First Hackintosh build

[hypermark1]

Hello,
I am using MacBook Pro m1 for office work and I like the way how all my documents are synchronized at cloud, an easy access from phone and airdrop is a cool feature. I want those working at hackintosh. Airdrop, iCloud, pages, numbers. I do not need thunderbolt, but that’s a plus if it is.
I would like to play some games as well, so that would be great to have both windows and hackintosh.
As I understood, dual bios is a good feature for the build win/macos, how likely I should get a board with that?
My budget is around 2000e. 5700x+b550+ddr4+6950xt exactly fits into it.

GPU: 6950XT NITRO+

For the CPU I found 4 options, which suits by price/performance:

5700x 220e, 5800x3d 350e, 13600k 350e, 11900k 370e
B550-f strix wi-fi ii 200e
Z590 vision G/D 200/250e
Z790-a prime 300e
13600k z790 combo might not be the most power-efficient, but I believe it’s most modern one (=expensive), is there any possibility to install macos with all the features I need working?
What is the best option in your opinion for macOS and windows on board?

Thank you so much for the replies!
It gonna be my first pc with hackintosh, but I have previously build windows. There is no much limitations by parts.
I appreciate any recommendations.

 

[10tacle]

As far as I know, ≥11th gen Intel isn’t officially supported by Apple and therefore expect some features to not work properly, even though hackintoshing is basically possible (at least with 11th gen). When I upgraded my PC back in may, I intentionally got myself a 10th gen CPU so I could still use Sidecar, but that’s down to your personal preference. Many people don’t need that feature and therefore prefer a more recent gen CPU.
I can however confirm that all features are working perfectly fine on my 10900k and that was really important to me.

AirDrop and that kind of stuff is only dependent on your bluetooth-Wifi card. Best choice is still the Fenvi T919. It’s dated (BT 4.2 I believe), but unfortunately there aren’t any newer cards out there (to get BT 5.0 support for instance) that are compatible to macOS. At least not that I’m aware of. There are many BT 5 USB dongles to choose from, but as far as I know none of them are natively supported to give you an OOB experience for AirDrop and the like - at least not without hassle. T919 serves the best macOS experience in my opinion (you can even use your Apple peripherals wirelessly in both the OpenCore bootloader AND the BIOS which is really cool) and it’s not expensive at all.

Not sure if the newer 6950 is supported yet. If not, get yourself a 6900 XT, which runs natively OOB and it’s still an insane card.

I have zero experience in setting up dual boot on a single SSD. I know for a fact that it’s possible, I just don’t know if it’s the same procedure or if extra steps are needed. But I can assure you it’s pretty easy and straightforward to set it up on two seperate SSDs.

Edit: as for the GPU, I just found this. 6950 doesn’t seem to be officially supported yet but people managed to spoof the GPU to make macOS think that it’s a 6900 XT.

 

[hypermark1]

As far as I know, ≥11th gen Intel isn’t officially supported by Apple and therefore expect some features to not work properly, even though hackintoshing is basically possible (at least with 11th gen). When I upgraded my PC back in may, I intentionally got myself a 10th gen CPU so I could still use Sidecar, but that’s down to your personal preference. Many people don’t need that feature and therefore prefer a more recent gen CPU.
I can however confirm that all features are working perfectly fine on my 10900k and that was really important to me.

AirDrop and that kind of stuff is only dependent on your bluetooth-Wifi card. Best choice is still the Fenvi T919. It’s dated (BT 4.2 I believe), but unfortunately there aren’t any newer cards out there (to get BT 5.0 support for instance) that are compatible to macOS. At least not that I’m aware of. There are many BT 5 USB dongles to choose from, but as far as I know none of them are natively supported to give you an OOB experience for AirDrop and the like - at least not without hassle. T919 serves the best macOS experience in my opinion (you can even use your Apple peripherals wirelessly in both the OpenCore bootloader AND the BIOS which is really cool) and it’s not expensive at all.

Not sure if the newer 6950 is supported yet. If not, get yourself a 6900 XT, which runs natively OOB and it’s still an insane card.

I have zero experience in setting up dual boot on a single SSD. I know for a fact that it’s possible, I just don’t know if it’s the same procedure or if extra steps are needed. But I can assure you it’s pretty easy and straightforward to set it up on two seperate SSDs.

Edit: as for the GPU, I just found this. 6950 doesn’t seem to be officially supported yet but people managed to spoof the GPU to make macOS think that it’s a 6900 XT.

Thank you for response!

I prefer 2 ssd for each system, so should be great.

I contacted couple installers and it was told that even 13+z790 would work fine for my needs.

Also there is a possibility to get rtx and use igpu or any cheap rx in lower pci slot for macOS. I hope it works! It sounds pretty good, I can get most recent parts as the price is almost the same.

 

[remington]

I recommend Z490 since it's almost fully supported by macOS with no or little tweaks to BIOS and OpenCore config. All models beyond Z490 will require many tweaks to get pretty much everything functional. Best to go with motherboard that is almost fully supported by macOS as it'll be your first build.

 

[hypermark1]

I recommend Z490 since it's almost fully supported by macOS with no or little tweaks to BIOS and OpenCore config. All models beyond Z490 will require many tweaks to get pretty much everything functional. Best to go with motherboard that is almost fully supported by macOS as it'll be your first build.

Sounds reasonable and understandable! Here on a website there is a strong recommendation to go with z490
I am not in hurry, still researching Found one interesting z490 on a discount, msi carbon ek x for 150e

 

[trs96]

Here on a website there is a strong recommendation to go with z490

The last Intel Mac Desktops released in August 2020 were 27" iMacs. They used iMac20,1 and 20,2 SMBIOS so if you get a Comet Lake i3 or i5 CPU use iMac20,1. For a tenth gen i7 or i9 use iMac20,2.

 

[trs96]

The best under $300 graphics card right now is the RX6600(XT) for use with Monterey or newer. Works for gaming in Windows too. Also take a look at the GPU Buyer's Guide for choices of older AMD cards.

Building a CustoMac Hackintosh: The Ultimate Buyer's Guide

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[remington]

Also there is a possibility to get rtx and use igpu or any cheap rx in lower pci slot for macOS. I hope it works! It sounds pretty good, I can get most recent parts as the price is almost the same.

You can get used RX 580 from ebay for much less. Don't buy if it has been used for crypto mining. Also avoid XFX video cards as it doesn't work well with macOS due to different firmware.

 

[10tacle]

There’s nothing wrong with an RX 580 per se, but why would he buy such a weak card if he mentioned the 6950 XT. I think it’s obvious that he’s aiming for high end.

He should get himself a 6900 XT. Plus AMD dropped their prices.