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Need help in purchasing CPU - Intel i7 vs Intel Xeon

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Hello,

I need to have some purchasing advice for a future hackintosh build. I am currently running an Intel Xeon e5450 Socket 771 in a Gigabyte EP45T-UD3LR Socket 775 motherboard. Originally, I was going to order a Core 2 Quad CPU, but stumbled across a posting on ebay for the Xeon e5450 CPU. It has been running great! I got a specially modded cpu that will fit in either socket with no special modding.

My question is this - I've read and seen online that it is possible to run Mac OSX on Xeon CPUs. I know that the Mac Pros have been using them for years. The latest iMac Pro uses a socket 1151 CPU and currently use an i7. There are currently Xeons that are made for this socket. Is it possible to get a motherboard listed in your online guides and use a Xeon CPU instead of an i7?
Building a hackintosh is always a superb idea, but it would be much cooler if I had one running on a Xeon CPU rather than a desktop i7. You know, like the REAL Mac Pros use.

I am welcome to tips, advice, feedback, etc. Please send them forward so I can plan and make a educated decision. Also, is it possible to put an 8-core cpu like the Xeon e3-1245 v6 in a supported board? This baby is an 8 core cpu.
Hoping to hear from anyone soon.

ps. I did a bit of research and have found this motherboard:

Gigabyte GA-H270M-DS2H
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128979

I'd like to use this CPU:

Intel Xeon E3-1245 v6
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/processors/xeon/e3-processors/e3-1245-v6.html

Will the H270 chipset support this Xeon CPU?
 
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No, current Intel "consumer" chipsets such as the Z270, H270, etc. no longer support Xeon processors. You'd have to go with a workstation/server class motherboard with a C-series chipset, and I'm not sure those will work with macOS.
 
You can absolutely run Xeons in Hackintoshes, however it is not without drawbacks.

Firstly, when socket 771 was around, you could use a pin mod to seat it in socket 775 motherboards and it worked perfectly; that was how similar a Xeon motherboard was to it's consumer counterpart. Now, they have different amounts of PCI lanes, different power management, and are basically different platforms, not just different CPUs. You need a different motherboard for them, and the CPU is physically bigger to house more.

This is an issue because that means since socket 775, you need a Xeon of the same generation in a Mac to get native power management, not just an i7.... and you need to edit the DSDT (the tables that describe the motherboard to the BIOS/EFI, written in ASL C programming language) and create power management scripts (google pike's SSDTPRGen, and please read it's guide before using... you do not want to do it yourself) to be able to use any power management other than basic clocking down to 1200mhz when not in use. If you get one, make sure it's not a Sandy Bridge-E as they give a particularly hard time due to them being released and replaced during that long period we were waiting for a new Mac Pro before the black one.

If you have a 20 core 2ghz Xeon, you can see how not being able to clock them down past 1.2 may be an issue, if not for heat, certainly for your power bill. Get the best closed loop cooler you can.

In addition, you lose most power management across the motherboard so it draws more too.

My advice is if you plan to do it, know that it will take about a week of research to get done, but it certainly can be done with the above drawbacks.

Personally, with Skylake X just out and supporting lots of cores in response to AMD/Threadripper I would say it's a waste of time.
 
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