Motherboard advise for i5 10400 using iGPU / B460M, H410M, B470M...

[kilaz]

Hello,
I am looking for a cheap mother but flawlessly compatible with Hackintosh.

I have seen some Gigabyte B460M DS3H at a reasonable price here.
I have seen some H410M chipset success build on GitHub too... and they are cheap here too.

I want to avoid the recommended on buyer's guide z490 bc the higher price...
The B470M chipsets are more expensive here.

I read around that H510M chipset is not good for iGPU, so I discard this option.

There's any other easy recommendation to buy?

PS:
Also, I have 2 x 8Gb DDR4 2400Mhz modules to recycle into the build.
Not sure if that could be a problem bc not the standard 2666Mhz?

 

[Middleman]

Hello,
I am looking for a cheap mother but flawlessly compatible with Hackintosh.

I have seen some Gigabyte B460M DS3H at a reasonable price here.
I have seen some H410M chipset success build on GitHub too... and they are cheap here too.

I want to avoid the recommended on buyer's guide z490 bc the higher price...
The B470M chipsets are more expensive here.

I read around that H510M chipset is not good for iGPU, so I discard this option.

There's any other easy recommendation to buy?

PS:
Also, I have 2 x 8Gb DDR4 2400Mhz modules to recycle into the build.
Not sure if that could be a problem bc not the standard 2666Mhz?

Hi there,

Well I would say there's a really good range of 400 series motherboards these days.Depending on what you want to look for, they offer a lot of value for the money. They are macOS compatible from High Sierra onwards and most should be able to run Comet Lake chips quite easily as well as upgrade to Rocket Lake if you wish. However not all will offer PCIe 4.0 support so you have to check. I personally run a Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Xtreme and the reason I bought it is because I wanted the expandability and features (mainly Thunderbolt & PCI 4.0 compatibility and plenty of drive slots for NVMe and SATA). Asus and Gigabyte have been the mainstay of the hackintosh community for years, but these days manufacturers like MSI, Biostar and Asrock all have offerings too. All MSI Z490 motherboards supposedly has PCIe 4.0 support.

As for the Z490 boards being too costly, I want to make it clear - not all Z490 series are totally expensive.
Here's some examples (these are some of the cheapest btw):
Asus Prime Z490M-Plus
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC

Your board choice seems pretty good (Gigabyte B460M DS3H) - but there are others to consider too:

Asus Prime B460-PLUS
Asus Prime B460M-A
Asus ROG Strix B460-H Gaming
Asus TUF Gaming B460-PRO WiFi 6
MSI MAG Tomahawk
MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus

Mid-range:
Asus ProArt Z490-Creator 10G
Asus Prime Z90-A
MSI Z490 Gaming Plus
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Master
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Ultra
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Pro AX

Higher price range:
Asrock Z490 Aqua
Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Xtreme
Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Xtreme Waterforce
MSI MEG Z490 Godlike

As for the RAM issue - your 2400Mhz chips may still work with the motherboard, but they will be clocked much much slower and could affect macOS & Windows performance. It would be better to upgrade them to 3200Mhz or higher versions compatibility-wise (and also not burnout your system), since they are reasonably cheap these days.

 

[kilaz]

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply.
I will check if I can get some of these motherboards here at a good price.

The thing about choosing Gigabyte is it's also bc the post-RMA service here in Argentina, which is pretty cool.
(Not only bc the Hackintosh legacy )

This is for an aux machine with macOS, now I have a main PC / Windows 10 with a new Ryzen 5900x,
but I haven't time yet to try to install macOS there.
I don't have an AMD GPU. I have an Nvidia GTX 1060/6Gb, not compatible with macOS.

So, I don't need a powerful machine, as is not my main machine.
Now I mainly work on Windows (mainly for code/development).
I just want an aux macOS for Xcode compiling and etc.

Now I have an i5 6500 on a Gigabyte H110M-H board that I am trying to sell to buy this new mother.
But I have an old Nvidia GTX760 2GB that maybe I can plug into the Ryzen and spend the money on other things...

Thanks again for your reply and your time.

 

[kilaz]

Some prices to get in touch with the local shopping:

ASUS PRIME B460M-A R2.0 is really cheap here, 59$ approx.
GIGABYTE B460M DS3H V2, 85$.
GIGABYTE B460M DS3H, 83$.
ASUS ROG STRIX B460-H Gaming 5 PCE, 105$.
MSI Z490 MPG GAMING PLUS, 277$

All the others grow up the price a lot.

 

[Middleman]

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply.
I will check if I can get some of these motherboards here at a good price.

The thing about choosing Gigabyte is it's also bc the post-RMA service here in Argentina, which is pretty cool.
(Not only bc the Hackintosh legacy )

This is for an aux machine with macOS, now I have a main PC / Windows 10 with a new Ryzen 5900x,
but I haven't time yet to try to install macOS there.
I don't have an AMD GPU. I have an Nvidia GTX 1060/6Gb, not compatible with macOS.

So, I don't need a powerful machine, as is not my main machine.
Now I mainly work on Windows (mainly for code/development).
I just want an aux macOS for Xcode compiling and etc.

Now I have an i5 6500 on a Gigabyte H110M-H board that I am trying to sell to buy this new mother.
But I have an old Nvidia GTX760 2GB that maybe I can plug into the Ryzen and spend the money on other things...

Thanks again for your reply and your time.

I see...

Well to let you know, the GTX1060 card you have can work with macOS, just that it's only up to High Sierra. As Nvidia recently revoked the webdriver certificates for some of their cards it's not really a feasible card to use in the long run now, especially if you're doing development work. Nvidia is great on Windows, not so much on macOS.

As far as builds go, I actually have a working B550 Monterey build on the 5900X running right now on OC 0.7.8. It's in my Arcee signature below. I have it running with an AMD RX550 Baffin/Lexa core card that I have spoofed. The Baffin cards are some of the cheapest around, so is probably worth it. You could even use it with your Comet Lake build if you know how.

As far as GPUs go, I highly recommend the AMD RX6600 & the RX6800 if you can afford it. Both are very good cards, reasonably priced (esp. RX6600) and aside from Windows support for both, the RX6800 can work with Big Sur 11.4 also (and Catalina partially - VESA mode only). RX6600 however only works with Monterey for now.

 

[kilaz]

Cool info about that RX6600 card.

Yep, now I have Big Sur on the Gigabyte H110M/6500 with the GTX760.
And yes, I used High Sierra too with the GTX 1060 that machine. But it was a bit outdated and I switched to Windows.

I don't need much GPU power on the macOS,
so definitely I must try the Ryzen 5900x + the old GTX760.

I have a B550 too, Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE V2.
I have seen some info about putting both GPUs and disabling the Nvidia on boot, but I didn´t invest the required time to that try.