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

[pastrychef]

I will definitely get the M2, so if I don't use lilu or whatever green the Rx 580 will not work? Thought it was native plug and play. I see that you have some usb maping but on the storks build he doesn't do anything of that ,I just don't want to use your mobo because I prefer atx .

It might be possible to use it without WhateverGreen but it will probably work better with it. For example, when I tried using my Vega 56 without WhateverGreen, most things seemed to work fine except I lost AirPlay without it.

Honestly, I don't see any point in avoiding the use of WhateverGreen. It only helps things run better. Lilu is unavoidable if you want onboard audio to work.

"Proper" USB fix requires SSDT for USB. 15 port limit KextsToPatches are considered temporary. For more information on this, please see post #1, USB section.

It doesn't matter if you use ATX. The EFI folders provided in post #1 should be fine for any Z370 motherboard. There are even some Z270 users who have used them without problems.

 

[Samekas]

It might be possible to use it without WhateverGreen but it will probably work better with it. For example, when I tried using my Vega 56 without WhateverGreen, most things seemed to work fine except I lost AirPlay without it.

Honestly, I don't see any point in avoiding the use of WhateverGreen. It only helps things run better. Lilu is unavoidable if you want onboard audio to work.

"Proper" USB fix requires SSDT for USB. 15 port limit KextsToPatches are considered temporary. For more information on this, please see post #1, USB section.

It doesn't matter if you use ATX. The EFI folders provided in post #1 should be fine for any Z370 motherboard. There are even some Z270 users who have used them without problems.

I see, thanks. Whatevergreen and Lilu are on MultiBeast? Or just put them on the EFI manually. Since now the GTX 1080 Ti price dropped, would it give better performance than the Vega 64, and WhateverGreen wouldn't be needed anymore. Actually, the Vega 64 is more expensive than the 1080 Ti, and I know that in Windows it kills the Vega 64. Don't know on Mac tho.

 

[hannibal1969]

price dropped, would it give better performance than the Vega 64 and WhateverGreen wouldn't be needed anymore , since actually the Vega 64 is more expensive than the 1080 ti ,and I know that in Windows it kills the Vega 64, don't know on Mac tho.

In short: It is absolutely a no-brainer to buy a VEGA 64 instead of Nvidia 1080Ti. But you are right in Windows it is another story. You have to make your decision. What is the most important daily task you wanna do on your PC/Hack. Is it macOS then go for the Vega or when it's windows go for the 1080Ti.

Long(er) story: I think you still need whatevergreen for the 1080ti because of the possible black screen issue. And if I may choose, getting rid of whatevergreen or Nvidia drivers my choice is simple. Nvidia drivers sucks ... they are improved but compared to Vega it's a hell of a difference. I swapped my nVidia EVGA 1080ti FTW3 to a Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+ but to be honest the 56 would do too. They are neater and better power usage optimised. Performance is about 10% less but power usage is about 25% less.

And kill in Windows is also not completely true. AMD has done default a terrible job on the VEGA's. In windows you can optimise your card with Vcore and GPU / Mem clocks to get better performance and powerusage (you can do that in macOS also but not realtime). Compared to nVidia's Ti's it will be not the winner but it's definitely not killing. It depends per game but BF1 as example are almost on par. The AMD has lower Max FPS but far better min FPS and avg FPS. But hey that's true for a long time now and most of the gamers just look to max fps.

Also, there's an ethical story. Recently nVidia directed all their partners to tie their existing gaming brands (Asus Strix as example) to be nVidia exclusively. The recent game BF2 is hold of the shelves while Nvidia was fixing their 2080 xx stock. So they push really hard into the market with their endless dollar budget. Although the competition of AMD is marginal they want to remove them as competitor. Thats not good for anybody on the end. Less important issue for us building Hacks because Apple make those decisions what will be the best fit. So I'm glad they decided to go for AMD, being their partner, and me as a true hack lover as well ;-)

 

[Sofronis]

It seems that stock of some of the Asus Z370 motherboards are drying up in the wake of the Z390 releases. As I've said in other posts, from all that I've read, the only real difference between Z370 and Z390 are (1) Z390 uses Intel Wi-Fi and (2) Z390 uses Intel USB 3.1 gen 2. As far as I know, there is currently no support for either of these in macOS.

Yeah the Z390 is a small update to Z370, as Intel's mainstream chipsets have been for the past few years (users have even been able to put the 8700K in Z170 motherboards, via a small hardware mod), and I see no reason to upgrade from that.

On the other hand, the 9900K looks interesting (8 cores, higher clocks, TVB, soldered IHS), but it's too expensive for now and we'll have to see how it works with macOS (probably should be fine though). Also, overclocking it would probably draw north of 200W and even at stock, you would need a good motherboard and cooling to keep it from throttling with multithreaded AVX loads. I'm actually surprised that cheap motherboards with wimpy VRMs and VRM cooling (like the ASUS PRIME Z370-P) have added support for it.

 

[Samekas]

In short: It is absolutely a no-brainer to buy a VEGA 64 instead of Nvidia 1080Ti. But you are right in Windows it is another story. You have to make your decision. What is the most important daily task you wanna do on your PC/Hack. Is it macOS then go for the Vega or when it's windows go for the 1080Ti.

