Z690 Chipset Motherboards and Alder Lake CPU

[Cerberus73]

Wish me luck.. After much dithering, I've decided to go for broke. I waited to see what Apple would put out on the 8th March. I then thought, OK, I'll just replace my motherboard and CPU (Gigabyte Z170 and Skylake i5-6600K) after looking at the prices for a Z490 board and i7-10700K. I wasn't going to be much more for a Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 and i9 12900k. So I've bit the bullet and ordered the board today from a UK supplier (I live in the UK), as well as a Noctua D15 Chromax cooler, and the Gigabyte TPM 2.0 header module (Ii boot into Windows for gaming). I have 32GBb of DDR4 2133 in my current machine. But I think I'll buy a faster variant of 64GB DDR4 when I go to the States on holiday next week. I'll also buy the 12900K there as it's literally 2/3rd's of the price it is in the UK. I may also try and get a RX 6600 XT or 6800 XTt there. and a pair of WD 1TB SN570 or 750 SSD's.

My current components are a genuine Apple Airport Extreme BCM43xx on a PCIe adapter card, PowerColor RX 5500 XT 8GB. 2x Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SATA SSD, pair of 4TB Seagate hybrid HDD's and a LG Blu-Ray recorder.

Before I buy anything else, I'd like to know if there's any 6600 XT or 6800 XT cards that definitely do not work? As I believe Micro Center gets a limited supply in daily; it's turn up early, wait to see what they have and pony up the cash. My 5500 XT works fine but its not much good for gaming. I use macOS maybe 90% of the time. and on this it's mostly Illustrator/Photoshop I use. So I don't want to drop anything between $500-1000 on a card that's not going to be usable in a hack.

I've did a bit of reading up on the Realtek RTL8125 2.5Gb Ethernet. Is there any way to enable it from boot? Without having to manually define the settings once its booted into the desktop in macOS? I may have misread but it seems this was what people were doing. I was just wondering if there was some way to set it so it happened from plist settings.

Any other issues with the Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 boards? I chose this as my current build is based on a Z170 version of this board the Z170 UD TH. And it's ran faultlessly since I built it, through 4 versions of macOS.

 

[smoothmove]

Wish me luck.. After much dithering, I've decided to go for broke. I waited to see what Apple would put out on the 8th March. I then thought, OK, I'll just replace my motherboard and CPU (Gigabyte Z170 and Skylake i5-6600K) after looking at the prices for a Z490 board and i7-10700K. I wasn't going to be much more for a Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 and i9 12900k. So I've bit the bullet and ordered the board today from a UK supplier (I live in the UK), as well as a Noctua D15 Chromax cooler, and the Gigabyte TPM 2.0 header module (Ii boot into Windows for gaming). I have 32GBb of DDR4 2133 in my current machine. But I think I'll buy a faster variant of 64GB DDR4 when I go to the States on holiday next week. I'll also buy the 12900K there as it's literally 2/3rd's of the price it is in the UK. I may also try and get a RX 6600 XT or 6800 XTt there. and a pair of WD 1TB SN570 or 750 SSD's.

My current components are a genuine Apple Airport Extreme BCM43xx on a PCIe adapter card, PowerColor RX 5500 XT 8GB. 2x Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SATA SSD, pair of 4TB Seagate hybrid HDD's and a LG Blu-Ray recorder.

Before I buy anything else, I'd like to know if there's any 6600 XT or 6800 XT cards that definitely do not work? As I believe Micro Center gets a limited supply in daily; it's turn up early, wait to see what they have and pony up the cash. My 5500 XT works fine but its not much good for gaming. I use macOS maybe 90% of the time. and on this it's mostly Illustrator/Photoshop I use. So I don't want to drop anything between $500-1000 on a card that's not going to be usable in a hack.

I've did a bit of reading up on the Realtek RTL8125 2.5Gb Ethernet. Is there any way to enable it from boot? Without having to manually define the settings once its booted into the desktop in macOS? I may have misread but it seems this was what people were doing. I was just wondering if there was some way to set it so it happened from plist settings.

