. iMac
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
asiga's build:
Core i7-6700K@4GHz - GA-Z170-HD3P - 32GB RAM - HD530 - NVIDIA Pascal Titan X
Triple boot - OS X 10.11.6 + Windows 10 + Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

full

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Components:

Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel Z170 ATX DDR4 Motherboards GA-Z170-HD3P
(Note: the one with HDMI+DVI+VGA ports)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012N6LOZS

Intel Boxed Core I7-6700K 4.00 GHz 8M Processor Cache 4 LGA 1151 BX80662I76700K
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012M8LXQW

Zalman Copper CPU Cooling Fan CNPS10X OPTIMA
(Note: This cooler isn't listed as 1151-compatible but my local shop assured me it indeed is -it's working fine for me)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076NTAB4

2x Ballistix Sport LT 16GB Single DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) DIMM 288-Pin - BLS16G4D240FSE (Red)
(Note: Got just 2 of them because of a 3000€ budget limit, although my initial plan was getting 4 modules for 64GB)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DPSQPF2

NVIDIA Pascal Titan X
(Note: This card does not work in OS X for the moment, because of lack of drivers, but I needed it for GPGPU development in other OSs, through a multi boot installation)
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/10series/titan-x-pascal

Samsung 850 EVO - 500GB - 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD
(Note: System disk, for OS X)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OBRE5UE

WD Blue 6TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch
(Note: As secondary disk, for Windows, Ubuntu, and a 5TB storage partition for OS X)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013HNYVCE

Corsair RMi Series, RM1000i
(Note: You may think this is overkill, the Pascal Titan X recommended PSU is 600W, but getting it 1000W lets me run it passive most of the time)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YPNSQRW

Corsair Carbide Series 330R Titanium Edition Quiet Mid-Tower Case
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NJNDGFG

Bluetooth Adapter, (Broadcom BCM20702 chipset) UtechSmart USB Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy Micro Adapter
(Note: Cheap BT4 dongle that works OOB on OS X)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DDH4TYA

TP-LINK N900 2.4GHz or 5GHz up to 450Mbps Wireless Dual Band PCI Express Adapter for Windows (TL-WDN4800)
(Note: Building/getting the real native Airport card was too complicated for me, so I got this mainstream card that works OOB too, although without continuity)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GMPZ0A


Already owned:

Apple Wired Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
(Note: I always prefer it wired)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DPF08E

Apple Wireless Magic Trackpad
(Note: Works fine with the BT dongle listed above)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XLYAWC

Apple Wired Mouse
(Note: it's not easy to pair the Magic Trackpad in several OSs at the same time, so I use the mouse for Windows and Ubuntu, and the Trackpad for OS X)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002TLTH7K/


Comments:

My budget for this was 3000€, and I got it within budget (note that the Pascal Titan X costs 1310€ in Europe). I probably would have been able to raise it up to 4000€ if it was a genuine Apple Mac Pro, but unfortunately Apple doesn't currently offer a Mac with a GPU capable of the GPGPU performance that I need in this moment.

I followed this guide from littlegreen and it worked fine for me (including the boot bios entries bugfix, which scared me at first, but it worked fine): http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/updated-guide-gigabyte-z170-hd3p-10-11-5.182109/

The installation of OS X is straightforward if you follow that guide for this motherboard (HD3P).

As said above, this is a triple-boot machine. I could have done an OS X single boot box if Pascal drivers were available, but they aren't for the moment, so I'm running with the HD530 IGPU when on OS X, and with the Pascal Titan X when in Windows 10 or Ubuntu. You can read about details on how to do the GPU switch in this thread:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-1070.192399/

The installation of Windows 10 and Ubuntu was done in the secondary 6TB HDD, partitioned as GPT, using 200GB for Windows, 250GB for Ubuntu, and 64GB for Ubuntu-swap. This left about 5TB of spare space which I can use for storage in OS X.
IMPORTANT: If you also plan to use a secondary disk for storage, and you'll partition this disk from Windows or Ubuntu, don't forget that your EFI partition must be larger than 200MB for OS X to be able to format a partition as HFS+ (I had forgot this, and then had to resize the EFI partition, so I recommend to plan this in advance) --well, actually, I did more work than needed because I even didn't know that you couldn't create 5TB partitions on a MBR disk, so I first partitioned it as MBR, installed Windows and Ubuntu as MBR, then realized I needed GPT, found a guide for converting to GPT, and then I realized my 100MB EFI partition wasn't enough for creating the 5TB HFS+ partition in OS X --I would have saved all this work with a better planning in advance.

