Z690 Chipset Motherboards and Alder Lake CPU

[ori69]

There is a v.4 of the starting point EFI folder, with only minor changes.
Since the iGPU is not supported, SMBIOS should be either iMacPro1,1 or MacPro7,1.
It is still not clear whether the USB 3 issue comes from iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS or from using OpenCore DEBUG (to dump ACPI tables at the first boot). @CaseySJ reported issues with MacPro7,1, and the need to disable UsbInjectAll. So you may contribute here by trying different options…
My suggestion is to switch to OpenCore RELEASE after the first boot, disable UsbInjectAll, install Catalina (so XhciPortLimit quirk works) and map USB from there with CorpNewt's USBMap too or Hackintool.

OpenCore Debug had a problem with SMBIOS, so we changed to 0.7.5-Release.

 

[wxz8506]

There is a v.4 of the starting point EFI folder, with only minor changes.
Since the iGPU is not supported, SMBIOS should be either iMacPro1,1 or MacPro7,1.
It is still not clear whether the USB 3 issue comes from iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS or from using OpenCore DEBUG (to dump ACPI tables at the first boot). @CaseySJ reported issues with MacPro7,1, and the need to disable UsbInjectAll. So you may contribute here by trying different options…
My suggestion is to switch to OpenCore RELEASE after the first boot, disable UsbInjectAll, install Catalina (so XhciPortLimit quirk works) and map USB from there with CorpNewt's USBMap too or Hackintool.

Use your V4 boot file to boot from EFI file. After displaying the first picture, the progress bar of the second picture is always suspended here in EB log: Exits: start

 

[CaseySJ]

Use your V4 boot file to boot from EFI file. After displaying the first picture, the progress bar of the second picture is always suspended here in EB log: Exits: start

The first screenshot indicates that you may have used an incompatible version of OpenCore Configurator. Please check that the title bar says 0.7.5 Release Version as shown:

 

[wxz8506]

The first screenshot indicates that you may have used an incompatible version of OpenCore Configurator. Please check that the title bar says 0.7.5 Release Version as shown:
View attachment 534208

At first, version 0.7.6 was used, and then it was changed to version 0.7.5. Reopen the configuration file in the V4 folder and modify it. The progress card is in EB log: Exits: start. Where is my BIOS setting or operation wrong?

 

[CaseySJ]

Congratulations and thank you for sharing !! would love to know if :
- The thunderbolt is working with hot plug
- Is it possible to have temp reading for the GPU and CPU with this build ? Using for ex I stat menus? with my Radeon VII I was able to get temp for the gpu until Catalina. I failed to get it with big sur..

Great work !! I am sure lot of people are waiting your update

Just woke up and eager to continue the work!

I owe everyone some more details:

• GC-Titan Ridge and GC-Maple Ridge have not yet been tested. They are on the agenda, but USB port mapping is first priority.
• I will install various CPU/GPU/Sensor monitoring apps. However, we have already seen that vit9696 (Acidanthera) is modifying OpenCore for Alder Lake. I suspect VirtualSMC may need some modifications as well.
• Currently all P-Cores and all E-Cores are enabled, and Hyper Threading is disabled.
• XhciPortLimit kernel quirk is indeed broken in Big Sur 11.6. Disabling XhciPortLimit and enabling USBInjectAll shows the first 15 ports.
  • This suggests that removing some HSxx ports might make SSxx ports visible (total of 15).
• Fenvi FV-T919 is also not yet installed. I wanted to test on-board Intel WiFi 6 / Bluetooth 5.2. But current OpenIntelWireless drivers are misbehaving in Big Sur. Will re-test on Monterey soon.
• Also ready to install Windows 11 this morning -- will work on this to map USB ports. So much pressure from this thread to Just do It on Windows.

Plan is to spend the weekend to find and fix problems - get as many issues sorted out as possible - then begin work on the build guide. The more problems we encounter, the better, because that will help with the Troubleshooting section.

 

[CaseySJ]

At first, version 0.7.6 was used, and then it was changed to version 0.7.5. Reopen the configuration file in the V4 folder and modify it. The progress card is in EB log: Exits: start. Where is my BIOS setting or operation wrong?

Check BIOS --> Boot --> CFG-Lock. It must be set to Disabled.

 

[Middleman]

Happy to see progress. When I put a 10900 together last spring, this Alder Lakr setup was on my radar, but too many variables to wait.

I truly think that @CaseySJ kit looks amazing. Great stuff.

And I also expect to see a Apple Mini come on its heels to race it around the block... and maybe win (not counting that beast of GPU)

Let me play devil's advocate like the old crank that I am...

