[SUCCESS] Gigabyte A520l AC — Ryzen 7 4700G — Radeon Vega 8 16GB

[craighazan]

craighazan's Budget AI/Gaming build
Gigabyte A520l AC — Ryzen 7 4700G — Radeon Vega 8 16GB

Components New

Ryzen 7 4700G AMD Radeon Graphics [Renoir] APU — Amazon — Newegg — Micro Center
Noctua NH-L9a-AM4 Low profile APU fan — Amazon — Newegg — Micro Centre
Gigabyte A520l AC Motherboard — Amazon — Newegg — Micro Centre
Crucial Pro RAM 32 GB [2x16GB] — Amazon — Newegg — Micro Centre
WD Black 500GB SN750 (w/heatsink) — Amazon — Newegg
Lian Li Meshlicious MITX case, white. — Amazon — Newegg — Micro Centre

Components Salvaged from the Hackintosh Recycling Bin

Ryzen 5 4600G — Bought from Micro Center for the princely sum of $96. 6 Core 12 threads with 7 GPU cores oob!. Replaced by the Ryzen 7 4700G, the 8 core 16 thread APU, (which will be paired with a 320).
EVGA 500W 80 PLUS+. Salvaged from the G5.

Comments

... Craig you've forgotten something... Huh?... Graphics!. No I haven't because this build is all about NRed!. It hasn't been fully tested, there are still things I want to find out. And being we've spent a bit of time together now, I feel confident enough to write up a user build. Sure she looks like one of her namesakes cubist paintings but don't let that distract you from, in what is my early opinion, Ventura looking better in Radeon, than UHD 630.
NootedRed.kext, formally WhateverRed, appeared roughly a year ago, whispers and hear say of successful APU's without much followup brewed until May 2023, when things really started happening. For what seemed like an eternity Big Sur was the only OS the kext supported, success had mainly been reported with AMD Laptops, hp was a popular one. But there wasn't much word about AMD Desktops only a 3*00G success story. Then all of a sudden it was 3000 and 4000 series APU's, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma were working, so of course I went and picked up a Ryzen 4600G, why wouldn't I?!.

Why the Ryzen 4600G... and 4700G?

It's cheap!, compare the price I paid at Micro Center, $92 btw, to say 3000 G series or even 2000 G series. $28 cheaper than 5600G at Micro Center, and there's a lot in the box, see my other thread below, 'I got a Ryzen 5 4600G...and 4700G'. I've always been a fan of this 4600G, wasn't it originally a Laptop APU and they had some left over?, I'll have to look that up. At the time of its release 3 years ago I thought it would make a great budget Ryzen gaming build, even if you couldn't Hackintosh it. 6 cores, 12 threads, low profile cpu fan and two gorgeous stickers1, on the G side you have 7 Radeon Graphic Cores beating @ 1900MHz, that's better than UHD 630 1500MHz. And if the speed of verbose is any measure of performance, then it boots quicker than the 5700X in the G5!.

Installation

At the moment it's not advisable to to clean install using NootedRed.kext, if you're lucky enough to have another Hackintosh lying around maybe borrow the storage drive for a bit, or clean install using another computer. I have Ventura but you could install either Big Sur, Monterey or Sonoma, they have been confirmed as working so far. Updates specific to OS do work, I can confirm as I recently updated from 13.3 to 13.4.1

After having broken my Ventura installation again, I decided to create a new installer with macOS Ventura 13.4.1
successfully installed first time, so a clean installation will work.

BIOS
Here is probably the best source for this part, OpenCores Ryzen and Threadripper (17h and 19H) page!. We're also going to set maximum memory for the VRAM, the NootedRed.kext needs a minimum of 512 MB, 1 GB is preferred and more if you have it.

EFI
I spent some time preparing my EFI before I got the APU, I'm using the same one I have in HackinDROM. I chose iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS other platform info you can use are MacBookPro16,3, iMac20,1 or iMacPro1,1 don't use MacPro7,1 you'll be staring at a black screen otherwise. If you're using RestrictEvents.kext add 'revblock=media' to your Boot Arguments. After HackinDROM finished installing, I removed WhateverGreen.kext and replaced it with NootedRed.kext, then updated my AMD-OSX/AMD_Vanilla patches, plist and OpenCore.

Does It Work?
Well yes it does!, the frame buffer loads, the dock resembles frosted glass, not bad for something that shouldn't work!. Can it play Minecraft better than UHD 630?. No, though it's not far off, take down that draw distance and we should be good, but it's much better than a 5700X and RX 580!. How does it look?. I might not be popular for saying this, but it does just look so much more vibrant and sharp, the colors blend smoothly and there is much less banding. Text is much crispier, counters are more defined and its easier to read than UHD 630.

Benchmarks

I posted my first GB6 benches in my Ventura guide, linked below. The multicore score surprised me, I thought it would be a bit higher than 4900, but the single core score cheered me up again coming in at around 1500. But it's the Metal score we're all interested in, I have Metal 3 support!, but there is a wild disparity in the 2 benches I have recorded so far. Around 12500 for the first bench but today it's 5000, huh. I did remove the boot arg ncpi=0x3000 and enabled Above 4G Encoding BIOS between the benches, related?.

