Gigabyte Z490 Vision D (Thunderbolt 3) + i5-10400 + AMD RX 580

[JMMeFF]

That looks better.


Please try a different monitor, preferably one that supports both DisplayPort and HDMI, but lacks any legacy ports such as DVI and VGA. Also try performing a factory reset on the existing monitor via its on-board menu.

Casey, I just installed my Navi Card Asus RX5500 XT and sleep/wake now works flawlessly. I've been using it for a month now mainly for video editing works, and it's really stable. What a superb build. Thank you once again!

 

[dehjomz]

Gigabyte has just pushed out a new Vision D F20d BIOS with a very curious line: “Update CPU microcode version 0x34”

I wonder what microcode update that is... is it for better performance for the hot rocket? Or is it for Comet Lake. Gigabyte should be more clear, like MSI.

 

[CaseySJ]

Gigabyte has just pushed out a new Vision D F20d BIOS with a very curious line: “Update CPU microcode version 0x34”

I wonder what microcode update that is... is it for better performance for the hot rocket? Or is it for Comet Lake. Gigabyte should be more clear, like MSI.

Buyer beware! Gigabyte has had a troubled recent history with BIOS updates.

 

[hughythomas]

I think so.

Hey Whathelll,

Your RAM timings look quite tight which could be leading to instability. I know that my build does not behave itself in Big Sur especially when the system is unstable due to low voltages, high clocks and/or too tight RAM timings.

I'd encourage you to do some stability testing in Windows if you can.

I've wasted a lot of time here on this very forum troubleshooting problems with Casey's EFI, my software & all sorts. When at the end of the day, it simply came down to an unstable system due to my overclocking!

Thats not to say that your problem is specifically this (and I bow to the community's superior knowledge), but I'm a big enough dinosaur to know that system instability from the above can lead to all sorts of weirdness.

Big Sur wouldn't install for me when my clocks were wrong, and I don't think its good enough to simply set all the voltages and clocks to auto and hope for the best. (Tempting as it may seem!)

I'll happily share my overclock settings with you if helpful. But bear in mind I have custom watercooling in a Phanteks Luxe 719. So unless you're packing some decent cooling, it could be counter-productive (especially as every chip is different due to silicon lottery).

Hope this helps.

 

[dehjomz]

According to Anandtech, the new microcode is for rocket lake.

Rocket Lake Redux: 0x34 Microcode Offers Small Performance Gains on Core i7-11700K

www.anandtech.com

 

[whathelll]

Hey Whathelll,

Your RAM timings look quite tight which could be leading to instability. I know that my build does not behave itself in Big Sur especially when the system is unstable due to low voltages, high clocks and/or too tight RAM timings.

I'd encourage you to do some stability testing in Windows if you can.

I've wasted a lot of time here on this very forum troubleshooting problems with Casey's EFI, my software & all sorts. When at the end of the day, it simply came down to an unstable system due to my overclocking!

Thats not to say that your problem is specifically this (and I bow to the community's superior knowledge), but I'm a big enough dinosaur to know that system instability from the above can lead to all sorts of weirdness.

Big Sur wouldn't install for me when my clocks were wrong, and I don't think its good enough to simply set all the voltages and clocks to auto and hope for the best. (Tempting as it may seem!)

I'll happily share my overclock settings with you if helpful. But bear in mind I have custom watercooling in a Phanteks Luxe 719. So unless you're packing some decent cooling, it could be counter-productive (especially as every chip is different due to silicon lottery).

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the reply. I’m probably going to stick with Catalina, and I got it to install it. I had one of the settings on the BIOS wrong.

 

[Media]

Hi CaseySJ,

First, I would like to say thank you so much for sharing all your time and knowledge. I sincerely appreciate it...

Honestly, I was on the fence in terms of building another Hackintosh due to the performance of the new Apple M1 chips. However, due to your thorough Gigabyte Z490 guide. I decided to build one last one before the parts disappear.

