- Joined
- Nov 21, 2015
- Messages
- 8
- Motherboard
- Z370XP-SLI
- CPU
- Intel 8700k
- Graphics
- EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Black Edition
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
underclashero92's Build:
i7-8700K - Gigabyte Z370XP SLI- Thunderbolt - GTX 1070 Black Edition
i7-8700K - Gigabyte Z370XP SLI- Thunderbolt - GTX 1070 Black Edition
Components
GIGABYTE Z370 SLI Motherboard
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0764NX8DR/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Intel Core i7-8700K Processor (Overclocked to 5ghz)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07598VZR8/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 Black Edition Graphics Card
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KVZBNY0/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
G.SKILL 32GB (2 x 16GB) Ripjaws V Series DDR4 PC4-25600 3200MHz Memory
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0171GQR0C/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Corsair RMx Series, RM750x, 750W, Fully Modular Power Supply, 80 PLUS Gold Certified
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015YEI9NQ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
WI-FI TPLINK N900 PCIe Card
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GMPZ0A/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Gigabyte (Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Card) Components Other GC-ALPINE RIDGE
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0722SV69N/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Already Owned
SSD: 240GB M.2 (Windows 10), 240gb PNY SSD (Mac OS X)
HDD: (6) 4TB 7200 RPM Western Digital Black, Lacie 4tb Thunderbolt 2 drive, (2) 2TB Western Digital MyPassport Pro Thunderbolt drives
Monitors: Dual LG 27" 4k Monitors
Comments
The Build
I know I don't usually post threads (researcher mostly), but I figured that now would be a great opportunity for me to jump onto the forums as a contributor and let you know if my recent success story with my 8700k Hackintosh (yes its possible). I would like to share the list all of my hardware, installation process and some issues that may come about. I am writing this while I am away and have some down time, but I will post pictures, screenshots and videos once I get back of anything that you guys may want to see.
First and foremost, I am in no way, shape or form an expert computer builder, I simply follow other people instructions and modify the process if necessary. I have built one other custom PC before and that is pretty much from online tutorials.
My main business is video production, editing 4.5k RED and Panasonic GH5 4k 400mbps footage. Alongside that, I occasionally do photography and graphic design. My workstation before this was a 6 core trash can Mac Pro, and it could barely handle the 4k footage that I threw at it. Once I plugged a second monitor into it, it TANKED. So, I needed something that could handle my footage and be more efficient with my editing (exporting ProRes), hence the hackintosh.
I put together a list of hardware with the intent of creating a powerful PC, but after putting this list together, I realized that a majority of the components seemed compatible with creating a hackintosh. The only issue that I saw was the i7-8700K Coffee Lake not being fully supported.
Installation
BIOS Settings
- Save & Exit → Load Optimized Defaults
- M.I.T. → Advanced Memory Settings Extreme Memory Profile(X.M.P.) : Profile1
- BIOS → Fast Boot : Disabled
- BIOS → LAN PXE Boot Option ROM : Disabled
- BIOS → Storage Boot Option Control : UEFI
- Peripherals → Trusted Computing → Security Device Support : Disable
- Peripherals → Network Stack Configuration → Network Stack : Disabled
- Peripherals → USB Configuration → Legacy USB Support : Auto
- Peripherals → USB Configuration → XHCI Hand-off : Enabled
- Chipset → Vt-d : Disabled
- Chipset → Wake on LAN Enable : Disabled
- Chipset → IOAPIC 24-119 Entries : Enabled
- Peripherals → Initial Display Output : PCIe 1 Slot
- Chipset → Integrated Graphics : Disabled
The first thing that I did after getting all of the hardware and installing it in the case, was turn it on, LOL. It worked and took a little while to boot. After that I configured my BIOS (following the tonymac recommendations) and then proceeded to boot into the Windows 10 installer. I installed windows on my M.2 drive and made sure that I installed all of the proper drivers, software, BIOS updates, etc, before attempting to install macOS. I also benchmarked it and fully tested all of the hardware under deep pressure.
