Success GA Z170x UD5 TH with Apollo Audio interface

[Jakshak]

Jakshak's Build: Z170X-UD5 TH - i7-6700K - GTX960​

Components

Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH Motherboard
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0160ITSSU/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128839

Intel i7-6700K Processor
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B012M8LXQW/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117559

Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2 x16) DDR4 2133 RAM



Apollo Twin with Startech TB3 to TB converter


Various SSD


Comments

I Followed Tony's Guide - https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...3-test-build-ga-z170x-ud5-th-i5-6600k.199242/

The issues I had to resolve were;

• Even with a generated SSDT, shutting down resulted in a restart, so enabled the FixShutdown Flag in Clover and enabled ERP in the power management of the BIOS, now its working
• I had to flash the thunderbolt driver and shutdown twice to enable thunderbolt, didn't work the first time, maybe I didn't pull the power cable out for long enough, my advice would be to make sure Windows sees your thunderbolt devices first before going back to OS X, by looking in the system tray and finding the GA thunderbolt tool that should be there, it will tell what devices are connected....

Now I have a fantastic audio workstation! Same issue that is known about the thunderbolt device needs to be on pre-during boot, but that's not a problem for me, the Apollo works great!

I'm not using WIFI - Ethernet only so can't comment on Bluetooth or WIFI, however I do have a Magic mouse, so eventually I will buy a Bluetooth dongle or WIFI Bluetooth card to use it.

I have 2 questions:

I have used a Fractal Design R5 case with this build, which, If you are recording Audio in the same room, I highly recommend, its whisper silent. My question is that I only ever see the exhaust fan spin when I boot up, it hasn't spun at all other than that, os this normal? Even when I was working on an intensive pro tools session?

My second question is not really that important, as I don't really intend to use the machine for Gaming as I have a PS4 - The reason I bought the GTX960 is because someone sold it to me for £80, and I run multiple screens. But, I thought I'd check out playing Tomb Raider from the App store as I know the Graphics card could handle it, even playing on high - not ultra, I get jitters, surely the 960 should be able to handle this game in Ultra perfectly fine, I get +60fps in the in game benchmark test, so my question is, are those jitters frame rate drops, or are they just the limitations of gaming on mac OS? is it not as optimized as Windows for Gaming? or am I overestimating the capabilities of the card.

Thanks for everyone's help, loads of people helped me pick the components, and get this system up and running, I think this is one of the most responsive and helpful communities on the web, great stuff!!!

 

[pastrychef]

I don't have any experience with Gigabyte motherboards, but on my Asus motherboard, I can set the fan profiles to behave however I want them to. I would suggest checking your Bios to see if your motherboard has similar settings to adjust your exhaust fan.

Also, my fans ramp up and down based on CPU load. All of this is controlled by the Bios.

DirectX, which is what most (all?) Windows games use, has always outperformed OpenGL (what Mac games use). Sometimes the differences are quite extreme. Apple's Metal promises to change all this but we need games to take advantage of it... I think that trying out a few games in Windows will give you a much better indication of how well your video card performs than macOS can.

 

[Lifecrest]

Jakshak, I have a similar build to you with the same motherboard and case.
Did you connect the fans to your motherboard or the special connections in the fractal case?

I was wondering because the fractal fans are 3 pin fans and are not supposed to be able to adjust speed as needed by the bios but some people said that some 3 pin fans can.

Thanks