Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD7-TH - Thunderbolt 2.0 Testing

[Herb]

Genzai,

My goal was trying to create a Mac Pro sized Hackintosh, or at least something closer in size than what I currently have.

You're totally right about compromising performance. I guess it's not possible to get everything I want in a smaller than ATX package yet.

 

[MMcCraryNJ]

Well, reading this entire thread just kicked me square in the gut.

I had no idea this board was EOL until 10 minutes ago. About a month ago, I sold my 2010 iMac because it was getting long in the tooth for my purposes (audio production), and have been putting away a couple hundred every week to build a pretty pricey system using this board in combination with the 4770k and 780 TI, dual SSD system drives to dual boot Windows 8.1/Mavericks, a sick amount of RAM, etc. Trying to read up every little speck of information on here about how to go about getting Mavericks to work well (and getting TB to work as good as possible). My plan was to keep my audio work on the OS X side, and use Windows for general computing/monster gaming rig.

I need like just a few more weeks to get my funds straight before buying anything, and now I find out the board itself is EOL. There goes that idea. Do boards usually go EOL this fast? This was only recently announced at the end of 2013 and released around January, correct?

So now my options are to wait even longer for this new board/chipset to come out and be verified to work with Mavericks, buy the EOL board now even though the replacement is half the price (regardless of the negative aspects of the new model), or buy another iMac (which hasn't been refreshed in awhile and has its own issues). Ugh. Just frustrating when you put your mind to something and realize it's not going to work out.

 

[genzai]

Just frustrating when you put your mind to something and realize it's not going to work out.

And why isn't this going to work out? In almost every case when intel refreshes their chipset line the current line goes EOL, there is nothing surprising about that. There is also no advantage to the Z97 chipset I am aware of except for the SataExpress stuff so you are not loosing anything by buying the Z87x-UD7 now before it sells out and building your system around it once you complete your funds. If the new cheaper board meets your needs, it will be out in a couple of weeks and it will likely be 100% compatible, as again, the platform has hardly changed. Not sure what your complaining about really. Also the new iMacs are awesome systems and if they meet your needs i highly recommend just doing that.

g\

 

[MMcCraryNJ]

And why isn't this going to work out? In almost every case when intel refreshes their chipset line the current line goes EOL, there is nothing surprising about that. There is also no advantage to the Z97 chipset I am aware of except for the SataExpress stuff so you are not loosing anything by buying the Z87x-UD7 now before it sells out and building your system around it once you complete your funds. If the new cheaper board meets your needs, it will be out in a couple of weeks and it will likely be 100% compatible, as again, the platform has hardly changed. Not sure what your complaining about really. Also the new iMacs are awesome systems and if they meet your needs i highly recommend just doing that.

g\

It was just surprising to me, considering Broadwell was recently delayed until next year. Why the need for the new chipset/new boards so soon by mobo OEMs? It's not just Gigabyte, everyone is releasing Z97 boards super early in the next couple of weeks as I'm sure you're aware.

Yes, I know I could just buy the motherboard and wait to complete the rig. My issue with doing that is if I somehow get a defective board, I'd need to have that figured out by the time the DOA exchange/refund period runs out. Judging by Amazon reviews of current Gigabyte boards, as well as some users here, there seems to be two major issues in the supply chain: USB ports just outright failing on the board, and issues reading more than 2 sticks of RAM without freezes/lockups in both Mavericks hack builds as well as general Windows builds. Users with these issues were RMAing boards as the only solution, so. Either being stuck with a defective board if I run out of time, or not being able to exchange it if it's EOL and not available anymore would be a hassle.

The current iMac line does not fit my needs whatsoever. Yes they are nice machines, but the inability to upgrade or touch any component means that to be happy with it in the future I would need to top $3K to spec it out. Not happening, especially with the mobile GPU they use.

My absolute ideal solution would be an Apple product that does not exist (and will likely never exist): A mid or big tower desktop, screen-less PC somewhere between the iMac and Mac Pro, with easy expansion/upgrade options for PCIe cards, GPU, hard disks, and memory. A killer "pro-sumer" machine if you will. Hence why I'm here in the Hackintosh community, trying to learn how to get the best of both worlds.