Any other issues with the Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 boards? I chose this as my current build is based on a Z170 version of this board the Z170 UD TH. And it's ran faultlessly since I built it, through 4 versions of macOS.
sed on a Z170 version of this board the Z170 UD TH. and its ran faultlessly since i built it, through 4 versions of mac os.

I have an XFX 6600 XT from Best Buy. Only have to add agdpmod=pikera for the boot args, and it works perfect. I got frustrated by having install issues. IF you can't get it to boot, try different EFI's from similar boards. If you can get it to boot, then you can tweak it. The Z690 was harder than any other chipset that I have tried to get to work, but it works well.

You add the RTL8125 in the devices section and the kext. It just worked.

 

[Cerberus73]

I have an XFX 6600XT from best buy. Only have to add agdpmod=pikera for the boot args and it works perfect. I got frustrated by having install issues. IF you can't get it to boot, try different EFI's from similar boards. If you can get it to boot, then you can tweak it. the Z690 was harder than any other chipset that I have tried to get to work, but it works well.

You add the RTL8125 in the devices section and the kext. It just worked.

Thanks for replying, good to know the XFX 6600XT works as i know when i bought the 5500XT the only brand that didnt seem to work were the XFX cards. The compatabilty list hasnt been updated in a while to show which 6600 or 6800 cards work or not, so its a case of trawling forum, or asking. good to know about the ethernet, as it was something that was putting me off, As for using EFI's, i try not to resort to using others folders. and prefer to just go through manually setting up my own config.plist and gather or compile the needed kexts. its slower, but you usually end up with a more stable system. and dont have to hunt down mistakes others may have made, i dont mind following a runthrough. but i cant find any for this particular board yet. Which particular XFX card is it you have is it the Merc?

one final thing, does anyone know of a better wifi card? as this one is a little old now. even if it runs out of the box. are there any AX cards that work OOB and support handoff etc at a reasonable price.

 

[trs96]

are there any AX cards that work OOB and support handoff etc at a reasonable price.

You'd need to use the Intel drivers as of today, that may change in the future.

GitHub - OpenIntelWireless/itlwm: Intel Wi-Fi Drivers for macOS

Intel Wi-Fi Drivers for macOS. Contribute to OpenIntelWireless/itlwm development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

Don't believe handoff currently works when using Intel Wifi. People using Intel wifi already may offer more advice. Here's the AX chipsets that work with OpenIntelWireless.

• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX101
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX211 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX411 160MHz
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650w 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650x 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (200NGW)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650s 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201D2W)
• Killer(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX1650i 160MHz Wireless Network Adapter (201NGW)

Mac Studio includes a 10Gb Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, and a pro audio jack for high-impedance headphones or external amplified speakers. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 are built in as well.

 

[smoothmove]

Thanks for replying, good to know the XFX 6600XT works as i know when i bought the 5500XT the only brand that didnt seem to work were the XFX cards. The compatabilty list hasnt been updated in a while to show which 6600 or 6800 cards work or not, so its a case of trawling forum, or asking. good to know about the ethernet, as it was something that was putting me off, As for using EFI's, i try not to resort to using others folders. and prefer to just go through manually setting up my own config.plist and gather or compile the needed kexts. its slower, but you usually end up with a more stable system. and dont have to hunt down mistakes others may have made, i dont mind following a runthrough. but i cant find any for this particular board yet. Which particular XFX card is it you have is it the Merc?

one final thing, does anyone know of a better wifi card? as this one is a little old now. even if it runs out of the box. are there any AX cards that work OOB and support handoff etc at a reasonable price.

Corrected

I tried an XFX 6600 and had no luck with it. The XFX 6600 XT worked no problem for me. That is what I meant.
.

 

[trs96]

NOT THE 6600 (non XT) cards. They won't work.

Dortania says that the RX6600 do have native support in Monterey. Why would they not work ?

