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

[Lumberjack88]

Can someone please explain me way the GA-Z97X-UD7 is just around $214.99 and the GA-Z87X-UD7 is around $500 ?
Is it because the chipset is brand new and there aren't early adaptors ?

But if this board is going to work OOB, than I guess it's now the moment to buy it because in several months when Intels 5th Gen will be released I guess the boards price will be going up, no ?

I have a Sonnet Echo Express SEII at the moment with ThundeBolt 2 and 2 Lynx AES16-50SRC inside it for audio communication between my MacBookPro Retina and my Midas Pro 2. But if this will work OOB I guess I gonna make a new Hackintiosh with this board and then the new Intel 5th core CPU.

The main price difference is based on the inclusion of a PLX chip on the Z87X UD7 TH main board. It doubles the PCI Express bandwidth and makes for a much better 3 or 4-way SLI board than the Z97X UD7 TH.

 

[BerndVP]

So, I don't need SLI / Crossfire.
Will this mean we have less PCIe Lines on Thunderbolt ?

 

[genzai]

Can someone please explain me way the GA-Z97X-UD7 is just around $214.99 and the GA-Z87X-UD7 is around $500 ?

If you had read even a couple of pages back, you would have seen that i posted pretty comprehensive reasons why the pricing is so different:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-h...th-thunderbolt-2-0-testing-18.html#post804485

g\

 

[Manu1001]

Hello...

First of all, sorry for my poor english, I'm spanish.

Finally, I got this beauty working (more or less). With Clover. My config is:

- I7 4770K
- Integrated Graphics
- Belkin Bluetooth stick
- Apple Cinema Display
- Logitech K810 keyboard
- Logitech Performance MX mouse

The system boots. Slow, but boots. Yes, I've read that must disable Thunderbolt kext. No problem.

But I have another worries.



1) The system is pretty irresponsive. Slow, maybe. More testing needed.

2) I have image in the Thundebolt display, but no sound. I NEED sound...

3) The mouse lasts one or two minutes from boot to be operative.

4) The recycle bin shows full... but it's empty.



Some help to finish the project?

Thanks a lot.

 

[jstraw]

thank you for the comprehensive post, very informative... this board is decked to the crotch and i couldn't be happier with the ga-z87x-ud7 th, i am glad i didn't opt to RMA and get version 2... i guess I'm going to have to order cooling blocks to quiet these north and south bridge fans down... i think the south bridge one has a bad bearing, it is extremely loud now.

question... whats up with safari crashing? i experience crashing daily when using safari... it always crashed but something has changed since the last update, as safari doesn't crash completely, but it does generate a report and give me problems... seems to mostly happen coming out of sleep mode, but safari crashing is becoming a burden.

question 2... i seem to be having problems opening apps... the .dmg files do not open nor do i get the security protocol when i double click. nothing happens. when i left click, i can select "DiskImageMounter (default)" and nothing happens, the second selection "disk utility" can be used but i have to mount the image and it will work that way. am i doing something wrong? i used to be able to open these no problem, but now, with the current update, i get no response. some guidance would help, thanks a bunch.

 

[Fabhack]

After some reading of the various forums...
I did the following.

Thunderbolt kexts all removed and in folder on desktop. And have display plugged in DVI of motherboard.
Shutdown.
Plugged TB(motherboard) into HDMI 1 of TV.

Restarted boots fine no probs.
Now shows second display device under Intel HD4600. Works flawlessly.

Plugged HDMI(on motherboard) into HDMI2 on TV
Bit wonky with second display resolution. But seems to work ok.
Now shows third display device under Intel HD4600.
Restarted, but now will not boot.

Unplugged HDMI(motherboard)
Restarted, boots fine no probs.

Plugged in TB(motherboard) to TB to FireWire adaptor.
Restarted, boots fine no probs.
Now shows FireWire device in hardware. Speed 800.
Plugged FireWire adaptor to FireWire hard disk.
Restarted
Now shows hard disk as a device under FireWire hardware.
Cannot access hard disk yet.

Can anyone offer some insight as to accessing hard disks via TB to FireWire adaptor?

 

[Fabhack]

Turns out the drive was recognised in disk utilities but was not partitioned. (Thought it was already) YAY!
Also, complete success using a TB to FW adaptor and a Presonus FireWire 2626.
Just install Presonus firecontrol. NOT universal control software.

 

[johnsch]

Hi all, I'm stumped, I just cannot get Thunderbolt working under Windows (won't work under OS X either obviously). Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated. I've tried all the recommended BIOS settings mentioned in this thread and others. I've removed all other hard drives, tried two different installs of Windows on different hard drives, etc. Tried setting TB to both Legacy mode and Unique identifier (one person mentioned they needed this 2nd setting to get TB recognized in Windows). I don't think it's a bad motherboard - at least I hope not since it's the last Gigabyte Z87x-UD7 TH that I could find anywhere.

I tend to think there's a BIOS setting I'm missing but I've followed this thread and others about how those should be set. The Windows TB drivers are definitely installed. It doesn't matter if Windows 7 or 8 does it (I've loaded Windows 7 64bit)?

On the OS X side, everything works great. I did have to upgrade BIOS to F4 to get the new 4790K recognized by MB- had some challenges there since going from F3 to F4 has to be done with DOS commands.

Only my 2nd hackintosh build- upgraded for TB so it's important to me to get this working.

Thanks in advance!

 

[genzai]

Only my 2nd hackintosh build- upgraded for TB so it's important to me to get this working.

From your description it should be working. (unless you are trying to hot plug or something silly like that) Perhaps you have a bad board, or have done something wrong outside of your description.

What TB device(s) are you using? And just as importantly have you tried another cable, or the device+cable on a real mac to make sure the problem does not lay there?

g\

 

[johnsch]

Thanks. Not hotswapping; using lacie TB drive and cable that work in my macbook pro. Are there any settings on the board itself that I might have set wrong - dip switches, turbo-buttons?