Hardware
- Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite motherboard: support for Intel 8th and 9th generation processors, Realtek ALC1220 audio, Intel I219V Ethernet, 4 PCI-E slots, 2-3-3.1 USB ports, Intel UHD Graphics 630 integrated graphics card and M.2 disk connectors
- 9th generation Intel i7 9700 processor
- Nox Hummer H-312 120mm CPU Fan
- Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 MHz 32 GB RAM (2 x 16)
- AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB graphics card
- Wifi and Bluetooth Card Fenvi FV-T919
- Mars Gaming MPII850 Power Supply (850W)
- M.2 Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe disk.
What works well?
Pretty much everything I've tried:
- Radeon RX 580: 3 DP ports, 1 DVI port and 1 HDMI port, output to 3 displays simultaneously
- Shutdown, restart and sleep
- Integrated and HDMI sound output
- USB ports (2, 3 and 3.1)
- TRIM activation for SSD and M.2 disks
- Airdrop, iMessage, Sidecar...
What is not working well?
Integrated graphics card Intel UHD Graphics 630: see below.
UEFI settings (version F10g)
I only write down the significant options, there are many other options that do not influence macOS and that you can configure to your liking (for example the LEDs on the board, etc.).
- CFG Lock: Disabled
- XMP Profile: Auto / Profile 1 / Enabled (eXtreme Memory Profile, I use 3200 MHz memory and without this profile it works at 2600)
- Platform Power Management: Disabled
- VT-d: Disabled
- XHCI Hand-Off: Disabled
- Legacy USB Support: Enabled
- Network Stack: Disabled
- CSM: Disabled
- Secure Boot: Disabled
- Fast Boot: Disabled
- OS Type: Windows 8/10 WHQL
- Wake on LAN: Disabled
- Integrated Graphics: Disabled / Enabled
- Initial Display Output: PCIe 1 Slot
- DVMT Pre-Allocated: 256M or higher.
OpenCore 0.6.4
I have used OpenCore 0.6.4 which has improvements for Big Sur, among them the return to the option
SecureBootModel=Default instead of
Disable and
DmgLoading=Signed instead of
Any in the config.plist file (Misc> Security). These options return to macOS the Secure Boot capacity that not only makes it more secure but also makes it more like a real Mac with the advantages at the level of operation and future updates.
I have downloaded Big Sur 11.0.1 directly from the App Store on a system with macOS Catalina and I have updated this same system, with 3 reboots during the process, without incidents of any kind. Remember to copy the Install macOS Big Sur.app application from the Applications folder to another site because it disappears when the installation finishes and you would have to download it again.
As a curious thing, at the end of step 1 of the installation, the OpenCore menu option that continues with step 2 is called MacintoshHD, but on the subsequent reboot it correctly takes the name of the installation destination disk.
EFI folder for OpenCore
The structure of the EFI folder, the same one that I used in Catalina, is this:
Code:
├── BOOT
│ └── BOOTx64.efi
└── OC
├── ACPI
│ ├── SSDT-EC-USBX.aml
│ ├── SSDT-PLUG.aml
│ ├── SSDT-PMC.aml
│ └── SSDT-USBW.aml
├── Bootstrap
│ └── Bootstrap.efi
├── Drivers
│ ├── HfsPlus.efi
│ ├── OpenCanopy.efi
│ └── OpenRuntime.efi
├── Kexts
│ ├── AppleALC.kext
│ ├── IntelMausi.kext
│ ├── Lilu.kext
│ ├── USBMap.kext
│ ├── USBWakeFixup.kext
│ ├── VirtualSMC.kext
│ ├── WhateverGreen.kext
│ └── XHCI-unsupported.kext
├── OpenCore.efi
├── Resources
│ ├── Audio
│ ├── Font
│ ├── Image
│ └── Label
├── Tools
│ ├── CleanNvram.efi
│ ├── OpenShell.efi
│
└── config.plist
SSDT
SSDT files have these functions:
- SSDT-EC-USBX-DESKTOP: creates a fake Embedded Controller on Skylake and later and AMD systems, also correctly configures power of the USB ports
- SSDT-PMC.aml: to have native NVRAM on boards with Z390 chipset
- SSDT-PLUG: CPU Power Management on Haswell and later, not required on AMD; set the plugin-type=1 parameter on the first processor
- SSDT-USBW.aml: together with USBWakeFixup.kext extension, it corrects the behavior in which it is necessary to give more than 1 tap on USB keyboards or mouse to wake up.
