- Joined
- May 16, 2010
- Messages
- 272
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte Z370-HD3
- CPU
- i5-8600K
- Graphics
- RX 580
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
agrajag's Build: Z370-HD3 - i5-8600K - GTX 1060 RX 580
Components
Gigabyte Z370-HD3 Motherboard - ATX motherboard to use the new Coffee Lake CPUs. Relatively low end but meets my needs.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0762V6Y7Z/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145041
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145041
Intel Core i5-8600K Processor - Coffee Lake 6 processor unit that should allow simple overclocking
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0759FKH8K/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117825
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117825
Corsair H90 Water Processor Cooler - 140mm fan unit, that should support moderate overclocking
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B4OCWDE/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181036
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181036
Patriot Viper DDR4 8GB (2x4GB) 2400MHz PVE48G240C5KRD Memory
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0196AWLGK/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220996
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220996
EVGA 450W BT Bronze Power Supply
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9X3F8F/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438130
https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438130
Fractal Design Define R4 White ATX Case - purchased as New Open Box. A nice, relatively quiet case, with 2 ea. of front USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352024
Already Owned
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KUADE3O/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487263
[replaced with an RX 560 and later an RX 580 GPU when the nVidia drivers were no longer supporting MacOS]
Benq 27" GW2765HT 2560x1440 Monitor
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KYCSRSG/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824014383
ADATA 480GB SSD
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013J7P7SK/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211985
Ducky USB Keyboard
Logitech RF Mouse M310
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M7QSDVS/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Comments
This is Hackintosh #6 for me- previous builds included P35/E8400 Core 2, P55/i7-860, Z77/i5-3570K and Z97/i5-4690K. I waited 3 generations as the incremental speed increases have slowed a lot. This time, the new 6 processor Coffee Lake CPUs are pretty compelling as an upgrade. There were few Hack build reports but I decided to take the plunge as an early adopter and see if this would work out. The tricky bit was getting hold of the CPU. Newegg had them come into stock occasionally but they would sell out in minutes. I did get lucky though, and so ordered that and the Z370-HD3 MB at the first opportunity. I picked up some sale items (case, power supply, cooler) and then reused some bits.
The build is pretty straightforward in a nice case such as the Fractal R4. I haven't put in an optical drive yet- probably will pull the existing SATA DVD unit from my Z77 unit when I feel the need. The initial build used the GTX 650 Ti video card I had spare, so that the stock Mac drivers would work, and I could fuss with the web drivers later.
High Sierra 13.1 was just released the day before the components arrived, so I built the install USB drive using UniBeast 8.0 as per the tonymacx86 Install Guide. First boot showed that BIOS F3 was installed, so I downloaded F4 from the Gigabyte web site, as it has some fixes for nVidia 10x0 family video cards, and upgraded the BIOS using a USB stick method. Then booting into the BIOS (hold <DEL> on boot) allowed the usual modifications:
- disable internal graphics
- disable SuperIO parallel and serial ports
- disable VT-d
- enable XHCI Handoff
- disable fast Boot
- check that AHCI is enabled
Then booting to select the UniBeast USB stick (hold <F12>) allowed me to start the HS install. The only error I made was to forget that the High Sierra Installer converts the SSD to APFS. The install was successful but when I rebooted and booted the USB drive and selected the new SSD drive, MultiBeast 9 could not see the APFS formatted drive. I wasted the rest of the evening proceeding via using the latest Clover and a config.plist that had been provided by another early Z370 adopter. This was a dead-end as the booting was unreliable into the SSD, as it sometimes took 2 or 3 boot attempts to successfully boot into HS. I suspect that there were issues in the config.plist which I had downloaded, and it was too messy a place to start from.
Backtracking I reformatted the SSD to HFS+ and reinstalled High Sierra again, this time using the instruction here to avoid the conversion to APFS. That allowed me to use MultiBeast 9.2.1 to set up things. Using the UEFI Boot Mode install defaults, then I also selected:
- Network: IntelMausiEthernet v2.3.0
- USB: Increase Max Port Limit 200 Series
- Clover bootloader UEFI with Emulated NVRAM
- Graphics: Nvidia Graphics Fixup
- System Definition: iMac 18,2 [later changed to iMac 19,1 after the first Apple Coffee Lake iMacs were later released]
I skipped the audio drivers for now, as I'm not sure how that might go and can fuss with it later. I mostly use USB audio anyway so don't rely on this working. I used the iMac 18,2 as that is an Apple Kaby Lake machine, so hoping it will be closest to this build.
After quitting MultiBeast I loaded the latest Clover (r4289) and installed that over what MultiBeast had installed- might as well try the latest on such new hardware. Also installed RehabMan's latest FakeSMC (kext only, not any of the hardware sensors).
