[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

[CaseySJ]

Thank you, I used the config you provided, and enabled inject intel drivers in the config and then everything worked, I did had an issue where the image would get purple and low res, switching to a usb c to HDMI 2.0 cable fixed the issue and I get 4k 60hz with it.
You are totally right about the graphics, I spent all my money on the 2080 ti, and then when I got more I bought a 2tb nvme drive for the Hackintosh disk so im looking to buy a 5700xt in my next visit to the US in a couple months.

On a side note is there any way I can keep the 2080 ti plugged in but the fans turned off? and is there any tip you can suggest for dual booting with windows?

Regarding the 2080Ti, we can use an SSDT to hide the card from macOS. Because the card will not be initialized, its fans should not spin. There are two SSDTs for this depending on the slot into which the Nvidia card is installed.

• For slot 1, copy this SSDT to the CLOVER/ACPI/patched folder and reboot.
• For slot 2, copy this SSDT to the same folder and reboot.

For tips on a Windows and Mac dual boot setup, please see this spoiler in Post #1:

 

[HH007]

As you are running Mojave, put a copy of the kexts in L/E and remember to remove the FAKE...kexts as well and to rebuild your cache before you reboot.

If you get any stop errors then it would be worth resetting your bios (short the pins as per the manual), and then redo the settings after first loading optimal defaults. I have never had to but some people seem to have to do that after a change like this.

Hello,

Thanks again, since I have native NVRAM set up, some people report that after a BIOS reset you have to change the value for 0x5C1 again, others say they don't, so suppose I reset the BIOS, and it is locked again. But in Clover/../patched/ the file SSDT-NVRAM.aml is still present for native NVRAM, doesn't that cause a problem, will the computer boot anyway? Any experience or expectations?

Best regards

 

[Ploddles]

Hello,

Thanks again, since I have native NVRAM set up, some people report that after a BIOS reset you have to change the value for 0x5C1 again, others say they don't, so suppose I reset the BIOS, and it is locked again. But in Clover/../patched/ the file SSDT-NVRAM.aml is still present for native NVRAM, doesn't that cause a problem, will the computer boot anyway? Any experience or expectations?

Best regards

You probably won't need to reset the BIOS, I have only seen 1 person who said he had to when he changed over.

If you did need to reset for any reason then it won't make a difference to the SSDT-NVRAM.aml being present, the nvram just wouldn't work as expected.

I haven't needed to reset the value, it kept it as long as I only reset it by shorting the pins. If you reload the BIOS from a downloaded file then you would need to reset it. As you have set it once, you already have the boot usb drive and instructions how to do it. The value of where it is would be the same so there is no need to discover it again as it would still be 0x5C1.

 

[TheWachowski]

For the ones here using the Fractal Design Define R6 case:
Do you have issues with the front audio jack too? It works, but it sounds like using a limiter. If I increase the volume beyond a certain level (approximately 33%) the volume goes down instead of up. At least when the song is at its peak. Just like an applied limiter would work.
I couldn't find any settings to change this behavior. Any hints?

 

[byteminer]

I too would love to see what everyone else is getting on benchmarks. We put a lot of work into getting these machines running smoothly, I'd like to know where my rig matches up to everyone one else's.
Here is my Geekbench 5.0 and Luxmark scores. GeekBench is what I'd like to see the most. I have no idea what people get when they overclock the i9 9900K in a Hackintosh. I tried overclocking a some but my Geekbench numbers never really change.

I've been irked by this for a while as lately I've been struggling to obtain the performance numbers that I'd expect from my setup.

When I initially set up my build back on Mojave I got some pretty decent numbers in Geekbench and Cinebench, however since being on Catalina I fail to reproduce my initial results.
The only proper comparison I have at this moment is my Cinebench R20 result from my original post. Back then I managed 5624 points while now I'm sitting at about 5107, a very stark difference.

Unfortunately back then I used Geekbench 4 to test, so my recent Geekbench 5 results aren't directly comparable. However, to circumvent this issue and to prove to myself that I'm not going insane, I booted into Manjaro Linux to create a comparable Geekbench run outside of macOS but still on the same hardware.

Turns out that I'm consistently getting more performance in Geekbench 5 on Manjaro Linux than I do on macOS Catalina (10.15.4 Beta).
Runs on both systems were executed three times to account for warmup and only after the OS had settled down after startup to provide an even baseline. All BIOS settings remained the same throughout the testing.

You can find screenshots of my results in the attached image file. I've also included my GPU runs of both Geekbench 5 and LuxMark, though those are probably pretty standard for my Sapphire Nitro+ RX580.
Here is a detailed comparison of my Linux-vs-macOS Geekbench 5 results.

In addition, overclocking for me does not appear to affect my results on macOS in any major capacity. I'm running at 5.1GHz all core currently but I've also tried 5.2GHz as well as some lower frequencies, which had a rather negligible impact on my benchmark results. While the scores in Geekbench 5 somewhat scale with my frequency on Linux, my macOS scores appear to be "stuck" at the values mentioned above.