I purchased some of the components from your list and picked some of my own. I must say this new system was super easy to set-up with all your instructions, EFI folders, etc. This is easily one of the best, if not the best set of instructions to build a Hackintosh. I do have a couple of questions for you though.

The motherboard shipped with a version F6 BIOS. Do you recommend updating to a newer version or is it possible to downgrade to version F5? I noticed Gigabyte's website does not list version F6 of the BIOS, so does that mean this is not a stable version of the BIOS? I only see versions F5, F7c, and F20d.

I also noticed that I cannot playback any movies that I purchased on iTunes. Is there a workaround for the DRM to play the movies? It is not that important because I don't normally watch movies on my computer, but, if there is a way to make it work, please let me know. I don't want to use iMac Pro for the computer description because I prefer the faster decoding encoding in Final Cut Pro with Quicksync. I use iMac Pro for my X99 system, and it is a lot slower than this system when working with H.265 footage. Thanks again for all your help ;-)

 

[emistral]

Hey Whathelll,

Your RAM timings look quite tight which could be leading to instability. I know that my build does not behave itself in Big Sur especially when the system is unstable due to low voltages, high clocks and/or too tight RAM timings.

I'd encourage you to do some stability testing in Windows if you can.

I've wasted a lot of time here on this very forum troubleshooting problems with Casey's EFI, my software & all sorts. When at the end of the day, it simply came down to an unstable system due to my overclocking!

Thats not to say that your problem is specifically this (and I bow to the community's superior knowledge), but I'm a big enough dinosaur to know that system instability from the above can lead to all sorts of weirdness.

Big Sur wouldn't install for me when my clocks were wrong, and I don't think its good enough to simply set all the voltages and clocks to auto and hope for the best. (Tempting as it may seem!)

I'll happily share my overclock settings with you if helpful. But bear in mind I have custom watercooling in a Phanteks Luxe 719. So unless you're packing some decent cooling, it could be counter-productive (especially as every chip is different due to silicon lottery).

Hope this helps.

@hughythomas I would appreciate if you could share your overclock settings. I have a similar config and my CPU is cooled down by means of a corsair H150i pro xt 360mm (3 x 120mm fan) all in one liquid cooling solution.

 

[dehjomz]

The motherboard shipped with a version F6 BIOS. Do you recommend updating to a newer version or is it possible to downgrade to version F5? I noticed Gigabyte's website does not list version F6 of the BIOS, so does that mean this is not a stable version of the BIOS? I only see versions F5, F7c, and F20d.

Hello. Agree that hackintosh with this mobo is a great experience.

Regarding your question on which BIOS, I’ll just add here that the F20d BIOS just got released within the last 36 hours. So no one has much, if any experience with it, to recommend whether or not to use it. One thing that’s certain however, is that the F20 series has been bad. F20a was a disaster, causing significant issues, so much so that Gigabyte had to pull it off the website. Then there was a f20b, and some anecdotes that it wasn’t up to snuff either. It is now gone as well. The F20 series will be necessary for Rocket Lake support, which should bring pcie4.0 support in the top two PCIe slots and the top M.2 slot. I guess the Intel board partners are still ironing out the bugs to get ready for the blast off, and Intel is still releasing new microcode to fix some cache latency issues as well as other issues with the hot Rocket.

If you’re going to stay on Comet Lake, I think the best bet is the F5 BIOS. But I’ll leave others weigh in as well.

 

[CamoViking]

The motherboard shipped with a version F6 bios. Do you recommend updating to a newer version or is it possible to downgrade to version F5?

Hi Media,

My mobo came with the F6 BIOS as well. It's been rock solid from day one and hasn't given my any stability problems with everything that I've done with it. (Note - no overclocking or anything crazy. A stock-standard build and installation of Big Sur.)

The only issue I have is that when I switch from macOS to Windows (dual boot, with each OS on a separate NVME drive) I have to use the 'shutdown' option, rather than 'restart'. I think I've seen other people report this same issue, so I am not stressed about it.

Cheers,
V