Z490 & Z590

[katza]

Hello community,
Z590 is arriving on January with PCIe 4.0 & new 11th generation CPUs.
As apple are moving to it's own CPUs, do you think Z490 will be the last supported chipset for hackintosh builds?

 

[scottkendall]

Hello community,
Z590 is arriving on January with PCIe 4.0 & new 11th generation CPUs.
As apple are moving to it's own CPUs, do you think Z490 will be the last supported chipset for hackintosh builds?

As far as anyone knows Apple will not be releasing any systems with 11th Generation CPU's. Someone will need to be a ginneypihg to find out. The IGPU will be new so support for it will likely not exist. The 11 ben CPU uses a different core architecture so that could cause issues. The only real benefit you have over 10gen is PCE4.0 also it looks like they are reducing the core count back to 8C/16T from 10C/20T!

 

[Jamesbond007]

Hello community,
Z590 is arriving on January with PCIe 4.0 & new 11th generation CPUs.
As apple are moving to it's own CPUs, do you think Z490 will be the last supported chipset for hackintosh builds?

Quite possibly the case I would say.

Apple is moving to its own processors so it is quite possible we have seen the last Intel Macs out there. If this is so, then MacOS Intel (Big Sur and later) will have no support for any subsequent Intel platform like Z590. However, having no support does not necessarily mean MacOS Big Sur and later won't be able to run on them. (Example : I have MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 on my main Z390 system with 9th generation CPU even though Sierra is supposed to support up to 7th generation only.)

We will just have to wait and see.

 

[dehjomz]

Rocket lake should run on Big Sur, assuming rocket lake can run in a z490 board. There’s also fakecpuid that can be used in opencore to spoof an older cpu so that macOS can boot. When comet lake first came out, catalina didn’t yet support it natively, yet we were able to spoof an older cpuidto get the system to boot.

One challenge will be whether the OS will support the new z590 thunderbolt controller (assuming z590 comes with maple ridge). Also, alder-lake will be the first hybrid x86 chip, and will require changes to the OS scheduler to properly balance application load on the big and little cores. This might be the end of the line for new x86 architectures.

But you never know what Apple will do... but as long as macOS has x86 support, we should be able to run the os. It is when they move over to arm exclusively will be when we’ll be locked out.

 

[scottkendall]

Quite possibly the case I would say.

Apple is moving to its own processors so it is quite possible we have seen the last Intel Macs out there. If this is so, then MacOS Intel (Big Sur and later) will have no support for any subsequent Intel platform like Z590. However, having no support does not necessarily mean MacOS Big Sur and later won't be able to run on them. (Example : I have MacOS Sierra 10.12.6 on my main Z390 system with 9th generation CPU even though Sierra is supposed to support up to 7th generation only.)

We will just have to wait and see.

The thing with 6th - 9th gen and even 10th gen is they are all Skylake albeit 8th, 9th, 10th gen have more cores. The underlying architecture is the same. When it comes to 11th Gen CPU they are getting new underlying architecture and even a totally new IGPU!

 

[Jamesbond007]

The thing with 6th - 9th gen and even 10th gen is they are all Skylake albeit 8th, 9th, 10th gen have more cores. The underlying architecture is the same. When it comes to 11th Gen CPU they are getting new underlying architecture and even a totally new IGPU!

Yes, I agree that the iGPU most likely won't work at all.

If as you say the 11th generation is using a completely different architecture then well, MacOS may not run at all. But I will still wait and see how this turns out.

Actually, if the 10th generation is still based on Skylake, why so much difficulty in getting even Mojave to run on hardware based on them? Even CaseySJ has acknowledged he cannot get Mojave to install on his Z490 system.

 

[scottkendall]

Yes, I agree that the iGPU most likely won't work at all.

If as you say the 11th generation is using a completely different architecture then well, MacOS may not run at all. But I will still wait and see how this turns out.

Actually, if the 10th generation is still based on Skylake, why so much difficulty in getting even Mojave to run on hardware based on them? Even CaseySJ has acknowledged he cannot get Mojave to install on his Z490 system.

