[Guide] El Capitan onto Skylake mini-ITX ASUS Z170I Pro Gaming w i7-6700T (35w) GTX 760 SM951 AHCI

[neilhart]

Thanks for the guide, neil! I've been mulling mini-ITX (w/ wireless and m.2 on board) vs. micro-ATX for my next build with the m.2 SSD as one of my primary points of consideration. I've read that some boards withe m.2 slot built in can yield different (slower) speeds than when the stick is used with a PCIe adapter card. e.g., heat throttling due to being on the back of the MB? It looks like you're close to topping out the SM951 there, but was just wondering how those speeds might compare to your other builds where the SM951 might have been in the mix. Noticed any differences in performance?

While it may seem like I have more experience with the SM951 then I really do have. I have this one device and have run it in the ASUS Maximus VII Impact, in the ASUS Z170I Pro Gaming and the Gigabyte Z170-HD3. The benchmarks are all in the same general performance area. In real life use, I don't see much difference in the standard fast SSDs and the XP941 and the SM951. I would think that in video and or audio production work these speeds would make a difference. As this is a hobby and my machines are more examples of what can be done by a serious amateur rather then a working professional. Probably not the answer that you wanted.

Good modding,
neil

 

[HacKDo]

Congratulations , Neil, on that avant-garde hack. I guess that , given the relative smoothness of El Capitan's installation that you relate in your post, in a couple of months Skylake will have become the recommended monthly hardware here ...

I am just realising now how fast PCIE SSD's can be. But how does that help in general system speed? Do you experience a big difference between that and using common sata SSD's in your day to day use? What is your boot time for example ? (i.e from the moment you press the On button and the one when your desktop is displayed ?

 

[neilhart]

Congratulations , Neil, on that avant-garde hack. I guess that , given the relative smoothness of El Capitan's installation that you relate in your post, in a couple of months Skylake will have become the recommended monthly hardware here ...

I am just realising now how fast PCIE SSD's can be. But how does that help in general system speed? Do you experience a big difference between that and using common sata SSD's in your day to day use? What is your boot time for example ? (i.e from the moment you press the On button and the one when your desktop is displayed ?

Well the question is how fast is fast? This system with the SM951 with one system partition (and the EFI partition) and one 1TB 2.5" 7200 RPM hard disk with two partitions (actually three counting the EFI partitions) takes about 30 seconds to reach the OS X desktop. The components are POST, Clover loading, 5 second timer at the selection screen, and system loading. This could be speeded up but why bother?

Then the question is does a fast system drive make a difference. For interactive computer use, the user has the sense of a quick response. However the user is seeing the total of the integrated system (CPU, GPU, Memory, and storage access). IMHO you don't realize any benefit from these "super fast" devices when using a system interactively say word processing for web browsing. However if you are moving 100s of gigabytes of data and many files around, the presence of fast devices is very noticeable. But then again, the actual speed is limited by the slowest link in the path which is usually the "data" hard disk and/or the network connection.

Good modding,
neil

 

[Mark Quark]

Hello. Have You measured energy consumption? With and without a graphics card? Your Benchmark is like a i5-4790K. Gruß

 

[neilhart]

Hello. Have You measured energy consumption? With and without a graphics card? Your Benchmark is like a i5-4790K. Gruß

Well no not without the GPU as Skylake does not do well with current on-board video support. As far as power on the AC line as measured using a Kill A Watt tool, idle mode is about 34 watts and full loaded CPU is 75 watts and then running the UNiGiNE Heaven benchmark the system jumps up to 225 watts.

The GeekBench 3 score is what I expect from the "T" version and remember you have 8 threads.

Good modding,
neil

 

[robinzz]

i follow your path but my ram is 8gb 3200mhz ram but at clover i can manage 2600mhz so how i solve this problem.plz help me ???

 

[neilhart]

i follow your path but my ram is 8gb 3200mhz ram but at clover i can manage 2600mhz so how i solve this problem.plz help me ???

To tell the truth I have no idea. What does the BIOS say? Is the memory identified correctly automatically or have you set it to 3200MHz?

Good modding,
neil

 

[robinzz]

no automatic i have to add mannually on clover and i just buy new another ram same bus speed its showing only 8gb on 10.11.3 total 16gb but showing 8gb any idea what to do all r working great no problem at ll execpt the ram issue and my bios showing 3200mhz.

 

[neilhart]

no automatic i have to add mannually on clover and i just buy new another ram same bus speed its showing only 8gb on 10.11.3 total 16gb but showing 8gb any idea what to do all r working great no problem at ll execpt the ram issue and my bios showing 3200mhz.

Take a look at this thread, post #1 half way down the page: http://www.tonymacx86.com/el-capitan-desktop-guides/179221-skylake-starter-guide.html

This edit to the config.plist may get your memory reporting correctly.

Good modding,
neil

 

[neilhart]

no automatic i have to add mannually on clover and i just buy new another ram same bus speed its showing only 8gb on 10.11.3 total 16gb but showing 8gb any idea what to do all r working great no problem at ll execpt the ram issue and my bios showing 3200mhz.

I took a look at the memory issue. I saw that the config.plist (see post 1 attachment) had an error in the SMBIOS Memory ID and I corrected it and attached a corrected version.

However on my machine, I have removed the the Memory section from the SMBIOS portion of the config.plist and my memory is identified correctly. Also note that the memory is identified as 2133 vs 2600MHz but still has the same GeekBench performance.

Good modding,
neil