A few reboots and messing with Clover Configurator to sort out some details. The "drivers64UEFI" folder has the usual suspects, and I added the latest apfs.efi and verified that EmuVariableUefi-64.efi is installed. Also both OsxAptioFixDrv-64.efi and OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi are installed, and I'm not sure which is loading at the moment.
I was surprised that booting with the minimal config.plist that MultiBeast had installed worked pretty well. i will work on optimizing that in the next few weeks. The only thing that took a bit to sort out was that on shutdown, the computer seemed to shut off, but moving the mouse or a keypress restarted it. Some googling found the solution- to set "FixShutdown_0004" to <true> using Clover Configurator. All the USB ports seem to work, in that they mount and unmount the USB devices I have tried plugging in. No tests yet on USB 3.1 speed, so can't be too sure.
The system sleep works fine- using the sleep menu item or having the system time out into a sleep. Wakes up quickly and with no apparent issues so far. The CPU goes into a low power state properly, and ramps up to maximum frequency under load.
After using the system for a couple of days I swapped out the GTX 650 Ti with the GTX 1060 graphics card, and installed the nVidia webdrivers. Also have tried a little overclocking so far- to 4.6GHz have the CPU temperature rise up to 50C when I run tasks that max out the 6 CPUs.
Have not gone through the process of working on the serial number and getting iMessage working. I will wait until I have done more testing before going through that, as it will also require removing my previous Z97 build from the approved list at Apple.
Essential Tools
UniBeast 8, MultiBeast 9.2.1, Clover Configurator, BBEdit, latest Clover bootloader, Intel Power Gadget
Summary
Pretty straightforward build given that the Z370 hardware is so new and that there is no Apple gear with Coffee Lake. It seems that the hardware is pretty close to Kaby Lake in many respects as far as macOS seems concerned.
What Works
Seems like most everything works so far- including Ethernet, USB and sleep. Speed stepping works fine as monitored using the Intel Power Gadget.
What Does Not Work
Have not tried the HD Audio yet, so not sure if it will work. Did not try using the onboard Intel Graphics. Still need to work on iMessage compatibility. Planning to eventually try an NVMe SSD, so hoping that will work out.
Benchmarks
Only minimal attempts so far- with the moderate overclock (4.60GHz) seeing scores of 5477 (single core) and 21028 (multi-core) using 64-bit GeekBench 4.20. At stock frequency it was around 4950/19500. Power button to logon prompt is just under 30 seconds.
Update
[one week later] Received the additional RAM so now running 4x4GB=16GB of the Patriot Viper 2400MHz DDR4. Have been upping the processor frequency and running stable at 4.8GHz. Temperatures stay low- even running flat out at 4.8GHz get CPU temperatures stable in the low 50's °C range. Current Geekbench 4 (64-bit) is: 6015/24664. This is quite a boost from my previous hack that had a Z97 motherboard and i5-4690k running OC'd at 4.2GHz 4866/14840-- single processor up 24% and multicore up 66%.
Also set up eSATA by using the BIOS configuration to allow one port as eSATA hot-pluggable. This didn't work until patching (code from a thread on insanelymac):
Code:
<dict>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>fix IO error ICH10 for 10.13, credit SunKi</string>
<key>MatchOS</key>
<string>10.13.x</string>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
<key>Name</key>
<string>AppleAHCIPort</string>
<key>Find</key>
<data>RYX2D5XCiciD4P5mhcl4D4TSdQs=</data>
<key>Replace</key>
<data>iciD4P5mhckPmMFBCMyQkJCQdQs=</data>
</dict>
<dict>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>fix hotplug ICH10 for 10.13, credit SunKi</string>
<key>MatchOS</key>
<string>10.13.x</string>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
<key>Name</key>
<string>AppleAHCIPort</string>
<key>Find</key>
<data>icglQGACAD1AIAAAdQyB4b9///+Ji1EBAAA=</data>
<key>Replace</key>
<data>kJCQkJCQkJCQkJCQkJCQkJCQkJCQkJCQkJA=</data>
</dict>Update 2
Now added a NVMe M2 SSD- the Samsung 960 Pro 512GB-- couldn't resist the sale price. Installation was straightforward- formatted as HFS+ and then used Carbon Copy Cloner to transfer the current installation over. Created the EFI using MultiBeast, then replaced that with the EFI files from the current working installation drive. Performance is pretty impressive:
Also worked through the USB ports and created the SSDT patch file to enable only 15 USB ports, so have removed the USB port limit patch, as per the instructions: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-10-11-usb-changes-and-solutions.173616/ and enabled USB power limit so my iPad will now charge when plugged in.
