Success with Z77 Thunderbolt Motherboards

[adamroberts]

I've spent the last day or so trawling through the forum looking for info on Thunderbolt. I've found a few builds based on boards that have Thunderbolt but no real wealth of info on confirmed builds with Thunderbolt that is actually working.

Seems the most popular Thunderbolt board is the Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH. A few have reported getting Thunderbolt working but most seem to not have tested it (as they have no Thunderbolt devices).

I have a Promis Pegasus RAID that I want to use for my footage in a Hackintosh Editing & Grading suite. So have been looking at both the Gigabyte and ASUS mother boards.

I'm particularly interested in knowing if anyone has had success with the Asus p8z77-v Premium? Seems like a good board for building a dual GeForce GTX 680 machine for use with DaVinci Resolve.

 

[adamroberts]

Has no one had any success with Asus p8z77-v Premium Thunderbolt or other motherboards? Or is one sharing?

 

[trs96]

Has no one had any success with Asus p8z77-v Premium Thunderbolt or other motherboards? Or is one sharing?

cwestpha reports the following with his build. You can use the thunderbolt to connect a mini display port enabled monitor.
other than that he states you can't use it for much else with 10.8.2 (who knows what 10.8.3 will bring ?)

What Works -
* All the basic fun stuff. Booting, restarting, gaming, clicking, double clicking, dragging, ya know the fun stuff.
* Speedstep seems to work fine. good power usage. Overclocking functions corectly but may not always be reflected in system profiler & About This Mac.
*Trim function /w patch
*Ethernet, both ports, work fine after intel patched kext. HOWEVER if you are like me then disable the 2nd port and keep your ethernet attached to the lower (1st) port. If you leave one of the ports vacant durring boot OS X seems to act unusually. I think this is related to a NIC firmware bug.
*OpenGL, 2D UI acceleration, multi-monitor, etc
*All SATA & eSATA ports after the patched kext.
*Z77’s USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 ports.
*ALC898 audio and the ports (though they are mislabeled because I don't have a proper DSDT for this mobo)

What Doesn't -
All of the other USB 3.0 ports since the patched third-party support kexts cause the computer to not boot. [conflict between AppleUSB & third-party USB kexts]
Thunderbolt port (NooooOooooOooo!) though it works fine as a mini display port for the onboard GPU.
Chimera & co doesn't have UEFI support or passthrough so no booting (UEFI) Linux or (UEFI) Windows from the bootloader. *sadface*
onboard Wifi & BT

 

[adamroberts]

Thanks.

His build was the only one I seemed to be able to find that used the Asus board and even mentioned Thunderbolt.

Guess I'm out of luck. Might be better off going for a more powerful X79 build then and running an internal RAID.

 

[Einsteiniac]

I run the UP5 TH and Thunderbolt works fine, with the exception that the device needs to be plugged in before you boot and you can't hot swap it. There are TONS of pages about this not sure why you have had issues finding the info you need.

That said unless this RAID needs to be shared with another computer I am not sure why you wouldn't just build your RAID internal anyway for cheaper.

 

[adamroberts]

Thanks Einsteiniac

As I stated I already own a Promise Pegasus Thunderbolt RAID so would like to continue using it (as it does Read: 478.5MB/s - Write: 508.6MB/s).

I've looked at the UP5 TH, which seems to be the only one users have tested the Thunderbolt on, but I want to run multiple GPUs as I'll be using this machine for DaVinci Resolve.

If I put 2 GPUs in the UP5 TH the PCIe slots drop from x16 to x8. Not really ideal for GPU intensive work but might be my only option if I want Thunderbolt.

Asus claim the P8Z77-vV Premium can run to 2 slots a x16. So would be a better option for GPUs. That is why I'm looking for info on anyone who has been successful at getting Thunderbolt support with this board or even the P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt.

 

[teflux]

I've spent the last day or so trawling through the forum looking for info on Thunderbolt. I've found a few builds based on boards that have Thunderbolt but no real wealth of info on confirmed builds with Thunderbolt that is actually working.

Seems the most popular Thunderbolt board is the Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH. A few have reported getting Thunderbolt working but most seem to not have tested it (as they have no Thunderbolt devices).

I have a Promis Pegasus RAID that I want to use for my footage in a Hackintosh Editing & Grading suite. So have been looking at both the Gigabyte and ASUS mother boards.

I'm particularly interested in knowing if anyone has had success with the Asus p8z77-v Premium? Seems like a good board for building a dual GeForce GTX 680 machine for use with DaVinci Resolve.

Same as you. I need such a config but I was looking for the Asus Maximus V Extreme to add some GPU power. But without Thunderbolt ... seems that we need to wait for the new mac pro And I have also a Pegasus R6, a nice product.

 

[adamroberts]

OK so I managed to get the following system up and running:

Asus P8Z77-V Premium
Intel Core i7 3770K
Corsair 16GB RAM
No GPU - Using the HD4000 on the MB (waiting for my GTX680 4GB to arrive)

The system boots fine (10.8.3), USB3 works, HD4000 works and it sees my Thunderbolt RAID (Promise Pegasus R6). It'll even drive my old Apple HD display connected to the 2nd port on the R6 via an Apple Displayport Mini to DVI adaptor.

System profile does not list Thunderbolt tho. Not really an issue as long as it's working.



I'll post a full guide and breakdown later in the week.

 

[fancsiko]

hey,

great that you got so far, congrats.
courious if you'll be still able to use your internal hd4000 after installing the gtx.
i have asus maximus v extreme, with gtx680 4 gigs, and unable to use hd4000 paralelly.
no matter i installed multibeast's igpu support, and enable multi-monitor in bios, if i do, i'm stuck at startup screen.
looking for a solution, please post if you have one.

 

[rekrap]

Hi there
I am running my hackintosh on the Gigabyte Z77X-UP5TH and a bit confused when people say that the thunderbolt ports aren't hot swappable.
I am editing on FCP and using a G-raid 8TB hard drive which is hot swappable ie i can boot up my OS and then plug in the drive and it works fine it shows on desktop as exactly what it is.
So surely this means it is hot swappable?


cheers