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Building a H4ckint0sh after I sold my 2010 iMac - seeking help and advice

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Joined
Aug 5, 2012
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Motherboard
GIGABYTE H270N-WIFI
CPU
i7-7700
Graphics
Vega 56
Mac
  1. iMac
  2. MacBook Air
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
01.11.2016 - UPDATED parts

Hi, I lived 6 years with my great beloved iMac 2010. I sold it and plan to jump on the h4ckint0sh bandwagon. However, I see that the switch won't be completely without hassle.

These are the parts I'm currently considering:

1. Motherboard
GIGABYTE H170-WIFI

2. Processor
Intel Core i5-6500

3. Graphics
GTX680 (second hand)

4. RAM
Kingston 8GB DDR4 SDRAM 2133MHz CL13 HyperX Savage Black

5. HDD / SSD m.2
Seagate SV35 1 TB / Samsung SM951 256 GB AHCI

6. Power supply / Case
Corsair VS650

7. WiFi/BT
BCM94352Z m.2 card -> to be swapped with the Intel Wifi/BT card on the motherboard

A. Getting Wifi/BT working for Continuity/Handoff/applewatch unlock etc out of the box, or with low effort needed. I've read in some topics, that it's best to get a m.2 Broadcom card for the wifi/bt to work, but I'm not sure what card, vendor, where to buy. Some say taht Sierra compromised their compatibility. Please advise.

B. Getting the graphics to work natively with acceleration and without any problems. I wanted to buy a cheap pascal GC (1060), but I'd rather sacrifice performance, but have a OOB working solution. Is the GTX 680 the better option here? Just install drivers during setup (Clover) and I'm good to go?

C. iMessage. I'm a pretty avid iMessage user and this is one of the reasons, that I avoided any hackintoshes. I've seem a guide somewhere but it looks scary. Isn't it possible to get it working OOB???

D. The last question is regarding the storage. I've used a custom Fusion drive setup on my iMac, however, I'm not sure how this will work with my setup? Will the NVMe drive work in BIOS, during installation? Can I use the same Fusion drive instructions with the hackintosh that I used with my iMac? Will it cause problems?

Anyways, these are my quick questions and consideration. I'd really appreciate, if you could weigh in and maybe review my components and answer the questions I propose.

Thanks and have a great day!!!!
 
Last edited:
A. Getting Wifi/BT working for Continuity/Handoff/applewatch unlock etc out of the box, or with low effort needed. I've read in some topics, that it's best to get a m.2 Broadcom card for the wifi/bt to work, but I'm not sure what card, vendor, where to buy. Some say taht Sierra compromised their compatibility. Please advise.

BCM94360CS or BCM94360CD work OOB. You will need to get an appropriate adaptor to connect to your motherboard depending on which motherboard you choose. For example, if your motherboard has a mini PCI-e slot for Wifi, you will need a mini PCI-e adaptor. If you only have PCI-e slots, you will need a PCI-e adaptor.


B. Getting the graphics to work natively with acceleration and without any problems. I wanted to buy a cheap pascal GC (1060), but I'd rather sacrifice performance, but have a OOB working solution. Is the GTX 680 the better option here? Just install drivers during setup (Clover) and I'm good to go?

Currently, there are no Pascal drivers for macOS. GTX 680 will work OOB and will work with the built-in macOS drivers.


C. iMessage. I'm a pretty avid iMessage user and this is one of the reasons, that I avoided any hackintoshes. I've seem a guide somewhere but it looks scary. Isn't it possible to get it working OOB???

I followed Pilgrim's guide to get iMessage, Continuity, Handoff, and AirDrop all working 100%. It all works perfectly with my iPhones. That being said, I was only able to get it to work using the iMac14,2 system definition. When I tried to use the iMac17,1 definition, it did not work. Those were the only two definitions I tried.


D. The last question is regarding the storage. I've used a custom Fusion drive setup on my iMac, however, I'm not sure how this will work with my setup? Will the NVMe drive work in BIOS, during installation? Can I use the same Fusion drive instructions with the hackintosh that I used with my iMac? Will it cause problems?

NVMe M.2 SSDs are not natively supported by macOS. You will need to use a 3rd party kext to enable it. However, AHCI M.2 SSDs are natively supported by macOS.

I have never used any Fusion drives so I can not comment on them.
 
BCM94360CS or BCM94360CD work OOB. You will need to get an appropriate adaptor to connect to your motherboard depending on which motherboard you choose. For example, if your motherboard has a mini PCI-e slot for Wifi, you will need a mini PCI-e adaptor. If you only have PCI-e slots, you will need a PCI-e adaptor.
So there is no "simple" solution? To buy a cad (PCI-E etc.) and be done with it? Can you recommend some adaptors that could work with the motherboard I linked to? Thanks a bunch!

Currently, there are no Pascal drivers for macOS. GTX 680 will work OOB and will work with the built-in macOS drivers.
Thats good to hear.

I followed Pilgrim's guide to get iMessage, Continuity, Handoff, and AirDrop all working 100%. It all works perfectly with my iPhones. That being said, I was only able to get it to work using the iMac14,2 system definition. When I tried to use the iMac17,1 definition, it did not work. Those were the only two definitions I tried.
Will try to do my best here. I hope it does not screw up my appleID

NVMe M.2 SSDs are not natively supported by macOS. You will need to use a 3rd party kext to enable it. However, AHCI M.2 SSDs are natively supported by macOS.

I have never used any Fusion drives so I can not comment on them.
That is sad. I thought that OSX supported NVMe natively. I've seen some impressive benchmarks on the never macs and was under the impression that they use NVMe drives for sure. So to maintain compatibility, I should just buy a regular PCI-E SSD (not NVMe) and maybe upgrade later when native support comes to the mac.
 
So there is no "simple" solution? To buy a cad (PCI-E etc.) and be done with it? Can you recommend some adaptors that could work with the motherboard I linked to? Thanks a bunch!

Amazon.com: Fenvi Desktop PC Dual Band 802.11AC Wireless WIFI PCI Express PCI-E Adapter Card 2.4Ghz-450Mbps/5Ghz-1.3Gbps + Bluetooth 4.0 Include Low-profile Bracket for MAC OS X System Hackintosh Windows 7/8: Computers & Accessories

That is sad. I thought that OSX supported NVMe natively. I've seen some impressive benchmarks on the never macs and was under the impression that they use NVMe drives for sure. So to maintain compatibility, I should just buy a regular PCI-E SSD (not NVMe) and maybe upgrade later when native support comes to the mac.

Apple uses AHCI SSDs. I have one in my hackintosh. Here are the speeds I get:
Screen Shot 2016-07-09 at 7.02.09 AM.png

You can use NVMe if you like but you will need additional kexts to get them to work with macOS.
 
Ok great, AHCI it is! Thank you very much! Much appreciated!
 
So there is no "simple" solution? To buy a cad (PCI-E etc.) and be done with it? Can you recommend some adaptors that could work with the motherboard I linked to? Thanks a bunch!
This works.. I have it and it works. Also available in Mini-PCIe
 
GTX 780 GK110b doesn't work with Apple's built-in drivers.
 
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