As we see, DDR5 is still the future, PCI5 is still the future, IO performance here is maybe more than a simple increment, or maybe not. The GPU is backwards compatible with lots of other kit so while it's a powerhouse it's also nothing special about this board/CPU. (As to how effective 3rd party GPUs are to Mac-specific workloads this is a complex topic that deserves its own thread) The Alder Lake i9 multicore at best (where best is likely forever unreachable in macOS garb) is in league with last gens XE (eg i9-10980XE) so nowhere near a break-thru. Further, is there any reason to expect Apple will ever support Neural Engine apps on new Intel AVX? Alder Lake onboard GPU prolly will also never help apps that benefit from Apple Media Engine.

So while the Alder Lake Estates are a big architectural dressy, modern looking facility, there's gotta be the realization sinking in that it might be simply a retirement home where fruit-cup is the order of the day's joys.

Plus, everybody who stays at Apple Estates these days, old or young, faces a door with a keypad on the inside accessible only to staff to keep users from going outside where they might run in front of a car or trip over a curb and break a hip. I'm not putting this down per se, modern web traffic is worse than old Mexico City!

This AL/z690 is also top dollar Intel gear; not a bargain by any stretch.

Add these points to what we now know that there's no longer any comparison of Intel Kit to Apple-Si regarding what makes a Mac a Mac... and Mac performance gains will continue to swing in favor of Apple-Si.

So what's going on? Just blowing $$ for the bragging rights?

Or am I a jaded naysayer with an attitude problem who can't stand to see others happy and by next spring this kit will be in new iMacs and providing a benchmark for content creator enthusiasts price/performance?

Yours, grouchily

I mean I get what you mean on some of the points, but somehow I think you're missing the point here...

First, nobody wants to be stuck in a walled garden. And the M1 Macs, as fast as they may be, are unfortunately that. They are targeted to a specific buyer, are part of the Apple ecosystem and will always remain that. It is architecturally, incompatible with everything else. Just ask how many users plan to run Windows or Linux on it.
The moment Apple stops supporting the M1 Macs is the day they are done. And from what I've known about Apple over the years is they will abandon you at some point.

Second nobody wants pay the Apple tax (least of all myself) for goods of similar performance. The reason why I go the hackintosh route is for a number of reasons. First is the cost - I can find faster and better performing gear for the same cost as an Apple Mac. Second, I do enjoy upgrading and the tinkering with my PC gear that I cannot do on Apple gear. By comparison, proper Apple gear is very expensive to buy and maintain. I'll give you an example. I knew someone who earlier this year had accidentally split a glass of wine onto their Macbook whilst working at home. Thinking that it could be recovered by simply removing their SSD hard drive, they were told by the Apple Genius Bar the drive couldn't be opened because the entire logic board had fried and needed replacing. Plus the data on the SSD was encrypted and tied to the logic board so there was no way to recover the data at all. Basically they told him the whole laptop was kaput and couldn't recover the data (how awful is that?). I don't know about you, but not being able to access my data especially when a system goes down scares me.

You know, I really never expected to go out and buy another board or chip end of this year. I thought with my Comet Lake Z490 I bought last year and the B550 Ryzen + i9 RKL chip upgrade I got this year for work was enough to get me covered for the next few years. But I was wrong. Adobe started to uninstall and make unavailable their previous versions of Photoshop and other apps. I was using the Ryzen for my work, and these removals made my system unstable which is why I made the sudden decision to buy the new Alder Lake. I needed a backup system of sorts at work.

Also as I do work with computers on a regular basis, I felt compelled and curious to find out if the new platform truly is macOS compatible (or not) and to see what else is offered in the new generation of chips. If it was I could use it as a macOS workstation. If not I would have converted it into something for the office. Either way there was no loss. Plus Alder Lake is one of the biggest architectural changes in a generation. If you're a geek (like I am) you'll have definitely felt compelled to give it a try.

 

[wxz8506]

Check BIOS --> Boot --> CFG-Lock. It must be set to Disabled.

My ASUS Rog z690 hero motherboard, BIOS -- > boot -- > does not have the option of CFG lock

 

[UtterDisbelief]

• • This suggests that removing some HSxx ports might make SSxx ports visible (total of 15).

I look forward to the results of your test with this.

This can be somewhat OS version dependent.

My B560 chipset showed only the HS 14x ports plus SS01 only, indicating no port-limit removal techniques were working.

So I disabled the HS ports, by direct editing of a USBPorts.kext, and sure enough the SS ports appeared, however none of them worked!

So I watch with keen interest ...

 

[CaseySJ]

A brief set of benchmarks before I start Windows 11 installation:

• GPU = AMD RX 6800 XT.
• CPU = Intel i5-12600K with 6 P-Cores and 4 E-Cores enabled; Hyper Threading disabled.
• Memory = 16GB DDR4 3600MT/s with XMP Profile 1.
• System Product Name = MacPro 7,1
  • We know this results in lower GeekBench 5 scores compared to iMacPro1,1.