KEXTS
AppleALC.kext
IntelMausi.kext
Lilu.kext
USBMap.kext *
USBWakeFixup.kext
VirtualSMC.kext
WhateverGreen.kext
XHCI-unsupported.kext **.
* USBMap.kext extension has been generated following the instructions in this
article, mapping USB ports of this motherboard so that the limit of 15 ports defined by macOS is not exceeded. I have left the USB ports like this:
- Enabled all USB2 ports that are not part of a USB3 port (1 internal for BT + 2 front that depend of 1 USB2 hub, 4 rear that depend of another USB2 hub)
- Disabled USB2 ports that are part of the 2 rear red USB3.1 ports
- Enabled the USB2 ports that are part of the 4 rear blue USB3 ports
- Enabled all USB3 ports except the internal one for USB type C connection.
Summary: Rear red ports do not recognize USB2 devices.
** XHCI-unsupported.kext is required for XHC chipsets whose device ID is not recognized by macOS. Depending on the USB driver of your board, it may be necessary to install an additional extension:
- 8086: 8CB1 on macOS 10.11.1 or lower: XHCI-9-series.kext
- 8086: 8D31, 8086: A2AF, 8086: A36D, 8086: 9DED: XHCI-unsupported.kext
- 8086: 1E31, 8086: 8C31, 8086: 8CB1, 8086: 8D31, 8086: 9C31, 8086: 9CB1: FakePCIID.kext + FakePCIID_XHCIMux.kext.
This board (generally Z390 chipset boards) carries the USB 3.1 controller with device ID is A36D so the XHCI-unsupported kext is required. You can check your device ID at
Bash:
/System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBHostFamily.kext/Contents/Plugins/AppleUSBXHCIPCI.kext/Contents/Info.plist
Config.plist
CFG Lock
I have CFG unlocked in BIOS so I do not need the kernel patches AppleCpuPmCfgLock and AppleXcpmCfgLock (Kernel / Quirks) that are essential to boot macOS in Hackintosh with CFG Locked. If you have it locked, it is mandatory to select those 2 patches. You can read more about it
here.
SMBIOS
There are 2 possible SMBIOS that work fine on my PC:
- iMac19,1: when iGPU is enabled in BIOS without cable to monitor (headless mode) and dGPU is primary card
- iMacPro1,1: When iGPU is disabled in BIOS and dGPU is the only active card.
In the EFi folder that I attach as ZIP there are 2 files config.plist,
config-imacpro.plist and
config-imac.plist, and in the Kexts folder there are 2 files USBMap.kext,
USBMap-imacpro.kext and
USBMap-imac.kext . The USBMap kext carries an internal reference to the Mac model used in SMBIOS, so there are 2 different files to match the chosen model.
Remember to rename the files you use to config.plist and USBMap.kext, so you can test the 2 SMBIOS separately. Remember also that, if you use iMacPro1,1. you have to disable iGPU in BIOS.
Booter / Quirks
AvoidRuntimeDefrag / DevirtualiseMmio / EnableSafeModeSlide / EnableWriteUnprotector / ProtectUefiServices / ProvideCustomSlide / RebuildAppleMemoryMap / SetupVirtualMap / SyncRuntimePermissions set
True. The others in
False.
DeviceProperties
XML:
<key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>acpi-wake-type</key>
<data>AQ==</data>
<dict>
So that macOS wakes up properly from USB devices (keyboard and mouse).
XML:
<key>PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0)</key>
<dict>
<key>AAPL,ig-platform-id</key>
<data>AwCRPg==</data>
</dict>
So that the iGPU is well recognized by macOS and works as a secondary card without cable to monitor.
Kernel / Patch
I have 2 patches, the one that enables TRIM for SSD disks (including NVMe) and the one that enables hot plug of SATA disks (provided the option is enabled in BIOS).
Kernel / Quircks
CustomSMBIOSGuid / DisableLinkeditJettison / PanicNoKextDump / PowerTimeoutKernelPanic set
True. The others in
False.
Misc / Boot
If you use OpenCanopy driver for the OpenCore menu to be displayed in graphical mode, PickerMode must be
External. Without OpenCanopy the menu is shown in text mode and in PickerMode it is convenient to put
Builtin.
