The 4K Dell OptiMac - 9020 MT - Core i7-4790 - Radeon RX 570 - LG 4K IPS Monitor

[bluepr0]

Certainly, can-do... I transplanted a 9020 MT mobo (with a i5-4690S running HD 4600) into an Antec quiet-case, if that's of any interest to the thread. One thing I can't help too much with is 4K resolution testing, as I don't have a 4K screen. Could borrow a 4K 'TV/monitor' from work, though.

Oh, really? I thought Dell was using some kind of proprietary motherboard format and it won't fit/work well on a regular ATX case. That's interesting news in case you want to rack mount it or just change the case for fun. Thanks!

 

[percussive]

As some folks have covered in other threads, there are more than a few oddities. The good news: it IS a standard layout for the motherboard mounting screws & rear I/O Shield. So getting it physically mounted into a standard case is easy.

OTOH, the power supply connector and fan connectors are proprietary and a touch odd. Adapters are pretty inexpensive.
Also you have to carry over the Thermal Sensor (so the fans don’t go to full speed), and the Front I/O USB/LED assembly (or it throws BIOS errors/alerts).
And the On-button/LED harness is best transferred, too. I spliced the switch and LED wires into the Antec case’s existing wires.

That all said, it’s quite do-able. So if you have a case that you love, you can easily buy all the necessary pieces online.

If you’d like, I could post some pics.

 

[bluepr0]

As some folks have covered in other threads, there are more than a few oddities. The good news: it IS a standard layout for the motherboard mounting screws & rear I/O Shield. So getting it physically mounted into a standard case is easy.

OTOH, the power supply connector and fan connectors are proprietary and a touch odd. Adapters are pretty inexpensive.
Also you have to carry over the Thermal Sensor (so the fans don’t go to full speed), and the Front I/O USB/LED assembly (or it throws BIOS errors/alerts).
And the On-button/LED harness is best transferred, too. I spliced the switch and LED wires into the Antec case’s existing wires.

That all said, it’s quite do-able. So if you have a case that you love, you can easily buy all the necessary pieces online.

If you’d like, I could post some pics.

Would love to see those pics, thanks!. I actually got the 9020 SFF as a Hackintosh for productivity for my girlfriend, which has been working wonderfully. But a few weeks ago I sold my current server build on a 2011 socket with a 2698 v4 Xeon and bought a 9020 MT, so far so good!. However in the future I might want to rack mount all the networking and server stuff.

 

[lofidub]

Getting DRM content to play on a hackintosh is always a difficult task. The only SMBIOS that seems to work consistently is iMac Pro which has no iGPU. The regular iMac 14,2 or 15,1 usually has problems with this. Some get it to work by completely disabling their iGPU but that is not possible on these Dell systems. You can either have it enabled or running in headless mode. All Haswell CPUs that we use in the OptiMac have HD4600 iGPU. So for guaranteed playback you can use iTunes on a PC or you could simply use a real Mac, Apple TV or iPad to play DRM protected content.

OK thanks, it's not a show stopper by any means. I just have a few iTunes movies etc that would have been good to be able to stream. Really just wanted to check that it wasn't actually working for everyone else and I had just messed something up.

 

[trs96]

OK thanks, it's not a show stopper by any means. I just have a few iTunes movies etc that would have been good to be able to stream. Really just wanted to check that it wasn't actually working for everyone else and I had just messed something up.

The only two things I've found to not work on my Dell 9020 Optiplex hackintosh are the DRM content playback issue you mention and wake from sleep when using an AMD graphics card. These two problems are not unique to the Dell 7020/9020 Optiplex. They happen to people with Gigabyte/Asus etc. custom built hacks too. As you said, they are not deal breakers. Everything else works great. As I've said previously, when running macOS on hardware that does not support it, there will be a few minor annoyances that you just have to live with.

 

[vbmota]

Could anyone tell what resolution can be used by HD 4600 through DP> HMDI with macOS adapter in this configuration? I am trying to plug in an LG ultrawide 34 monitor and I can't improve / enlarge the screen on my Mavericks version. At Catalina it looks wonderful and works well.
I have i7 SFF with integrated graphics.

 

[trs96]

Optiplex SFF with i7...

I've heard of some people using a widescreen LG monitor with a dedicated graphics card and it has worked. Some even have HD4600 working with a 4K monitor. That is more difficult to do. Have you tried using SwithcResX or ResXtreme yet ? I don't know if the limitation is Mavericks related or not. I've never installed that on my Dell.

 

[Jarikka]

Can I use this in 9020 SSF?

Crucial 8 GB 2Rx8 PC3-12800U DDR3 1600MHz 240PIN DIMM RAM

 

[vbmota]

I've heard of some people using a widescreen LG monitor with a dedicated graphics card and it has worked. Some even have HD4600 working with a 4K monitor. That is more difficult to do. Have you tried using SwithcResX or ResXtreme yet ? I don't know if the limitation is Mavericks related or not. I've never installed that on my Dell.

I was using Mavericks with my old Optiplex 980 with Mavericks (it is the ultimate system that supports my firewire board drivers to edit audio in ProTools) and the same LG Ultrawide without limitations or 3d party software but I can try out SwitchRes or another to test. I was thinking about limitations with my config.plist or kexts. But thank you anyway.

 

[trs96]

I was using Mavericks with my old Optiplex 980

The 980 questions are obviously off topic here. You could post in Mavericks desktop support.