I've got no clue why this behaves as it does, my first guess would be Apple's power management somehow screwing with things. However, when I observe voltages and power draw via iStatMenus, the processor appears to reach full turbo on all cores and draws the amount of power that I'd expect, so the energy is definitely going in. As to where it then disappears to, I currently cannot fathom.

 

[jiffyslot]

For the ones here using the Fractal Design Define R6 case:
Do you have issues with the front audio jack too? It works, but it sounds like using a limiter. If I increase the volume beyond a certain level (approximately 33%) the volume goes down instead of up. At least when the song is at its peak. Just like an applied limiter would work.
I couldn't find any settings to change this behavior. Any hints?

That's really strange. Sounds like the controller for the software's max level is at the MIDI equivalent of "64" and as it approaches 127 it goes back to minimum? Like the Volume control is set at "Log" or "Sine" or "Bipolar" or whatever. –Unless Gigabyte installed a limiter on their DAC, which seems like something they'd brag about. Wierd.

 

[jiffyslot]

I've been irked by this for a while as lately I've been struggling to obtain the performance numbers that I'd expect from my setup.

When I initially set up my build back on Mojave I got some pretty decent numbers in Geekbench and Cinebench, however since being on Catalina I fail to reproduce my initial results.
The only proper comparison I have at this moment is my Cinebench R20 result from my original post. Back then I managed 5624 points while now I'm sitting at about 5107, a very stark difference.

Unfortunately back then I used Geekbench 4 to test, so my recent Geekbench 5 results aren't directly comparable. However, to circumvent this issue and to prove to myself that I'm not going insane, I booted into Manjaro Linux to create a comparable Geekbench run outside of macOS but still on the same hardware.

Turns out that I'm consistently getting more performance in Geekbench 5 on Manjaro Linux than I do on macOS Catalina (10.15.4 Beta).
Runs on both systems were executed three times to account for warmup and only after the OS had settled down after startup to provide an even baseline. All BIOS settings remained the same throughout the testing.

You can find screenshots of my results in the attached image file. I've also included my GPU runs of both Geekbench 5 and LuxMark, though those are probably pretty standard for my Sapphire Nitro+ RX580.
Here is a detailed comparison of my Linux-vs-macOS Geekbench 5 results.

In addition, overclocking for me does not appear to affect my results on macOS in any major capacity. I'm running at 5.1GHz all core currently but I've also tried 5.2GHz as well as some lower frequencies, which had a rather negligible impact on my benchmark results. While the scores in Geekbench 5 somewhat scale with my frequency on Linux, my macOS scores appear to be "stuck" at the values mentioned above.

I've got no clue why this behaves as it does, my first guess would be Apple's power management somehow screwing with things. However, when I observe voltages and power draw via iStatMenus, the processor appears to reach full turbo on all cores and draws the amount of power that I'd expect, so the energy is definitely going in. As to where it then disappears to, I currently cannot fathom.

Could the better performance in Linux be due to the lack of background services chatter?
Do a test run again while running Intel Power Gadget. Check out my Z390 build. My GB5 score is in there somewhere.

 

[byteminer]

Could the better performance in Linux be due to the lack of background services chatter?
Do a test run again while running Intel Power Gadget. Check out my Z390 build. My GB5 score is in there somewhere.

PowerGadget doesn't really show me anything I don't already know. The processor appears to be fully utilized, the only thing lacking is the actual end result.
My macOS installation is quite clean, there's very little actually running and I shut most things down when doing benchmarks. Idle utilization sits at less than 2% at all times when doing nothing.

The weird thing is that it was better before.

 

[jiffyslot]

I can run (GB5 or Cinebench 20) several times in a row and get results that are slightly different. Usually, a gain in single-core results sacrifices a little from the multi-core results, and vice-versa. Do the GB5 Mac Benchmark comparison: If your single-core/multi-core scores are falling between the high-end 19,x iMac and the iMac Pro 1,1, you're probably fine. FWIW, I'm running my i9 9900KS at 4.8 GHz on all cores, and the Turbo is set manually to 4.8 GHz for each core. My 64 GB RAM is "native" at 2666 MHz, and the RX580 is switched to "compute" mode. This rig is for Vienna Ensemble Pro and FCPX: Smooth and steady. CSM is disabled.

 

[CaseySJ]

For the ones here using the Fractal Design Define R6 case:
Do you have issues with the front audio jack too? It works, but it sounds like using a limiter. If I increase the volume beyond a certain level (approximately 33%) the volume goes down instead of up. At least when the song is at its peak. Just like an applied limiter would work.
I couldn't find any settings to change this behavior. Any hints?

Please check whether you’re using audio Layout ID 11 (0x0B). This provides the best results for all audio ports.