 

[genzai]

I'd need to have that figured out by the time the DOA exchange/refund period runs out.

What are you talking about? The chances of you getting a DOA board are slim, and even if you do its covered under gigabyte manufacturer warranty for 1 yr, or 3yrs, or whatever it is. Worst case scenario if you get a faulty board you would have to get it replaced under warranty from gigabyte, who by the way, offers advance replacement options. Anyway, do what you will but i find your whining unjustified.

g\

 

[MMcCraryNJ]

What are you talking about? The chances of you getting a DOA board are slim, and even if you do its covered under gigabyte manufacturer warranty for 1 yr, or 3yrs, or whatever it is. Worst case scenario if you get a faulty board you would have to get it replaced under warranty from gigabyte, who by the way, offers advance replacement options. Anyway, do what you will but i find your whining unjustified.

g\

Hrm? Nobody is "whining" here. Simply discussing my options and responding to you doesn't constitute whining. I appreciate the amount of helpful posts you make on this board, but I do wish your attitude was a bit more pleasant and mature, as I realize I'm not the first member here or other places on the web to be met with your smugness. Cheers.

Anyway, back on topic. I look forward to seeing what future work can be done for Thunderbolt support for this and other boards. If I end up building with this, I'd be more than happy to help in any way possible. Thanks tony and everyone else for all of the hard work.

 

[muchmore]

Personally, I have had some issues with Gigabyte motherboards allowing all four RAM slots to be populated and run at the XMP speed. My current motherboard is an Asus P8Z77-v Deluxe and it runs rock stable with 32 GB of ram at XMP 1866. What killed me though about this board was that I was going to add the original Thunderbolt EX card. I kept emailing Asus asking when it would be released, and they kept emailing back "in a month or two"... all the way up to when they told me it was never going to ship. I felt totally burned as I would have purchased a different MB if I had known they would never release the TB card.

Anyways, with the ThunderboltEX II card out and readily available, I would recommend the Asus GRYPHON Z97. It probably has all the connectivity you need and is compatible with the ThunderboltEX II card (even though the card says it is only compatible with z87 motherboards). I have had much better luck with Asus boards over the years.

Here is a link that shows it is compatible:
http://www.asus.com/us/site/motherboards/Z97/comparison/

 

[zankbennett]

Hi, I'm new, but have built a system atop the GA-Z87X-UD7-TH, using a i7-4770K processor, but have been unable to get TB to work. I'm trying to read an external drive using the TB --> FW 800 adaptor.

I've tried booting into Win 8.1 using Parallels and installing all the drivers. Now I can see the following:



But I can neither get a drive to appear in Win 8.1 nor under OSX 9.2.
I have deleted the kexts containing "firewire", as I had the slow-boot issue that others mention. Now the slow-booting is gone, but still no TB.
I've tried both BIOS settings for the TB adapter mentioned in this thread. Nothing.

Is it because I'm using Parallels? That's the only thing I can imagine at this point.
Anyone else gotten this to work using Parallels?

Thanks, you all are a huge help!!

 

[genzai]

Thanks, you all are a huge help!!

Wow,
You did all sorts of things wrong. First, you cannot use parallels. you need a native windows install. Parallels will not have access to the thunderbolt controller.

Next, you should not have deleted anything to do with firewire. I suggest you start from scratch. If you delete any kext it should only be the thunderbolt NHI and that alone.

You also need to know that the firewire adapter needs to be connected before you boot the system. you can then eject any firewire devices plugged into it- the firewire port is hot plug capable, but the thunderbolt port is not- in case you missed that in what appears to be a pretty haphazard read of the forums you did.

Good luck,
g\

 

[zankbennett]

I got it working.
I installed Win 8.1, installed the board drivers (including TB) and it's working now.

For others I've read about on this thread who are using UAD gear, this allowed me to connect my Apollo 16 using a TB --> Firewire 800 adapter. Music is playing...finally!