Contribute
Register

Something cheap and compatible for that Gigabyte Z390m's Wifi card slot?

Casa

Casa

Joined
Oct 5, 2011
Messages
26
Motherboard
Gigabyte z390m Gaming
CPU
i5-9600K
Graphics
RX 580
Mac
  1. MacBook Air
  2. MacBook Pro
Classic Mac
  1. iBook
  2. Power Mac
Mobile Phone
  1. Android
As for Wifi/BT cards I'm a total noob since I always had my hackintoshes on Ethernet until now, but since I just replaced my main system and shoved my old Hack to the side I figured Wifi would be a nice thing to have. Now after looking over the board again I saw that it has that little M.2 Socket 1 slot for Wifi cards, marked as "for Intel CNVI" in the handbook, and I was wondering what cards are in general compatible with it and, preferably, even compatible with MacOS? Even on the Windows side I never shopped for these before and have no clue where to start, I just noticed those come pretty cheap on Amazon. Any buying advice for something cheap or should I just get some Wifi/BT USB stick?

Also, with my M.2 storage slots filled I have the problem with too many used PCIe lanes on my old 9600k as soon as I add another PCIe card, limiting the GPU to just 8x which I'd like to avoid, would adding a Wifi card to that CNVI slot cause the same problem?

Board is the Gigabyte Z390m Gaming, 9600k, using OpenCore and Ventura.
 
Casa said:
I was wondering what cards are in general compatible with it and, preferably, even compatible with MacOS? Even on the Windows side I never shopped for these before and have no clue where to start, I just noticed those come pretty cheap on Amazon. Any buying advice for something cheap.
Click to expand...
The prices are always higher for the hackintosh compatible Broadcom cards as compared to Intel cards meant for Windows. The Chinese sellers raise them higher because they can get away with it. There are only a few Broadcom versions that work with macOS. Expect to pay 30+ dollars or more.

This is the best choice for an M.2 card that works OOB with Hackintosh.

OOB means for Ventura or older macOS versions. For Sonoma it will require some tweaking to make it work as Apple dropped support for most all Broadcom WIFI/BT cards in Sonoma.
 
Last edited:
trs96 said:
The prices are always higher for the hackintosh compatible Broadcom cards as compared to Intel cards meant for Windows. The Chinese sellers raise them higher because they can get away with it. There are only a few Broadcom versions that work with macOS. Expect to pay 30+ dollars or more.

This is the best choice for an M.2 card that works OOB with Hackintosh.

OOB means for Ventura or older macOS versions. For Sonoma it will require some tweaking to make it work as Apple dropped support for many Broadcom WIFI/BT cards in Sonoma.
Click to expand...
Damn, this isn't available on Amazon Germany and I can't even see it... how much is it for you, just to get an idea?

But it already looks to me like I'll just get a longer Ethernet cable for the time being, Wifi and MacOS is too much hassle...
 
Nice, I'll bookmark that! Many thanks!

Of course it's not as cheap as I hoped browsing all those 8-15 Euro ones on Amazon, but it's not too bad either.

Oh, but can you also answer the question about it taking up PCIe Lanes? I guess it would, wouldn't it? That would probably be the deciding factor anyway, unless PCIe 3 x8 doesn't cripple a Navi GPU noticeably.
 
Last edited:
Casa said:
Oh, but can you also answer the question about it taking up PCIe Lanes? I guess it would, wouldn't it?
Click to expand...
The answer lies in the block diagram for your motherboard, if available somewhere in the documentation.
Short answer: No, it wouldn't throttle the GPU. The line for WiFi typically comes from the chipset, not from the CPU.
Casa said:
That would probably be the deciding factor anyway, unless PCIe 3 x8 doesn't cripple a Navi GPU noticeably.
Click to expand...
Few graphic workloads are actually able to use more bandwidth than what PCIe3.0x8 provides.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Copyright © 2010 - 2024 tonymacx86 LLC
Back
Top