Big Sur on ASUS ROG Strix Z490-I Gaming MB advise request

[hansm]

Hi
I'm thinking about building a customac mini config with Big Sur as OS.

ASUS ROG Strix Z490-I Gaming and Core i3-10100.
Doubting if I will install 32 or 64 GB of Ram. No extra video card.
Question is, can I install a SSD on the m.2 slot on this motherboard as a system disk?
Should i also install a fan on top of the CPU?
Main use will be some programming, office work and occasionally some photo editing jobs.

Have already some experience with a Customac as you can see in my profile.
This config however is getting slow and UG to higher than High Sierra makes it very unstable.
Thanks so much for your tips and ideas
Best regards

Hans

 

[Edhawk]

Yes, you can install an M.2 NVMe drive as the system disk.

Yes, you will need a CPU cooler & fan.

The IGPU from the i3-10100 is the Intel UHD 630, device ID 0x9BC8, which should work with the recommended CML framebuffer - 0x3E9B0007 (07009B3E)

If your proposed workload is as described then you probably don't need 64GB RAM.

You should be able to run Catalina 10.15.5 or newer, including Big Sur with this setup.

 

[Jamesbond007]

Hi
I'm thinking about building a customac mini config with Big Sur as OS.

ASUS ROG Strix Z490-I Gaming and Core i3-10100.
Doubting if I will install 32 or 64 GB of Ram. No extra video card.
Question is, can I install a SSD on the m.2 slot on this motherboard as a system disk?
Should i also install a fan on top of the CPU?
Main use will be some programming, office work and occasionally some photo editing jobs.

Have already some experience with a Customac as you can see in my profile.
This config however is getting slow and UG to higher than High Sierra makes it very unstable.
Thanks so much for your tips and ideas
Best regards

Hans

(1) Yes, you can use a M.2 SSD (SATA or NVMe) as a system disk. I use a NVMe M.2 SSD on my main system to boot Mojave and Catalina.

(2) You should definitely install a CPU cooler. Don't want the CPU to overheat and be damaged, right?

Your system should be compatible with MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 and Big Sur using CPU integrated graphics.

32 GB RAM should be more than enough for your purposes. I use 64 GB myself as I want to run multiple virtual machines and those take large amounts of RAM.

 

[hansm]

Many Thanks for your very helpful replies