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pastrychef's Asus ROG Strix Z370-G Gaming (WI-FI AC) build w/ i9-9900K + AMD 6600 XT

About the lack of rear exhaust fan, I was having an unacceptable amount of negative pressure with the exhaust fan so I've been experimenting with different configurations. the two exhausts on the top seem to do a pretty good job and the case pressure has neutralized somewhat siding with a tiny bit of negative pressure which I like. I'm going to stick with this set up for the time being.

So yeah, the iMac pro is really cool. I picked one up when Micro Center had them for $3999. You would be hard pressed to do a similar DIY Xeon set up at that price. If you compare the two as far as power goes, then yeah the hack is the most cost effective solution. However with the iMac pro you get the power, that 5K screen and a system which will be nearly crash proof due to the ECC RAM. Unfortunately ECC is a tad bit slower than non buffered ram, some say around 2%.They both have similar multi geek bench scores but the hack kills the iMac on single core. Not sure if it's enough to notice in real world use use though. I think anything over 5K for single core is pretty solid. Of course if I throw a billion polygons into a scene and whip them up into a turbulence field, the hack would probably win out eventually but I never get that crazy.

I'll also say, the iMac and this hack of ours will render a scene at about the same speed but the iMac is dead silent doing it. You can't hear a damn thing. The only issue will be the inedible throttling that we have little control over. The mac fan utility isn't yet working on the iMac Pro but I'e heard they're close to figuring it out. If we can pump the fans up manually then we can probably control the the throttling.. then we'll proabably have to put up with a little noise. ;)

Ah. I didn't know you had fans on the top... With my case, I definitely have positive air pressure. When the CPU is being pushed (say during Handbrake video conversions), I can take out the front air filter and instatly see noticeable temp drops. I know I sound like broken record, but the Noctua fans that I use (ugly as they are) perform exceptionally while remaining inaudible to me.

I agree. With the current video card prices being what they are now, the iMac Pros almost seem like bargains. If I had choose between buying all components today or an off-the-shelf iMac Pro, I may very well lean towards the iMac Pro.

Prior to my foray in to hackintoshes, I used Mac Pros. I the MacPro1,1, then MacPro3,1, and, finally, MacPro5,1. I'm not so sure ECC RAM contributes to stability, but I do know that they ran quite a bit hotter than non-ECC RAM. I remember playing with Mac Fans Control and it took me about 2 weeks before figuring out a good fan curve compromise between noise and cooling performance. While the app worked and did what it was advertised to do, I still found myself constantly monitoring temps...

It's awesome to hear that renders happen at about the same speed. One of the major concerns I have for any iMac model is dust build up on their fans. It's very dusty where I am and I usually end up opening up my computers once or twice a year to do a major dusting. Attempting this on iMacs would be a royal pain. It's probably the single biggest reason why I never picked one up.
 
I have just updated to 10.13.3, and as soon as i boot into Macos and try do dowload latest Nvidia drivers, the computer reboots. I just goes out, and restart. If I just leave it on the login window, the same thing happens.
Tried starting in safe move, without nvidia web drivers and everything under the sun, but the same thing happens. Updated clover on my usb to latest, and tried, but same outcome. Any ideas?

Please update your profile to show what CPU, motherboard, and GPU you are using. This helps others help you.

I need much more info than what you've given. Are you using Asus approved RAM? Are you overclocking? Are you supplying enough voltage? Is your system stable in other operating systems? Have you tried without video card? Did you follow any guides? What do you have installed and where?
 
If I were in your situation, I would do the following:
  1. Upgrade system to High Sierra.
  2. Make sure everything is working.
  3. Backup the EFI folder from your system drive.
  4. Download the EFI folder in post #1.
  5. Replace the EFI folder on the system drive with the one that was downloaded from post #1.
  6. Delete whatever hackintosh kexts you have in /L/E/ and /S/L/E/.
  7. Pull the drive from the Z97.
  8. Plug the drive in to the Z370.
Hi, pastrychef,

I plan to upgrade my 2 years old Z87 built (ASUS Maximus VI Extreme, I7 4770K) towards a Z370 (ASUS Maximus X Hero ROG, I7-8700K) system.

