Gigabyte Thunderbolt 3 Mobos

[ALMart]

Can anyone speak to the differences, pros/cons of the Gigabyte Thunderbolt 3 motherboards?

I know that the 170X-UD5-TH is a CustoMac recommended mobo. But so are several others (for example the 170X-Ultra Gaming and the 170X-UD3 Ultra).

Looking on Gigabyte's web site, it looks Thunderbolt 3 is enabled on these other boards via free firmware upgrade.

It seems to me that as long as the board has the Intel Alpine Ridge USB 3.1 controller chip, then Thunderbolt 3 should be available. I guess I'm confused why some boards have the Thunderbolt 3 OOB vs enabling them via FW update. Does it have something to do with the "Intel certification" of the board?

Now, obviously my selection of a board is contingent on success in getting TB3 to work in a Hackintoshable machine. So I'm keeping an eye out for the successful builds using these mobos. And now that Apple has "gone all in" on the USB-C connector and TB3 with the release of the latest MacBook Pros, I don't imagine it will be long before the Hackintosh community will get full functionality on these TB3 ports in OS X (macOS).

So with all that said, I'm looking for insight and advice which board to select for my build. TB3 will be a major requirement (I'm only invested in TB1/2 components right now, but looking to the future and hedging my bets with a fallback to USB 3.1). Additional requirements will be:

• OS X (macOS) Sierra
• ATX (mid-tower or larger)
• primary use will be LightroomCC and some light video editing (iMovie)
• "always on" iTunes server. My current Mac mini never sleeps (I put the display and hard drives to sleep)
• Parallels VM of Win7 (or dual boot) for work (ugh)
• I'm use to a Mac mini, which is relatively quiet. I'm not sure how realistic it would be to this build as quiet as the mini?
• No gaming

 

[MichaelBC]

It seems to me that as long as the board has the Intel Alpine Ridge USB 3.1 controller chip, then Thunderbolt 3 should be available. I guess I'm confused why some boards have the Thunderbolt 3 OOB vs enabling them via FW update. Does it have something to do with the "Intel certification" of the board?

Now, obviously my selection of a board is contingent on success in getting TB3 to work in a Hackintoshable machine. So I'm keeping an eye out for the successful builds using these mobos. And now that Apple has "gone all in" on the USB-C connector and TB3 with the release of the latest MacBook Pros, I don't imagine it will be long before the Hackintosh community will get full functionality on these TB3 ports in OS X (macOS).

So with all that said, I'm looking for insight and advice which board to select for my build. TB3 will be a major requirement (I'm only invested in TB1/2 components right now, but looking to the future and hedging my bets with a fallback to USB 3.1). Additional requirements will be:

• OS X (macOS) Sierra
• ATX (mid-tower or larger)
• primary use will be LightroomCC and some light video editing (iMovie)
• "always on" iTunes server. My current Mac mini never sleeps (I put the display and hard drives to sleep)
• Parallels VM of Win7 (or dual boot) for work (ugh)
• I'm use to a Mac mini, which is relatively quiet. I'm not sure how realistic it would be to this build as quiet as the mini?
• No gaming

I think the firmware update allows 100-series MoBos (like my GA-Z170MX) to add TB3 via the GC-ALPINE RIDGE PCIe-x4 expansion card. Vs new MoBos that come with the Alpine Ridge chip on the board.

 

[ALMart]

I think the firmware update allows 100-series MoBos (like my GA-Z170MX) to add TB3 via the GC-ALPINE RIDGE PCIe-x4 expansion card. Vs new MoBos that come with the Alpine Ridge chip on the board.

I could see that for a board that didn't originally have the Alpine Ridge on board. But some of the newer boards seem to have the chips included with a USB-C connector at the back of the board. My assumption is Thunderbolt (and USB 3.1) is then enabled by installing their firmware update. Here is a snippet from their description of the GA-170X-UD3 Ultra:

It doesn't say that you need to purchase the additional GC-ALPINE RIDGE PCIe-x4 expansion card. It seems to imply that the functionality will be there once you enable it by installing the free firmware upgrade.

It's all a little confusing. The only mobo that doesn't require the firmware update is the GA-Z170X-UD5 TH which is at the moment difficult to find in stock anywhere. Right now MicroCenter has the GA-170X-UD3 Ultra for $139 when bundled with a processor which seems like a pretty good deal.

I wonder if anyone has had success with Thunderbolt 3 on any one of these boards besides the GA-Z170X-UD5 TH.

