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[SUCCESS] Ongoing Status of Designare Z390 with i7-9700K

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Hey guys adding to the research here:

So what's happening is that thunderbolt works as in it does link a thunderbolt device to the PCI lanes. However it does not activate the apple thunderboltNode. This is a special driver by apple that optimizes thunderbolt. So far very few people have gotten a native hackintosh thunderbolt node, recently 1 person got it somehow on accident on insanelymac and no one can figure it out. The distinction is you either get a PCI device or a TB device, and for the most part it's close enough but sometimes a deal breaker.

Unfortunately for me, the drivers that my TB audio interface uses require the thunderbolt node. Same for example eGPUs. For eGPUs people have been successful in modifying the drivers and apple kexts so that they load for PCI devices, not just thunderbolt devices. I have tried to do the same for the drivers for my interface but no luck yet.

BTW I am running dual vegas and when I increased the thunderbolt memory my bios freaked out, reset cmos, then booted and told me I was out of PCI lanes lol. If you run dual GPU you can set the second one to run at x4 and then you can increase the TB memory allotment without worry. However you shouldn't need to unless you want to plug in something really bandwidth heavy like a eGPU.
 
Hey guys adding to the research here:
Unfortunately for me, the drivers that my TB audio interface uses require the thunderbolt node. Same for example eGPUs. For eGPUs people have been successful in modifying the drivers and apple kexts so that they load for PCI devices, not just thunderbolt devices. I have tried to do the same for the drivers for my interface but no luck yet.

May I ask which audio interface you're using? I've seen successful uses of Thunderbolt UAD interfaces, so am wondering if they require the "thunderbolt node" or not.
Also I remember reading that TB ports need to be activated via Windows first? Is this also the case for this board (the Designare Z390)?
 
May I ask which audio interface you're using? I've seen successful uses of Thunderbolt UAD interfaces, so am wondering if they require the "thunderbolt node" or not.
Also I remember reading that TB ports need to be activated via Windows first? Is this also the case for this board (the Designare Z390)?
Antelope audio Zen tour, Antelope devices have a reputation of being really hard to get working over TB hack. UAD have a reputation of working well with TB hack, I am guessing their drivers do not care if it's TB or PCI.

I did boot windows and install the drivers first, it's probably a good idea, but not 100% sure if needed.

The world of native TB on hack is mysterious but thankfully progressing. I would not be surprised to learn that installing drivers on windows actually hurts TB on this board. For example maybe clearing cmos/uefi and booting into OSX will allow OSX to properly assign the TB node? This is just very wild guessing, don't do this until more research comes out.
 
Was very hesitate between getting the Zen or the Orion and some point, but I went with an Apollo 8P.
UAD did confirm to me by email that the Gigabyte Designare z390 should work without problems with their gear using Windows.
Is there such a big difference in driver implementation between the 2 OSes for Thunderbolt devices? What makes the Antelope different in that respect? Especially in the case of being used with the Z390?

Can you get sound out?
 
The TB is 100% native on windows. The hardware itself is native, it's just drivers at this point. It works well on windows but windows just sucks for sound in general. I much prefer using my device over USB on mac than TB on windows for now.

Edit: The main difference is latency. These devices don't really need much bandwidth, but latency is killer. For now the USB mac drivers are still pretty damn good. If I never get this working I'll still be ok with it. Maybe I'll do most of my session on mac and then switch to TB windows if I need to load 200 mastering plugins in real time.
 
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Was very hesitate between getting the Zen or the Orion and some point, but I went with an Apollo 8P.
UAD did confirm to me by email that the Gigabyte Designare z390 should work without problems with their gear using Windows.
Is there such a big difference in driver implementation between the 2 OSes for Thunderbolt devices? What makes the Antelope different in that respect? Especially in the case of being used with the Z390?

Can you get sound out?

@jsconiers has a seemingly stable Z370 TB3 build working with an Apollo 8. I’ve been debating whether to brave the new Z390 Designare build or copy his build. I have an Apollo x8p that I want to integrate with my desktop setup and my current Hackintosh is too old to have a Thunderbolt header. Going with the “safer” bet to get up and running ASAP is enticing but also having the latest tech is nice too. FWIW, The new BIOS on the Z370 Auros Gaming 7 should allow the use of new 9th generation intel processors as well just in case you’re concerned with future upgrades.

Thread here if you’re curious: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...k-nvidia-geforce-gt740-uadio-apollo-8.247664/
 
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@jsconiers has a seemingly stable Z370 TB3 build working with an Apollo 8. I’ve been debating whether to brave the new Z390 Designare build or copy his build. I have an Apollo x8p that I want to integrate with my desktop setup and my current Hackintosh is too old to have a Thunderbolt header. Going with the “safer” bet to get up and running ASAP is enticing but also having the latest tech is nice too. FWIW, The new BIOS on the Z370 Auros Gaming 7 should allow the use of new 9th generation intel processors as well just in case you’re concerned with future upgrades.