Long(er) story: I think you still need whatevergreen for the 1080ti because of the possible black screen issue. And if I may choose, getting rid of whatevergreen or Nvidia drivers my choice is simple. Nvidia drivers sucks ... they are improved but compared to Vega it's a hell of a difference. I swapped my nVidia EVGA 1080ti FTW3 to a Sapphire Vega 64 Nitro+ but to be honest the 56 would do too. They are neater and better power usage optimised. Performance is about 10% less but power usage is about 25% less.

And kill in Windows is also not completely true. AMD has done default a terrible job on the VEGA's. In windows you can optimise your card with Vcore and GPU / Mem clocks to get better performance and powerusage (you can do that in macOS also but not realtime). Compared to nVidia's Ti's it will be not the winner but it's definitely not killing. It depends per game but BF1 as example are almost on par. The AMD has lower Max FPS but far better min FPS and avg FPS. But hey that's true for a long time now and most of the gamers just look to max fps.

Also, there's an ethical story. Recently nVidia directed all their partners to tie their existing gaming brands (Asus Strix as example) to be nVidia exclusively. The recent game BF2 is hold of the shelves while Nvidia was fixing their 2080 xx stock. So they push really hard into the market with their endless dollar budget. Although the competition of AMD is marginal they want to remove them as competitor. Thats not good for anybody on the end. Less important issue for us building Hacks because Apple make those decisions what will be the best fit. So I'm glad they decided to go for AMD, being their partner, and me as a true hack lover as well ;-)

Thanks for your reply , what is your cinebench scores with your Vega 64? I had 115 with the Rx 580 on amd hackintosh .

 

[pastrychef]

I see thanks , whatevergreen and lilu are on multibeast ? Or just put them on the EFI manually, since now the Gtx 1080ti price dropped, would it give better performance than the Vega 64 and WhateverGreen wouldn't be needed anymore , since actually the Vega 64 is more expensive than the 1080 ti ,and I know that in Windows it kills the Vega 64, don't know on Mac tho.

Even with an Nvidia card, I still recommend the use of WhateverGreen because the functions of NvidiaGraphicsFixup have been rolled in to WhateverGreen and NvidiaGraphicsFixup itself has been discontinued.

As things stand today, I can not recommend anyone invest in an Nvidia card for use with macOS. Mojave has been officially released for 2.5 weeks already and Nvidia still doesn't even have an ETA for when they will release drivers for Mojave. Plus, their drivers were very buggy in High Sierra. I used to own a GTX 1080 myself. I got so frustrated with the buggy drivers that I sold the GTX 1080 and purchased a Vega 56. This was during the height of the crypto currency mining craze but I felt it had to be done.

In terms of performance in macOS, it depends. In some cases the GTX 1080 Ti will outperform a Vega 64 and in other cases the Vega 64 will do better. It depends on what you are doing.

With my Vega 56, I have found that a little tweaking can go a long way in eking out the most performance. Apparently, Vegas are shipped with too much voltage applied to them. This causes them to run hotter than the have to be, so many Vega users are now undervolting their cards. This allows the GPU to run cooler and allows for better overclocking. The improvements can be quite massive. That's why when reading comparisons between Vega 56/64 vs GTX 1080/GTX 1080 Ti, this has to be put in to consideration. You can look at my initial benchmarking results in post #1 and see how much undervolting and overclocking improved those benchmarks in post #3091.

 

[pastrychef]

Yeah the Z390 is a small update to Z370, as Intel's mainstream chipsets have been for the past few years (users have even been able to put the 8700K in Z170 motherboards, via a small hardware mod), and I see no reason to upgrade from that.

On the other hand, the 9900K looks interesting (8 cores, higher clocks, TVB, soldered IHS), but it's too expensive for now and we'll have to see how it works with macOS (probably should be fine though). Also, overclocking it would probably draw north of 200W and even at stock, you would need a good motherboard and cooling to keep it from throttling with multithreaded AVX loads. I'm actually surprised that cheap motherboards with wimpy VRMs and VRM cooling (like the ASUS PRIME Z370-P) have added support for it.

Agree about the Z390 and Z170.

Yes, the 9900K looks great on paper. Yes, it will use more power than previous generations. Yes, good overall system cooling will be a must. People tend to forget that, under most circumstances, water cooling provides less air movement around the CPU/VRM area of the motherboard than a tower cooler with a fan mounted on it... I feel it's always wise to look for a heatsink on top of the mosfets.

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks for your reply , what is your cinebench scores with your Vega 64? I had 115 with the Rx 580 on amd hackintosh .

Be careful with Cinebench results. the fps score is very often artificially hampered by CPU.

 

[Samekas]

Be careful with Cinebench results. the fps score is very often artificially hampered by CPU.

Alright , I will get an 970 Pro 1Tb, which file system do you recommend ,apfs or hfs? You can enable trim on apfs? Also I think I'm gonna wait a bit, the Z370 motherboards price will drop with the new intel cpu.

 

[pastrychef]

Alright , I will get an 970 Pro 1Tb, which file system do you recommend ,apfs or hfs? You can enable trim on apfs? Also I think I'm gonna wait a bit, the Z370 motherboards price will drop with the new intel cpu.

I embraced APFS since it was released with High Sierra. I've never had a problem with it. Trim is enabled by default with APFS. I don't think it's even possible to disable it in APFS.

Some of the Z370 motherboards are already starting to disappear from the market. I think manufacturers are replacing Z370 with Z390 and whatever is still out there are probably the last of Z370.