Can I transfer the SSD with MacOS 10.13.3 (Samsung 850 pro) to the new system without reinstalling MacOS from scratch ?
Can I copy the contents of the EFI folder in your post #1 without any compatibility issues ?
Do you or other posters have such experiences ?
 
Hi, pastrychef,

I plan to upgrade my 2 years old Z87 built (ASUS Maximus VI Extreme, I7 4770K) towards a Z370 (ASUS Maximus X Hero ROG, I7-8700K) system.

Can I transfer the SSD with MacOS 10.13.3 (Samsung 850 pro) to the new system without reinstalling MacOS from scratch ?

That depends on how you installed your hackintosh files on your current system. If you have all of your hackintosh kexts in your EFI folder, it should work fine.

If you have hackintosh kexts in /L/E/ and/or /S/L/E/, you would need to clean up all that stuff prior to the transplant. Also, if you have done any patches to system files, you will probably want to restore them.

One way to help reduce the chance of any issues would be to run the 10.13.3 combo update on your system prior to the transplant.


Can I copy the contents of the EFI folder in your post #1 without any compatibility issues ?

Most things should work fine with my EFI folder on a Maximus X Hero. As is the case with any motherboard other than the Z370-G that I use, you will have to create your own SSDT-USB.aml.


Do you or other posters have such experiences ?

There's already been at least a few people who have used my EFI as a base for other Z370 systems without any major issues.
 
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Is your card connected via PCI-e or M.2?

Changing to my EFI folder should not have affected it... You can try resetting all your network interfaces by doing the following:
  1. Go to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/.
  2. Delete NetworkInterfaces.plist and preferences.plist.
  3. Reboot.

I'll give that a go and report back.
 
Hold the Option key while clicking on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar. This will allow you to see how your reception is.

From Monitor a Bluetooth Device’s Connection Strength in Mac OS X :
View attachment 308481


In regards to the temperature of the card itself, that's considerably hotter than mine but I'm not transferring any data through Wi-Fi at the moment. I'm seeing about 95F (approx 35C).
View attachment 308484

To follow up from the Hot WiFi / Bluetooth Card and therefore performance issues I present my solution:

Since installing the components into my case improved temperatures only slightly because of the airflow, I had to find a way to cool the card to continue using WiFi and Bluetooth without lags.

So I ordered some small passive RAM Heatsinks with selfadhesive thermalpads:

81716AB9-63D9-4C0D-BC2B-E6A821D3812D.jpeg


Installing was somewhat tricky with big fingers and the system assembled, but only took a minute or two.

15EFFDB8-F034-457A-8FCB-8D471A97A0E1.jpeg


The colour is not perfect but ok and I couldn’t be bothered to paint them. Also I’m not sure if paint would affect the thermal properties.

EA567175-99C2-49E4-8CCD-D1EF5040D315.jpeg


Temperatures are now in the mid to high thirties (95-102*F), even under Network load. There is no more lag when I use my Bluetooth devices. :)


Now I get to enjoy my system. (Hopefully!)

Some pictures of the setup so far:

64E51A82-859B-423B-96AD-F7EFB0DF6F40.jpeg
B66CA082-D663-4668-85C9-5D817F426B8A.jpeg
 

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@pastrychef does your power nap work? What darkwake= are you using? I can’t seem to get mine to work when it sleeps with power nap on the system reboots to the bios failure screen..

As stated in post #1, sleep/wake, power nap, and wake-on-LAN all work for me.

I use "Darkwake". I don't know what will work for your motherboard.
 
Darkwake=0,8,10? I’ve tried 0 but power nap doesn’t work

No. "Darkwake". You can see my settings by downloading my EFI folder. It's on post #1.
Screen Shot 2018-02-01 at 7.49.12 PM.png
 
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