After that was completed, I used my bootable macOS High Sierra drive (Tonymac instructions) and the installation for Mac was a success. HOWEVER, only 1 monitor worked at this point and everything on the screen was HUGE. This bothered the hell out of me, until I figured out that I needed to set the system profile to the latest 2017 iMac (18,3 I believe), along with installing the CUDA driver. This was a little bit of a pain because every time it would say that it couldn't install because it wasn't the latest version, but eventually it worked for some reason.
After this I installed the proper kexts, configure my plist and whatever other steps that TonyMac says to take, and BOOM. Everything just worked, including my Thunderbolt hard drives (formatted for Mac, but no hot swapping), sound, WiFi and both monitors. No hiccups during the installation process, and I was ready to benchmark. I also want to note that I installed the Thunderbolt card after everything was stable (it took 3 weeks in the mail).
I used Geekbench and got a multi-core score (cant remember the single as of now, I'll test when I'm back) close to 28,000, which surprised me because my PC score was around 26,000. macOS beat Windows in every benchmark, and I am not certain why.
I then proceeded to install Premiere Pro, all of my other Adobe apps and Davinci Resolve 14. All of them worked.
Still... NOTHING WRONG.
This is where I started to notice some weird issues. First, in About This Mac, it would show the processor as "3.7ghz unknown". This isn't a big concern considering that I know that the 5GHz overclock is working on all 6 cores. I monitored it during the benchmarks. Its just a little annoying to not see your processor there, I'm sure there is a workaround, but again, its not a huge deal or effecting performance in any way.
Second, sometime when booting into macOS, only 1 monitor would work or it would boot to the login screen and freeze. This has always been resolved by restarting once or twice. I think it has something to do with how it shuts down.
Worst issue so far. My Mac formatted drives work on the windows side of the PC because I purchased software to do so. The only time that I see a problem is when I boot into macOS and load some files onto the drive. When I bring that drive back into Windows, it is ALWAYS corrupt and reverts the format of the drive to RAW format. This is an annoyance because I had to also purchase software to save the files from this drive, copy them to a new disk, reformat the hard drive and then transfer the files back. I tried on multiple Mac formatted drives and ALL had the same issue. They worked fine in windows until I brought them into mac and transferred files to them. I just bought software on Mac to read Windows drives and this works a hell of a lot better (so far).
Another thing that I noticed. On the same exact drive, with the same exact project files, exporting from Premiere and Resolve on the Hackintosh were noticeably (not by a huge margin) slower than on the windows side of things.
This being said, I have not been a Windows user in over 10 years (tried Windows 7 for a month) and always tend to gravitate towards the Mac platform due to the interface and ProRes compatibility. HOWEVER, I think Windows 10 is well refined, offers most of my favorite Mac features such as expose, show desktop, create multiple desktops, etc. All I did was reconfigure my keyboard and mouse to do all of this for Windows, and I quickly fell in love with Windows 10. I am now using Windows 10 99% of the time and use the Hackintosh side only for exporting ProRes. I also still have my trashcan behind one of my monitors as a backup if need be.
So far, it has been 2 months, and I would not change a thing. All of my footage plays back as expected, export speeds are way faster, and I can use dual 4K monitors without any problems. No problems on the Windows side (yet, knock on wood), and I don't see myself using High Sierra as my daily drive anytime soon. The reason is simple, I do not feel confident putting big budget projects through a hackintosh. Even though it has been stable and everything works, I feel more confident with the Windows side of things. It is definitely more reliable (in my gut feeling), and everything just works conjunctly. In simple terms... A do not have 100% faith in a closed system, custom built computer.
I appreciate your time and hope that this post was interesting, helpful or anything else tha'ts good. I did not write this with the intent of being criticized or to glorify myself. It is strictly for educational/informational purposes only. I will post pics, screen shots or be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Thanks Guys and Cheers
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