No idea 10th gen is somewhere in the in-between maybe? It still as far as I know has Skylake cores. It does however integrated Thunderbolt 3 on the CPU this could be the reason.

 

[energy23]

Rocket lake should run on Big Sur, assuming rocket lake can run in a z490 board. There’s also fakecpuid that can be used in opencore to spoof an older cpu so that macOS can boot. When comet lake first came out, catalina didn’t yet support it natively, yet we were able to spoof an older cpuidto get the system to boot.

One challenge will be whether the OS will support the new z590 thunderbolt controller (assuming z590 comes with maple ridge). Also, alder-lake will be the first hybrid x86 chip, and will require changes to the OS scheduler to properly balance application load on the big and little cores. This might be the end of the line for new x86 architectures.

But you never know what Apple will do... but as long as macOS has x86 support, we should be able to run the os. It is when they move over to arm exclusively will be when we’ll be locked out.

What are the chances that Apple releases a Mac with Alder Lake CPUs? I'm planning on building a new desktop. Rocket Lake is right around the corner, but I don't want to build a rig with the LGA 1200 socket as it will be end of the line and Alder Lake's LGA 1700 socket will allow for upgrades. I'm debating on whether I should build with Rocket Lake or wait for Alder Lake...

 

[dehjomz]

What are the chances that Apple releases a Mac with Alder Lake CPUs? I'm planning on building a new desktop. Rocket Lake is right around the corner, but I don't want to build a rig with the LGA 1200 socket as it will be end of the line and Alder Lake's LGA 1700 socket will allow for upgrades. I'm debating on whether I should build with Rocket Lake or wait for Alder Lake...

I cannot predict the future, but given the stellar performance per watt and overall performance of M1, I think chances are pretty slim that Apple releases an Intel-based Mac again, whether Alder-Lake or some future Intel architecture. But, if Intel gets its mojo back on 10 nm and 7 nm, you never know.

Anyhow, since Alder Lake will still be an x86 CPU, I would presume it would run MacOS, possibly with the need for some kernel patches. If you're debating between Rocket Lake and Alder Lake, if it's for a system you plan to have for a few years, I'd say wait, if at all possible, for Alder Lake. Given as you pointed out that the new LGA1700 will come with new features such as PCIe5 and DDR5, and of course a hybrid core design with big+little cores, increased IPC, and (most likely) better performance-per-watt, given it will be based on the new 10 nm process.

But Rocket Lake seems to be a beast. Leaks are indicating that a 11700K may score 1810 in Geekbench 5 single core. If true, Rocket Lake will be the fastest CPU on the market, from a single core perspective. I imagine Alder Lake will be even better still.

 

[Jamesbond007]

What are the chances that Apple releases a Mac with Alder Lake CPUs? I'm planning on building a new desktop. Rocket Lake is right around the corner, but I don't want to build a rig with the LGA 1200 socket as it will be end of the line and Alder Lake's LGA 1700 socket will allow for upgrades. I'm debating on whether I should build with Rocket Lake or wait for Alder Lake...

I would say we have seen the last Intel Macs already. Why would Apple release any more Intel Macs given the performance of the M1 and its stated intention of transitioning to Apple Silicon in two years?

You want to continue to wait for new Intel hardware to run MacOS? That may not be wise. Apple will most likely not update MacOS Intel to include new hardware support, and the future versions of MacOS Intel may not be able to run on newer Intel hardware (that may include "Rocket Lake" as well, or if somehow it is made to run, e.g. kernel patches, it may have compatibility problems like the Ryzen CPUs). You will have wasted your investment if you buy those hardware in the future and it can no longer run MacOS Intel (or have significant problems).

MacOS Sierra and High Sierra can run on Intel 9th generation hardware, even though Sierra and High Sierra have no official support for them, so it may be possible that Big Sur or a future version of MacOS Intel can run on "Alder Lake" or any future Intel hardware. Whether this will actually be true we will have to wait and see.