Asus P7P55D-E - El Capitan - install a PCIe Thunderbolt card?

[ButchMel]

I have a working system, Asus P7P55D-E (on macOS 10.11.6).

System is in transit, I am thinking to replace a Firewire audio interface by a UA Apollo which works on Thunderbolt 3 (and can be backward compatible with adapter to Thunderbolt 2 or 1 on Macs)

My processor on the board is Quad-Core i7 2.94 GHz, if this is a concern.

I do not aim to replace board in short term nor to try to update to macOS 10.12 or higher, in short term.

I saw that PCIe for Thunderbolt 3 exist. (And perhaps there are also PCIe thunderbolt 2 or 1)...

I know I have a PCI card for Firewire used with my current interface, so slots exist on this board for PCIe. I could remove that one.

Now the big question: would a PCIe for Thunderbolt work on my board and through macOS 10.11.6 ? Would that be a hastle to make it recognized and working on my Hackintosh ? (Anyone has done that before ?) - If so, Can I ''risk'' Thunderbolt 3 or should I aim for 2 or 1 ?

Now I understand that will be another question to know if the interface would work through all this... I don't want to end out spending another $3K for another computer to ensure I can use a new $3K audio interface... kind of double the expected budget...

 

[Jamesbond007]

I have a working system, Asus P7P55D-E (on macOS 10.11.6).

System is in transit, I am thinking to replace a Firewire audio interface by a UA Apollo which works on Thunderbolt 3 (and can be backward compatible with adapter to Thunderbolt 2 or 1 on Macs)

My processor on the board is Quad-Core i7 2.94 GHz, if this is a concern.

I do not aim to replace board in short term nor to try to update to macOS 10.12 or higher, in short term.

I saw that PCIe for Thunderbolt 3 exist. (And perhaps there are also PCIe thunderbolt 2 or 1)...

I know I have a PCI card for Firewire used with my current interface, so slots exist on this board for PCIe. I could remove that one.

Now the big question: would a PCIe for Thunderbolt work on my board and through macOS 10.11.6 ? Would that be a hastle to make it recognized and working on my Hackintosh ? (Anyone has done that before ?) - If so, Can I ''risk'' Thunderbolt 3 or should I aim for 2 or 1 ?

Now I understand that will be another question to know if the interface would work through all this... I don't want to end out spending another $3K for another computer to ensure I can use a new $3K audio interface... kind of double the expected budget...

No, a current PCIe Thunderbolt 3 card will NOT work with your system, as your motherboard lacks a Thunderbolt add-in card connector which is required for those cards to work. Only some relatively new motherboards have this feature. You will have to literally replace your whole system (motherboard / CPU / RAM) to use Thunderbolt 3.

El Capitan 10.11.6 also lacks Thunderbolt 3 support. The first version to support Thunderbolt 3 (on real Macs) is MacOS Sierra.