NVRAM / 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82
In boot-args you only need to put the layout-id of the audio (ex:
alcid=11) and, if you want macOS to start showing text messages instead of the apple logo and progress bar, add
-v.
PlatformInfo
I only fill in the Generic section with the data of the chosen SMBIOS model (iMac19,1 or iMacPro1,1).
Windows 10 from OpenCore
If you start Windows 10 from OpenCore there may be problems because OpenCore passes to Windows SMBIOS and ACPI data that we have configured for macOS. Some users have even seen the message that Windows is not activated.
MSINFO32 tool in Windows 10 with default OpenCore configuration shows this data (among others):
- Operating system name: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
- System Manufacturer: Acidanthera
- System Model: iMac19.1
- Motherboard manufacturer: Acidanthera
- Motherboard Product: Mac-AA95B1DDAB278B95.
To avoid this, you have to configure 2 keys of config.plist:
- Kernel / Quirks / CustomSMBIOSGuid as
True (default is
False)
- PlatformInfo / UpdateSMBIOSMode as
Custom (default is
Create).
For it to work you have to apply patches to AppleSmbios.kext and AppleACPIPlatform.kext but CustomSMBIOSGuid, if it is activated (
True), takes care of applying those patches at startup.
These are the data displayed by MSINFO32 tool in Windows 10 with the proposed OpenCore settings:
- Operating system name: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
- System Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co.
- System Model: Z390 Aorus Elite
- Motherboard manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co.
- Motherboard Product: Z390 Aorus Elite-CF.
USB installation
It is convenient to recreate the installation USB with this version of Big Sur. The EFI folder on the USB may be the same as the one you use on the Big Sur drive. These are the only changes I make to the USB:
- Remove OpenCanopy.efi driver so that OpenCore menu is displayed in text mode.
- Misc / Boot / PickerMode = Builtin
- NVRAM / Add / 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82 / boot-args = -v.
AMD RX 580
Although my RX 580 card is a model from the XFX brand, known for using custom VBios and giving problems in macOS, in my case it seems to work well with Lilu and WhatEverGreen. At startup it does not show artifacts, all 5 ports work, you can send image simultaneously to 3 screens (I have not tried more) with usual duplication options, it sends sound in addition to image to a TV via HDMI, during the installation of the operating system it works correctly provided that Lilu and WhatEverGreen are on the USB device, etc.
GeekBench 5 Scores:
- Metal 50100
- openCL 44100.
For comparison, the integrated card reaches 4800 in Metal.
Sound
This board incorporates the Realtek ALC1220 chip that needs the AppleALC extension to work. AppleALC is a Lilu plugin so both must be properly installed. I've tried various layout-id's and 11-13-15 seem to work best.
Ethernet
This board carries the Intel I219V chip that works well with the IntelMausi extension.
Wifi and Bluetooth
I use a Fenvi FV T-919 mini PCIe card that carries both wifi and bluetooth chips. This card works perfectly in macOS without needing anything other than placing it on the board because it is recognized as Airport Extreme and Bluetooth Apple.
M.2 disk
I have installed Big Sur on an M.2 disk, the WD Black SN750 NVMe model (PCIe connection) with integrated heatsink, its performance is excellent and its price is acceptable. Regarding M.2 drives, the Z390 Aorus Elite board has 2 connectors:
- M2A: next to the CPU and RAM, it supports larger disks (up to 110mm) and, if the inserted disk is PCIe (as is my case), it does not cancel any SATA channel
- M2M: next to the stack, it supports disks up to 80mm long and, if you have a disk inserted (either PCIe or SATA), it cancels the SATA4 and SATA5 channels.
From the motherboard manual:
View attachment 501968
Integrated graphics Intel UHD Graphics 630
It has its own
article.
Note
Big Sur works very well, graphic aspect is clearly better than in Catalina and working speed is excellent.
OpenCore authors have an article in Dortania titled
What's new in macOS 11, Big Sur! that is worth reading, it is an excellent text to know some of the internal changes of Big Sur, the difficulties that they have had to overcome so that OpenCore works correctly and even some comments about the future of the Hackintosh world now that Apple has released the first ARM family processor computers. Highly recommended.
Attached the EFI folder I use.
2020/02/07: updated to OpenCore 0.6.6, EFI attached in
post 88.