Update 3
Changed graphics card to an AMD RX 560 4GB card. Removed the nVidia web drivers and the nVidia Graphics Fixup kexts. Using the new Clover RadeonDeInit setting the graphics card works fine. However could not get sleep working. Using the latest versions of Lilu and WhateverGreen kexts also works, and these also enabled sleep. Performance is less that with the GTX 1060 card, but good enough for my purposes and also removes the issue of being dependent on the nVidia webdrivers. The added bonus is that I can now stream iTunes protected content (Movies and TV shows I have purchased) on my Hack- first time this has worked in years. For cosmetic purposes in "About This Mac" I also inject the card info:
Code:
<dict>
<key>Comment</key>
<string>Rename AMD R9 xxx to AMD RX560</string>
<key>Find</key>
<data>
QU1EIFI5IHh4eA==
</data>
<key>Name</key>
<string>AMD9500Controller</string>
<key>Replace</key>
<data>
QU1EIFJYIDU2MA==
</data>
</dict>Update 4
With the release of 10.13.4 the RX 560 graphics now works without RadeonDeInit (=false) or Whatevergreen. The remaining outstanding issue is that after waking from sleep the motherboard fans run full speed until a reboot. This seems to be an issue with the BIOS (running F6 now) so no obvious solution I can find.
I have also added a PCIe WiFi card (Rosewill RNX-AC1900PCE, 802.11AC Dual Band AC1900) from the Buyers Guide. It worked right away after booting up and connects fine to my network. This has allowed Airdrop to work between my desktop machine, Macbook Pro and iPad.
A copy of the current EFI is attached below.
Update 5
Have been running Mojave since about a week after release and it has been stable on this rig. Updated using the Apple Update mechanism, and after the restart to the installer partition it all went very smoothly. I had to reinstall audio to get internal audio working again. There is a good thread that I used on the Mojave desktop support page <https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/mojave-applehda-audio.260004/>
Also updated Clover- currently rev 4700. The Clover install files have been changing names in recent versions- see the screenshot below to see the list of what I am currently running.
Update 5.1
Updated to 10.14.1 using the updater in System Preferences. The reboot for the temporary installer partition wouldn't proceed until I had disconnected the other internal (SATA) hard drives (my main drive is a NVMe SSD). After that the install was pretty smooth. Just reconnect the SATA drives afterward. Also updated to the latest versions of Lilu, WhateverGreen and AppleALC, since they had just been released. One new feature is that "About This Mac" recognizes that I have an i5 installed.
Update: OpenCore
There were not many examples of OpenCore EFIs for Z370 machines and I could not find any for the Z370-HD3 so I worked through the Dortania Guide and have created one. I have been using OpenCore now since October 2020 so it is tested reasonably well. If I find issues I will update the EFI provided. I began using this with MacOS Catalina (10.15.7) and later with Big Sur when it was released.
OpenCore is a bit more fiddly than Clover was, so several choices need to be made as one creates the EFI folder for your system. The EFIs I attach below are partly specific to my hardware, so even if you have the same motherboard, there may well be changes needed.
- add your own serial # in config.plist
- ... same for the SystemUUID
- either remove or adjust the USBMap.kext-- it is custom for my system (15 port limit)
- ... my Bluetooth uses one internal USB 2 port (Fenvi WiFi and BT)
- I use BIOS F8- it is possible other versions will have different settings. Newer BIOS versions might need the RTC SSDT fix (I am unsure what version started needing this)
- I use an AMD RX 580 for graphics- will need to adjust if you are using something else
- CFG-Lock is set for this MB BIOS so Kernel -> Quirks -> AppleCpuPmCfgLock and Kernel -> Quirks -> AppleXcpmCfgLock need to be set to TRUE until you unlock it (instructions in the guide)
- I have an NVMe SSD so have added "NVMeFix.kext" as of OC 0.6.5- will need to be turned off if you don't use an NVMe drive
Update: OpenCore 0.6.5
The OpenCore 0.6.5 EFI I have created is attached, including the January .efi and .kext versions. The same provisos as above- needs your own serial #, SystemUUID and USBMap. One other change is that I have enabled NVMeFix.kext- remove this if you don't need it and adjust the config.plist. The config.plist is set up assuming the CFG-Lock is unlocked, so adjust as above if you have not disabled it.
Update: OpenCore 0.6.8
The OpenCore 0.6.8 EFI I have created is attached, including the April 2021 .efi and .kext versions, and the updated image files to support recent OpenCanopy changes. The provisos as above- needs your own serial #, SystemUUID and USBMap. Also the config.plist is set up assuming the CFG-Lock is unlocked. This is likely the final update version as I am moving to a new M1 Mac now.
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