[SUCCESS] GA-Z170X-Gaming 7, I7 6700K, AMD RX570, M.2, SSD, Sierra 10.12.6

[frankyphatnoize]

[SUCCESS] GA-Z170X-Gaming 7, i7-6700K, AMD RX 570​

Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 (Rev1.0, BIOS version still F7)
Intel i7-6700K
Corsair 330R Tower
Corsair H55 Watercooling
Corsair CS750M

2 x Corsair Vengeance DDR4 LPX 16GB 3000 MHz
1 x Samsung 950 Pro M.2 512GB (M2H_32G)*
1 x Samsung 840 EVO 265GB (SATA port 1)
4 x Samsung 850 EVO 256GB - SoftRaid0 (SATA port 2-5)
1 x Samsung HD 2TB (ASMedia SATA port 0)
1 x BlueRay DVD (ASMedia SATA port 1)
1 x Gigabyte AMD RX570 4GB

* connect to M2H_32G M.2 connector (last PCIe slot and SATA port 0 will be disabled only, otherwise more than one internal SATA ports will be disabled, see mainboard guide for further information).

Additional Hardware connected to system:

1 x Inateck USB 3.0 card 4 Port PCIe
1 x SpeedLink Bluetooth USB dongle
1 x AKAI MPK49 Midi keyboard
1 x Propellerheads Balance audio device
1 x Logitech WebCam

Additional comments:

- No use for Thunderbold/USB3.1/Internal audio at the moment, therefore not installed/tested using external audio device for recording and playback.

- AMD RX570 works with Sierra 10.12.6, SMBIOS iMac17,1 and MultiBeast fix (see MultiBeast screenshot attached) no further kext editing needed from my site.


My personal work steps:

- Mainboard BIOS version was not updated to latest version still the version F7

- Boot from Sierra USB install stick

- M.2 Samsung 950 Pro was not visible in Disc Utility during installation process, so I decided to install on 840 SSD first.

- After installation reboot from USB stick and select partition where Sierra was installed (840 SSD).

- Execute MultiBeast Sierra for the first time (see MultiBeast screenshot attached). It's important to select the EmuVariableUefi-64.efi for this mainboard also, otherwise it seems to be not possible to use internal HL530 with full VRAM, only 7MB was shown under system information.

- Reboot without USB stick (select 840 SSD as Boot device in BIOS).

- Open Terminal and execute the following command to enable TRIM for M.2 and SSDs and reboot system:

sudo trimforce enable

- Execute patch_nvme script as described in the following guide:

https://www.google.de/amp/nickwoodhams.com/getting-your-nvme-ssd-working-on-macos-sierra-10-12-2/amp/

"Many thanks to Nicholas Woodhams for the guide and RehabMan for the script"

Attention!: use exact version number as argument for the installed version (e.g 10.12.3 -> 10_12_3 instead of 10_12_2).

- Reboot and check if 950 M.2 is now visible in disc utility.

- Format 950 M.2 and use Carbon Copy tool as described in the guide to copy 840 SSD (current Sierra installation) to 950 M.2.

- Execute MultiBeast again and select 950 M.2 for installation (see MultiBeast screenshot attached).

- Reboot and select M.2 as Boot device in BIOS. Select 950 M.2 in Clover bootloader menu to start from.

- Update to latest Sierra version (10.12.6) using App Store. When system will not start after update reboot with USB stick or from the first Sierra installation (840 SSD) and rerun MultiBeast for updated installation (950 M.2, see MultiBeast screenshot attached)

- Reboot and check if version was updated.

- Shutdown system and install AMD RX graphics card into PCIe x16 (upper slot). Set BIOS to PCIe if it was not already switched automatically.

- ‎Standby seems to work also with AMD RX 570.

The Blackmagic benchmark is insane with the Samsung 950 Pro (screenshot attached). The SoftRaid0 with 850 EVO SSDs gets around 1.4GB/s read and write speed which is also fantastic.

I was also able to overclock system to 4.6GHz and RAM to 3200MHz, but not tested for stability with Prime95 at the moment. Attached screenshots are based on non-overclocked system.

 

[fosworn]

Hey @frankyphatnoize, what did you do to get your blueray drive working? I have the ASUS BW-16D1H connected to an internal SATA port, but it's not recognized as a blueray drive by High Sierra.