UtterDisbelief 20 ITX - Gigabyte Z590i, i5-10600K, 32GB, RX560

[UtterDisbelief]

UtterDisbelief's 20th - Z590 ITX, i5 Comet Lake Build




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Components:


Gigabyte Z590i Aorus Ultra Motherboard Intel LGA1200
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08XKB2472/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813145266

Intel Core i5-10600k 4.1GHz Comet Lake Processor
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0883NTLXM/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16819118124

Dell RX 560 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=dell+rx560+graphics+card

and:

Sapphire Pulse RX 570 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079VSD38Y/?tag=tonymacx86-21

CORSAIR Vengeance LP 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4 3000 Memory
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07B2Y6H1M/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16820236346

Crucial MX500 250GB SATA SSD
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0764WCXCV/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16820156172

NZXT H210 Mini-ITX Gaming case
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07SDB15JS/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16811146310

Deep Cool Gammax CPU Fan Cooler 4x Heat Pipes 120mm PWM Fan
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B083BK7H86/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/13C-002K-000V7

Noctua NF-P12 redux 1300RPM PWM 120mm Fan 4-Pin
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07CG2PGVG/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/1YF-000T-000K2

ARCTIC P12 PWM - 120 mm Case Fan with PWM
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07GB6SJHW/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16835186211

1 Port SATA to eSATA Slot Plate Bracket - similar to:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000GX4C7I/?tag=tonymacx86-21


Already Owned

CORSAIR CX500M 500W 80-PLUS BRONZE Semi Modular PSU
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00ALK46WC/?tag=tonymacx86-21
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16817139050

HGST 500GB SATA 2.5” Hard-Disk - Available from second tier. BYO.

Apple Magic Mouse 1 - Prefer AA battery version to the rechargeable, but if you must …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B016MUCHTS/?tag=tonymacx86-21

Apple Wired USB Keyboard - The classic with USB ports. I have a boxed spare too. No longer available new.

Acer 24” HD Monitor - No longer available new but I love it’s almost bezel-less design.



Comments

The reason for a new Hackintosh build right now is becoming less straight-forward, with Apple shifting their desktops to the ARM architecture and their own CPUs. In future, clearly, macOS will move away from Intel. Quite when, we don’t yet know. My view is that if you are a Video or Audio Professional then you should probably just buy a Mac Studio, or a new Mac Pro when they surface.

The Z590 I’m using here is still available generally and builds a significantly cheaper PC than the new Z690 series. The previous Z490 was more compatible for Hackintosh use but is no-longer easy to find new. Apple themselves did use Comet Lake CPUs so support for the chipsets is coded into macOS.

The Z590 has an unexpected advantage - if you don’t need the latest and greatest version of macOS - in that Big Sur fits it very well. This is because everything works as it should. Not always easy to achieve with a Hackintosh. Yes, you can install the latest Monterey and it will run fine. You can go back as far as High Sierra too. But in both cases there will be “issues”. it’s easy enough to work around them, but not suitable for the focus of a simple build guide. Those can be addressed at a later stage.

Finally, because AMD GPUs are still at a premium and either rare in good condition or hugely expensive, I’m starting the build with a Dell RX560 2GB model imported from the US (I’m in the UK). It matches and sometimes beats many natively supported NVidia GPUs, is very quiet and has reasonable power. They are great in an ITX build and prices are currently pretty good too.

Note: Initially we will be using a slightly older system-definition and OpenCore version than you might expect. This is simply because these two are very stable and well-tested and achieve our goal of a rock-solid Big Sur system. Of course you can modify as you please.



Installation

First create a correctly formatted 16GB USB2.0 Memory Stick. Here we call it “USB”:

With the Big Sur installer file - Install macOS Big Sur.app - in your Applications folder, build your Big Sur installation media using the following Terminal command from our Big Sur Beta Installation Guide:

sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/USB /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app --nointeraction

You should use a version of the Big Sur installer since 11.4.

Once complete copy the EFI folder attached to this post into the hidden EFI partition on the installer. To access this load the EFI Mounter v3.1 app from our Downloads section and select your drive from the list - if there is one. If there is no list then only the default main drive is available. To check which the correct drive is, if you have more than one in your system, use Disk Utility to identify it. Remember if you identify your main drive as “disk3s2” for example, then your EFI partition should be at “disk3s1” and show in the list.

Initially we are using OpenCore bootloader v 0.8.0

BIOS settings:

1. To access Setup, press and hold Delete on a USB Keyboard while the system boots. At the BIOS screen Press F2 to toggle Advanced mode. Then -
2. Settings / Internal Graphics = Auto
3. Settings / Above 4G Decoding = Enabled
4. Settings / USB Configuration / XHCI Hand-off = enabled
5. Tweaker / Advanced CPU Settings / VT-d = Enabled
6. Boot / CSM Support = Disabled
7. Boot / Secure Boot Mode = Disabled
8. Save and exit.

NOTE: DDR4 RAM speed is left at the Default, non-overclocked setting of 2133MHz even though I am using 3000MHz sticks. This is fine and as reliable as it gets. You can step up to the full speed later once you have a stable system etc.

Now on reboot, by pressing the BIOS boot selector key (F12) when the Aorus splash screen comes up, you can choose and boot the USB installer. Select your destination drive and let it run its course.