Thread here if you’re curious: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...k-nvidia-geforce-gt740-uadio-apollo-8.247664/

Thanks for the hint. I'd go for a similar configuration, with a Radeon Pulse RX580, if I could find a Gigabyte AORUS Gaming 7 in a shop here. Seems like they're out of stock nation-wide :S Which has led me to the Designare.
Will delve into his build thread and keep hunting for a Gaming 7, as well as follow this one.
 
Apollo x6 here, same mobo and cpu as OP. Updated to F4 bios before installing the Apollo so I can't say if it works or not because now it won't boot into high sierra. Runs fine in win10 though. Helluva job UA did this time.
 
My motivation for building a Hackintosh was simple: I've owned a 2008 MacPro 3,1 since, well, 2008. It does not have Thunderbolt, but it does have two Intel Xeon quad-core processors at 2.8 GHz (total of 8 physical cores) and PCIe slots. Even the WiFi/Bluetooth controller is on a daughter card.

Because of the slots and daughter card, I've managed to keep that system fairly up to date with emerging technologies:
  • A USB 3.0 PCIe card provides 4 USB 3.0 ports. Original system has only USB 2.0 ports.
  • A newer WiFi/BT module provides 802.11ac and BT4, enabling AirDrop and Handoff. Original system did not support either AirDrop or Handoff.
  • Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro Plus PCIe x4 card allows me to use 2 SSD cards internally at SATA 6 speeds, and provides two SATA 6 eSATA ports with Port Multiplier support. The two eSATA ports are connected to two 4-bay eSATA port-multiplied enclosures for 8-drive Direct Attached Storage. Original system has SATA 3 only.
  • AMD R9 380 graphics card with DisplayPort connected to a 4K 60Hz monitor with hardware acceleration and "retina" display scaling. Too bad Sierra was the last version of Mac OS to support this card. The original Nvidia GT880 was nothing in comparison.
I was using the Sonnet Tempo SSD card (attached pic) with two 512GB SSDs in RAID-0 (with SoftRAID) as the main disk. The MacPro had no trouble booting from the Sonnet card, and in fact, boot time was a mere 20 seconds or less!

With all of these little updates over the past decade, the modest MacPro 3,1 remained a relevant, capable and robust multi-core machine.

But everything changed with High Sierra, when Apple discontinued support for my trusted computer. Nevertheless, I managed to install High Sierra by following dosdude1's YouTube video. But suddenly the latest AMD graphics cards were incompatible and I lost scaled 4K video. In desperation (and disgust) I then began to hack the firmware of AMD 79xx cards (a la netkas and rominator), but was simply unable to get 4K back. MacVidCards had modified my Nvidia GTX970 with Mac boot ROMs a few years earlier, but on High Sierra the Nvidia web drivers wouldn't load. After several weeks of trial and error with several GPU alternatives, I had had enough.

There were only two choices before me: Wait for the new modular MacPro or build a Hackintosh.

Rather than wait for the modular MacPro (and who knows what "modular" means to Apple), which I assume will be extremely expensive, I decided to build the Hackintosh on which I'm writing this post. And I was absolutely determined to employ the latest and greatest technologies because, as you see above, I tend to keep my systems around for long periods of time. Hence the latest Z390, the 9th Gen Core processor, NVMe SSD, All-in-One Liquid Cooler (with a 280mm rad and Arctic Silver MX-4 paste I'm getting damn good thermals!), DDR4 3200 MHz memory, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 Gen 2, etc.

But most of all I'm just so glad to have accelerated 4K60 back in full force!

At this time the Hackintosh is 90% complete. I plan to buy a low cost WiFi/BT adapter for the time being, with the hope that Apple may soon support the Intel chipset or that someone will provide a driver for us.

This past weekend I transferred everything from the MacPro 3,1 to the new Hackintosh. It was surprisingly easy to do:
  • I removed the Sonnet Tempo SSD card from the MacPro 3,1. (Attached pic.)
  • Plugged it into the Hackintosh.
  • Used Migration Assistant to move all apps and data to the new system in less than an hour.
  • Removed the Sonnet card and returned it to the MacPro.
All of my apps and data are now fully transitioned to the Hackintosh. The following are all working fine:
  1. iTunes and iTunes Store.
  2. App Store.
  3. FaceTime and receiving/making phone calls.
  4. QuickLook and Preview (thanks to Intel UHD 630 in headless configuration).
  5. Parallels 14 with Ubuntu Linux.
  6. Crossover 15 for running some Windows apps without having to install Windows or run virtualization software.
In fact I haven't found an app yet that doesn't work. So the Hackintosh is finally online -- it is now my principal Macintosh. However, if the new Modular MacPro offers a compelling price/performance ratio, I will certainly consider it.