IMPORTANT: When installing Windows, or if you need to repair the Windows installation, always unplug the OS X drive first, otherwise Windows will likely perform undesired changes in your OS X drive. On the other hand, when installing Linux, it depends on the type of installation you're doing: If you choose a "friendly" installation, then it's wiser to unplug the OS X drive too. If you install it in an advanced way, and you're a GRUB guru, you don't need to unplug the OS X drive because Linux won't perform any change on any drive that you don't authorize it to do so.


What works:

- HD530 accelerated graphics in OS X, and with dual monitor (but I have to plug the secondary monitor after boot, otherwise the display gets corrupted because of current HD530 bugs in the OS X driver).
- TRIM in the 850 EVO (enabled after finishing the installation, and installed about 200GB of apps and files, without any corruption symptoms).
- WIFI, native, OOB.
- Bluetooth (with Magic Trackpad paired), native, OOB.
- Audio out.
- Audio in (both inputs seem to work, but with the option listed as "internal microphone" only).
- Shutdown.
- Restart.
- Display power saving (but sleep doesn't, just the monitors power saving works --see below).
- Power saving for the 6TB WD Blue HDD (it's a quiet disk, but I notice OS X switches it on if I use it after a time of inactivity).
- Temperature sensors (through HWMonitor --see the linked guide above).
- USB 3.0 ports, with USB 3.0 speed.
- USB older versions ports.


What does not work:

- Sleep (known bug in HD 530, see here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/skylake-hd530-sleeps-but-wont-wake.190929/
- The Pascal Titan X on OS X (lack of drivers for the moment).
- Continuity (I knew this in advance, as said at the components list, because I opted for the WDN-4800 and BT4 dongle instead of the real Airport replacement, which I found difficult to get/build).
- The second monitor cable must be unplugged from the PC when booting OS X, as said above, otherwise dual monitors won't work and the display can get corrupted. After booting, hot-plug the second monitor and it works.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Did you do anything special to get your ram to run at 2400Mhz instead of the default 2132Mhz? Or was this OOB behavior.

I have some G. Skill F4-2400C15-4GRR that only show up as 2132Mhz...
 
Hey, @asiga !

I need a little help, if possible. Since we're both on a very similar hardware - can you please upload your EFI folder? I sort of lost mine because of not backing up properly when swapping SSDs :(

Happy hacking!
littlegreen
 
asiga, which settings in the BIOS?

Hey, @asiga !

I need a little help, if possible. Since we're both on a very similar hardware - can you please upload your EFI folder? I sort of lost mine because of not backing up properly when swapping SSDs :(

Happy hacking!
littlegreen
Sorry, I completely missed your posts! It's been quite a few weeks! Do you still need this? Note that I'll be updating to Sierra very soon (I've halted my update plan because of work, not having spare time right now, and being curious about the 10.12.5 release date, but I'll update sometime in the coming weeks).
 
Thanks for the reply.

I did manage, however, not to just salvage my installation, but get everything apart from sleep working.

Actually, I don't know if it's working (on a 1070 atm) - because I never put my computer to sleep. I'll see if I can get it running and report back :)

Happy hacking!
littlegreen
 
I am going to install High Sierra on this motherboard in the next days.
Since I have to reach the same result (triple boot) and I have Windows 10 and Linux Mint already installed and working, I have a question: should I unplug the Win 10 and Linux HDD's during installation or not? (I will reserve an SSD for macOS.)
I do not want to mess up the other two os's which I need to be able to boot. But I am wondering how Clover is supposed to detect them if the HDD's are unplugged.
 
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