Post Installation

The work has already been done in the EFI I have uploaded. To make the new main drive independent of the USB stick for booting just copy the same EFI folder used before, into the EFI paritition of the main drive, making sure you pick the correct drive again, as explained above.

I’ll run through what’s there so you know a little more when you wish to modify or create your own.

System-Definition = iMac18,3

ACPI:
SSDT-AWAC.aml - needed to boot reliably around RTC
SSDT-EC-USBX.aml - dummy embedded controller with power
SSDT-PLUG.aml - CPU power management

Kexts:
Lilu.kext - Vital plug-in manager
VirtualSMC.kext - Vital System kext
SMCProcessor.kext - companion kext
SMCSuperIO.kext - companion kext
Whatevergreen.kext - Graphics plug-in for Lilu
USBPorts.kext - USB port configuration file
AirportItlwm.kext - Intel Wireless support **
AppleALC.kext - ALC1220-VB Audio chipset activation
IntelBluetoothFirmware/Injector kexts - To enable the AX200 Bluetooth

** You will need to enter your wireless access-point password for AirportItlwm.kext to work. Though it looks just like macOS’s built-in wireless configuration this is actually spoofing Ethernet.


A Few notes about USB
The Z590 chipset, not the ITX motherboard, has 14x USB ports of which 10x can be USB3. The included USBPorts.kext configures them down to 15 with a necessary culling of ports deemed surplus.

There are two Type-C USB ports, one via a the new-style front-panel header, the other on the back panel. If you use the same case you won't need an adapter cable for the header because one is included in the case. These ports are “switchable” ones.

The LED RGB connector takes up USB port HS13.

The Bluetooth wireless uses port HS14.

Here is the result of the USBPorts.kext included in the EFI folder:

Port mapping - Internal:

Port mapping - External:

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What Works:

USB2, USB3 and USB-C
Audio - Line out / HDMI
Ethernet
WiFi & BT
Sleep/Wake
iCloud / iMessage / Facetime / Music / App Store


What Doesn’t Work:

Continuity and Handoff due to the use of the Intel chipset.

The serial-numbers in the attached EFI folder are dummies. Please generate and use your own unique ones.​

Edit 29th July 2022: Added screengrabs of latest Big Sur update versions. No issues. See post #9.
Edit 5th August 2022: Added a Sapphire Pulse RX 570 4GB GDDR5 Graphics Card. See post #10.

 

[trs96]

20 builds in 10 years. Congrats on the achievement !

 

[UtterDisbelief]

20 builds in 10 years. Congrats on the achievement !

(Don't tell my better half! )

 

[trs96]

Don't tell my better half!

I hope she's not signed up here. Maybe one of the Admins could suspend her account.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I hope she's not signed up here. Maybe one of the Admins could suspend her account.

 

[Stork]

Congratulations! Moving your build description to the Golden Builds forum section!

I'm tempted to copy your build to replace my Z77 build in a Mac Pro case. Hmmmm.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Congratulations! Moving your build description to the Golden Builds forum section!

I'm tempted to copy your build to replace my Z77 build in a Mac Pro case. Hmmmm.

Thank you!

I already stand on the shoulders of greats. I've learned all I know here. Without this community I wouldn't have got to 20. Nowhere better.

I keep eying MacPro cases myself. Bit strapped for build space at the moment though. However if one turns up ...

 

[craighazan]

Happy anniversary build, great achievement!.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Update No.1

Updated Big Sur to the latest I was offered. No intervention needed as no other GUID drives attached but the main one. Took about 20-minutes. Everything still working.

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This was swiftly followed by another update from Apple, this time to the very latest - 11.6.8:

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Again no issues at all. All hardware working as it should.

​

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Update No.2

Three changes:

1) "New" Graphics Card - a Sapphire Pulse RX 570 4GB Mini ITX model

2) Update OpenCore to version 0.8.3

3) Install macOS Monterey 12.5

Okay, so first up I changed the GPU for a more powerful one. Finding an RX 570 was easy enough on Ebay, but one in good condition not so. This one is an ex-Mining card but was advertised as clean, little used (yeah, right) and fully working. Actually it was in very clean condition and so far seems to be working fine. Being the ITX version it doesn't crowd the case much and only needed a PCIe power lead. I used a 180-degree connector to keep the cabling neat and took the power feed from a SATA plug rather than the PSU directly, using a 15-pin SATA to 6-pin PCIe cable, again to keep things neat.

Power cable -
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B092LG9X3Z/?tag=tonymacx86-21

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180-degree adapter -
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NY6QXNL/?tag=tonymacx86-21

You get a pack of two with different plug orientations. Obviously only one will fit your card.

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Update OpenCore to the latest. Makes sense for the latest version of Monterey and a view to Ventura later.

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Installing Monterey. You have everything in the attached EFI folder.

Note the differences:

a) IntelBluetoothInjector.kext needed disabling/removing. Left in place the system would not boot.

b) BlueToolFixup.kext needed to activate Bluetooth.

c) A general tidy-up of the folder and files.

Everything works as it should. If you get problems, let me know and I'll see if I can replicate them.

Again:
The serial-numbers in the attached EFI folder are dummies. Please generate and use your own unique ones.