NootedRed — AMD Radeon Graphics — macOS Sonoma

Sonoma! woohoo!, your next thought probably isn't 'Lets get a Ryzen 5 4600G'... I did and I don't regret it at all. Don't fear, the days of zero acceleration for Radeon Graphics are dead, well almost!. Formally WhateverRed, now NootedRed or simply referred to as NRed is a kext to replace...

www.tonymacx86.com

I got a Ryzen 5 4600G.. and a 4700G.

I've been watching this CPU for the past couple of weeks, because of progress with NootedRed, can I get full acceleration in macOS?. https://github.com/NootInc/NootedRed

www.tonymacx86.com

Ryzen 5 4600G — Radeon Graphics [Renoir] — Ventura 13.4.1 — NRed

I got a Ryzen 5 4600G AMD Radeon Graphics APU from MicroCenter! — Amazon — Newegg — Micro Center Wait... what!?. I'm still waiting for confirmation from Nootinc to see if I have full acceleration with AMD Radeon Graphics, but so far so good. There have been some glitches and it struggles under...

www.tonymacx86.com

Getting started

Welcome to the Noot Hackintosh Guide.

chefkissinc.github.io

GitHub - AMD-OSX/AMD_Vanilla: Native AMD macOS via OpenCore

Native AMD macOS via OpenCore. Contribute to AMD-OSX/AMD_Vanilla development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

GitHub - corpnewt/ProperTree: Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python.

Cross platform GUI plist editor written in python. - corpnewt/ProperTree

github.com

GitHub - Inqnuam/HackinDROM: macOS OpenCore bootloader updater

macOS OpenCore bootloader updater. Contribute to Inqnuam/HackinDROM development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[craighazan]

Successfully updated the Radeon build to 13.4.1 (c), the security update just needed one restart and we’re back in business. I upped the RAM to 16 GB and BIOS let me allocate 8 GB to VRAM. The result being a much more stable finder, smoother and apps not quitting.

 

[craighazan]

It's worth keeping up with Nootinc's NootedRed workflow on GitHub, I've noticed over the past few days that updates tend to happen quickly. I updated my kext yesterday to 33e9abf, the 'Another DDI caps fix' flavor, and everything works well, I noticed it was a little smoother. Today another update has appeared, cfa68b9 in 'Remove unused VC_info struct' flavor, I will update later and report. Nootinc has also fixed HDMI Audio in a newer update, so will be interesting to read comments about that.

Workflow Runs · NootInc/NootedRed

Lilu plugin for AMD Vega iGPUs. No commercial use. - Workflow Runs · NootInc/NootedRed

github.com

 

[craighazan]

Updated the NRed kext to cfa68b9, the 'Remove unused vc_info struct' edition. The updates for the kext have been appearing every two days and each time there is definitely an improvement in the quality of the visuals. The Monterey Screen Saver is one of my favorites and to see it running under Radeon Graphics is really satisfying. I currently have 16 GB RAM installed on the A320I-K and that lets me choose up to 8 GB for the VRAM. When there is 8 GB of RAM I can choose up to 4 GB for the VRAM, but everything crashes!, 2 GB though works perfectly, nothing crashes and everything is smooth.

 

[craighazan]

Installed macOS Sonoma onto a second SSD connected to the A320I-K. For the past week I'd been staring at BS EXIT, then tonight when I looked over the EFI for the umpteenth time, I realized my mistake, I hadn't updated my vanilla patches, (noob mistake). After fixing that and switching SMBIOS to MacPro7,1 success!, Booted first time!.

 

[craighazan]

Update on the Radeon Build!, I changed the SMBIOS back to iMacPro1,1 it's proved much more stable than MacPro7,1. Good GB6 benches this time, I like that Metal score. A quick search revealed a few owners of the 4600G on macOS, feeling quite chuffed my benches compare well. Based on this performance the 4600G is looking like a budget gaming contender to me, still picking my jaw up off the ground after playing No Mans Sky.

 

[craighazan]

Another update for NootedRed, the 'Apple sets built-in to 00 not 01' edition, commit 6e61dc9. After an update I like to look through the screen savers and the dock transitions, always seems to look better every time.

 

[craighazan]

Successfully updated Ventura to 13.5 last night, everything was smooth with no drama. Sonomas new ability that lets you drag widgets onto the desktop has some unexpected consequences, good to see Cook listening to the base and injecting some fun into Finder!. It's also a nice demonstration of the animations with the 4600G!.

 

[craighazan]

Upgraded my APU to a Ryzen 7 4700G, the extra Radeon Graphics core and 300 MHz bump make a big difference. Changed my Device Property against all advice and found a Renoir Framebuffer, the About this Mac window looks tidier.

 

[craighazan]

OK, I've settled on this build, I prefer the B450 from Gigabyte to the B550 from ASUS. I also think that the 450 has a little more in performance compared to the 550, it's also a little smaller which is important. I installed 32 GB RAM and that garnished us with a whopping 16 GB VRAM!. When researching this build I read a claim about the 4700G replacing the need for a graphics card, with my new monitor I have to agree, the 240 Hertz refresh rate makes a huge difference to the overall experience.