But for the time being, I have the latest and greatest.
 

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My motivation for building a Hackintosh was simple: I've owned a 2008 MacPro 3,1 since, well, 2008. It does not have Thunderbolt, but it does have two Intel Xeon quad-core processors at 2.8 GHz (total of 8 physical cores) and PCIe slots. Even the WiFi/Bluetooth controller is on a daughter card.

Because of the slots and daughter card, I've managed to keep that system fairly up to date with emerging technologies:
  • A USB 3.0 PCIe card provides 4 USB 3.0 ports. Original system has only USB 2.0 ports.
  • A newer WiFi/BT module provides 802.11ac and BT4, enabling AirDrop and Handoff. Original system did not support either AirDrop or Handoff.
  • Sonnet Tempo SSD Pro Plus PCIe x4 card allows me to use 2 SSD cards internally at SATA 6 speeds, and provides two SATA 6 eSATA ports with Port Multiplier support. The two eSATA ports are connected to two 4-bay eSATA port-multiplied enclosures for 8-drive Direct Attached Storage. Original system has SATA 3 only.
  • AMD R9 380 graphics card with DisplayPort connected to a 4K 60Hz monitor with hardware acceleration and "retina" display scaling. Too bad Sierra was the last version of Mac OS to support this card. The original Nvidia GT880 was nothing in comparison.
I was using the Sonnet Tempo SSD card (attached pic) with two 512GB SSDs in RAID-0 (with SoftRAID) as the main disk. The MacPro had no trouble booting from the Sonnet card, and in fact, boot time was a mere 20 seconds or less!

With all of these little updates over the past decade, the modest MacPro 3,1 remained a relevant, capable and robust multi-core machine.

But everything changed with High Sierra, when Apple discontinued support for my trusted computer. Nevertheless, I managed to install High Sierra by following dosdude1's YouTube video. But suddenly the latest AMD graphics cards were incompatible and I lost scaled 4K video. In desperation (and disgust) I then began to hack the firmware of AMD 79xx cards (a la netkas and rominator), but was simply unable to get 4K back. MacVidCards had modified my Nvidia GTX970 with Mac boot ROMs a few years earlier, but on High Sierra the Nvidia web drivers wouldn't load. After several weeks of trial and error with several GPU alternatives, I had had enough.

There were only two choices before me: Wait for the new modular MacPro or build a Hackintosh.

Rather than wait for the modular MacPro (and who knows what "modular" means to Apple), which I assume will be extremely expensive, I decided to build the Hackintosh on which I'm writing this post. And I was absolutely determined to employ the latest and greatest technologies because, as you see above, I tend to keep my systems around for long periods of time. Hence the latest Z390, the 9th Gen Core processor, NVMe SSD, All-in-One Liquid Cooler (with a 280mm rad and Arctic Silver MX-4 paste I'm getting damn good thermals!), DDR4 3200 MHz memory, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 Gen 2, etc.

But most of all I'm just so glad to have accelerated 4K60 back in full force!

At this time the Hackintosh is 90% complete. I plan to buy a low cost WiFi/BT adapter for the time being, with the hope that Apple may soon support the Intel chipset or that someone will provide a driver for us.

This past weekend I transferred everything from the MacPro 3,1 to the new Hackintosh. It was surprisingly easy to do:
  • I removed the Sonnet Tempo SSD card from the MacPro 3,1. (Attached pic.)
  • Plugged it into the Hackintosh.
  • Used Migration Assistant to move all apps and data to the new system in less than an hour.
  • Removed the Sonnet card and returned it to the MacPro.
All of my apps and data are now fully transitioned to the Hackintosh. The following are all working fine:
  1. iTunes and iTunes Store.
  2. App Store.
  3. FaceTime and receiving/making phone calls.
  4. QuickLook and Preview (thanks to Intel UHD 630 in headless configuration).
  5. Parallels 14 with Ubuntu Linux.
  6. Crossover 15 for running some Windows apps without having to install Windows or run virtualization software.
In fact I haven't found an app yet that doesn't work. So the Hackintosh is finally online -- it is now my principal Macintosh. However, if the new Modular MacPro offers a compelling price/performance ratio, I will certainly consider it.

But for the time being, I have the latest and greatest.

It sounds like you did more hacking on your Mac to run High Sierra than on your new build... And, a 9th gen CPU will run circles around that 3,1.

If the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card you updated on the MacPro3,1 is using a BRCM94360xxx card, you can probably use that card in your new build. You just need a different adaptor.
 
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