[GUIDE] SFP+ 10Gb Optical Fiber macOS Ventura

[etorix]

@etorix could you please chime in?

I can, but bear in mind I have not tested all the solutions around…

It seems that Aquantia cards are those which appeal to most users, because this is consumer-oriented hardware and Apple uses it in real Macs. Because of this community support will be available… and may well be needed because system updates have regularly broken things and required updated quirks or even new quirks.

I'd say the safest and easiest solution is a refurbished Chelsio T520 (-CR: SFP+, -BT: Base-T) or Solarflare SFN5122F / SFN6122F card. Solarflare cards are likely the cheapest option as well. As long as we can install the manufacturer's driver, or load the kext from OpenCore EFI, these will just work and keep working in any Hackintosh.
Of course, if Apple eventually disallows kexts and force dexts instead, it will be game over for these oldies (which can still be put to good use in a home-build NAS but that's another matter).

Running Intel X500 cards on Smalltree drivers look like a can of worms. Running these on DriverKit looks appealing, but requires a Hackintosh with working AppleVTD (so no Ryzentosh).
Then there are Intel X700 and Mellanox ConnectX-4/-5/-6 cards, also on DriverKit with working AppleVTD.
I suspect there may actually be less issues with these than with Aquantia cards because Apple repackages ixgbe, ixl and mlx5 drivers under DriverKit to support generic NIC cards in Thunderbolt enclosures so macOS is intended to have generic support for X500, X700 and ConnectX cards, whereas support for Aquantia NICs is intended for the specific ACQ chips in real Macs so Apple may not provide a generic driver (=> spoofing issues) and may tweak its driver at any time as long as it still works as expected in real Macs (thus possibly accidentally breaking hacks). But only time and, most importantly, user reports will tell…

Not sure whether it's true or not -- I read in some comments that AQC113 replaced AQC107, which was running hot, too, and that's what the Asus uses now in the V2 version of XG-C100C; however, many people complain have complains when it comes to the XG-C100C V2.

All 10 GbE controllers run hot, especially if they use Base-T copper cables, and require some airflow going their way.
ACQ107 is PCIe 3.0 while ACQ113 is PCIe 4.0, so there's a technical reason for the replacement as well: It may allow to save lanes.

 

[candydonzs]

I don't use Ventura, so I don't know. Guess they will, though. For Sonnet, you can ask. They support MacOS.