 

[Rational]

I have these exact same questions. I've been researching all day today on which of the Thunderbolt 3 Gigabyte boards to buy as well. I was originally going to go for the GA-170x-UD5 TH, but like you I've found it out of stock this week. I also notice it is already a year old. So now I'm curious which one to buy based on success rates.

For me I want to do audio work with it. DAW with Uaudio Apollo Twin Duo TB model.

All input on this welcome as well. Thanks!
R

 

[ALMart]

I have these exact same questions. I've been researching all day today on which of the Thunderbolt 3 Gigabyte boards to buy as well. I was originally going to go for the GA-170x-UD5 TH, but like you I've found it out of stock this week. I also notice it is already a year old. So now I'm curious which one to buy based on success rates.
R

After looking at online reviews, dates and Gigabyte information, it looks like the GA-170X-Designare would be model that is most similar to the older -UD5 TH in terms of features and performance.

Personally, I think I'm going to go for the GA-170X-UD3 Ultra because comparing the -UD3 Ultra and the -Designare side by side they are almost identical except for a single USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 and LAN ports on the -UD3 Ultra vs two of each on the -Designare. I'll put the $80 or so savings toward a USB-C to Thunderbolt 1/2 adapter which I would need regardless.

 

[Rational]

Great reply, thanks. Yes, I also found a great review of their more recent motheboards on youtube at the 'gigabyte motherboards' channel.

I think I'll be going for the designare as it is the top of the line board currently with 2 TB3 ports. Plus it has gold plated audio and the mini dp in and out ports too. Plus the regular DP port still. So the most IO. RGB is cute I guess. I could pair it up with the Razer rgb stuff and FLstudio if I want to be colorful. lol. But it seems they removed the onboard HDMI 2.0 support they had on the TH model. But that was aftermarket, so probably not a huge loss. I'm just worried no one has created a working build guide for it yet. And if the new 7700k CPUs will work in this board or not as they're about to be released.

The TH model is a year old already and out of stock everywhere. So I'm guessing no longer the best choice.

The ultra and the ultra gaming both look okay as well.

Here's a link to compare all the boards on their website. http://www.gigabyte.com/products/comparison/main.aspx?ck=2

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/comparison/list.aspx?ck=2&pids=5914,5891,5479,5811,5808,5615

Oh, what TB3 add on cards are available and known to work?

 

[froglobo]

Looks great. Any builds yet?

 

[ALMart]

Looks great. Any builds yet?

I've got my rig up and running (with the GA-170X-UD3 Ultra). Currently I'm working on getting some minor bugs out and hope to post a "Build" post soon!

 

[stealmy]

yes i am curious too.

does a ThunderboltEX 3 work on a X99 board under sierra?

 

[AndyC]

So far, so good. I was careful to follow established guides as close as possible. I will be writing up my own guide hopefully this weekend.

TB3 is confirmed working. I have a LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt drive. It is an older TB1 (10GB/s) model but good enough to test. Also, picked up the Apple USB-C to TB 1/2 adapter for $29 at my local Apple Store.

As stated in many other posts, hot swap of TB does not work. You have to boot with the adapter and device plugged in. However once booted up, I was able to mount and dismount the drive at will via Disk Utility (as long as I did not physically disconnect it). This gives me hope that a Thunderbolt dock will be able to expand my I/O possibilities. Right now it looks like the older TB2 docks like the OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock are being discounted in anticipation of newer USB-C/TB3 docks coming out early next year.

One note: my TB device does not show in under Thunderbolt in System Report, but rather under SATA/SATA Express. Also Black Magic speed test was not impressive, but not any different than the results I got from my 17" MacBook Pro with TB1. The crappy little spinning drive LaCie put in there is just a 5400RPM, so that's obviously a bottleneck. Regardless, the point was to prove that the USB-C port on the motherboard is functional and that I could successfully use a Thunderbolt device.

One minor issue was audio not working which I was able to solve. (details here)

Sleep/wake is the only other issue that I am working on right now. I fear it may not be easily resolved anytime soon, but I'll keep at it. Not a big deal, because I intend to use it as an always on iTunes server anyway.

ALMart, I have the same board. Did you update your BIOS to the new F20 that was released a couple of weeks ago? Ever since I did that I can't boot into Sierra on any drive (USB, SATA, NVMe). Same BIOS settings as before, but after Clover loads and all the ++++ appear on the screen it either hangs or reboots. No errors from the IOAptDrv, and it doesn't appear to have even started to boot Sierra. It's somewhat bricked my install until I can get it sorted. Windows 10 is still fine