 

[energy23]

Wish me luck.. After much dithering, I've decided to go for broke. I waited to see what Apple would put out on the 8th March. I then thought, OK, I'll just replace my motherboard and CPU (Gigabyte Z170 and Skylake i5-6600K) after looking at the prices for a Z490 board and i7-10700K. I wasn't going to be much more for a Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 and i9 12900k. So I've bit the bullet and ordered the board today from a UK supplier (I live in the UK), as well as a Noctua D15 Chromax cooler, and the Gigabyte TPM 2.0 header module (Ii boot into Windows for gaming). I have 32GBb of DDR4 2133 in my current machine. But I think I'll buy a faster variant of 64GB DDR4 when I go to the States on holiday next week. I'll also buy the 12900K there as it's literally 2/3rd's of the price it is in the UK. I may also try and get a RX 6600 XT or 6800 XTt there. and a pair of WD 1TB SN570 or 750 SSD's.

My current components are a genuine Apple Airport Extreme BCM43xx on a PCIe adapter card, PowerColor RX 5500 XT 8GB. 2x Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SATA SSD, pair of 4TB Seagate hybrid HDD's and a LG Blu-Ray recorder.

Before I buy anything else, I'd like to know if there's any 6600 XT or 6800 XT cards that definitely do not work? As I believe Micro Center gets a limited supply in daily; it's turn up early, wait to see what they have and pony up the cash. My 5500 XT works fine but its not much good for gaming. I use macOS maybe 90% of the time. and on this it's mostly Illustrator/Photoshop I use. So I don't want to drop anything between $500-1000 on a card that's not going to be usable in a hack.

I've did a bit of reading up on the Realtek RTL8125 2.5Gb Ethernet. Is there any way to enable it from boot? Without having to manually define the settings once its booted into the desktop in macOS? I may have misread but it seems this was what people were doing. I was just wondering if there was some way to set it so it happened from plist settings.

Any other issues with the Gigabyte Z690 UD DDR4 boards? I chose this as my current build is based on a Z170 version of this board the Z170 UD TH. And it's ran faultlessly since I built it, through 4 versions of macOS.

I would recommend at least considering the 12700k instead of the 12900k. I have the NH-D15 Chromax Black as well on a 12700k. At stock speeds and voltages, my CPU reaches about 85c during stress tests. Undervolting drops the temperature down to 67-70c. The other thing is, the performance; while YES, the 12900k is obviously faster, it is so by only about 20%, however where I am, it costs 40% more.

I just didn't see the value in the 12900k considering the extra costs, power consumption and heat output. The 12700k, in my view, hit the sweet spot.

As for the GPU, don't discount a 6800 as an option, it's not much slower than the XT variant (only about 15% difference) but in my local store, a Gigabyte 6800 Gaming OC goes for $1,250 whereas the XT variant goes for $1,600 (nearly 30% price difference for 15% performance increase). However, over a 6600 XT, it is significantly faster.

 

[imXeno]

Hello,

I've run out of ideas so I decided to open an account here and ask for help. I am trying to build a Monterey Hackintosh using my existing hardware:
- Motherboard: MSI Z690-A PRO DDR4 (Intel I225-V, Realtek ALC897)
- CPU: Intel i9-12900K (all cores active, HT enabled)
- GPU: MSI Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming Z Trio
- RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo 32 GB 3600Mhz CL14 x2
- SSD: Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
- PSU: Corsair HX1200

Everything seemed to be going fine until I started to do some post-installation stuff. When the system boots it works blazingly fast... but just for a minute or two after booting, then it gets completely unresponsive (launching Safari lags, loading preference panes lags, closing windows takes way too long, etc.), even a small task like extracting a .xip archive (Xcode) takes forever to complete (compared to an Intel MacBook Pro 13" from 2020) and trying to open Safari while the archive is extracting results in a 15-second wait time. I can observe this kind of behavior every time the system boots.

Does anyone have an idea what is going on? Right now I ditched my old EFI folder in favor of using "generic Alder Lake EFI folder v.9" by @etorix, did all the customizations he talked about, and the problem still persists. I'm not seeing this kind of problem on Windows (dual boot), so it's rather a macOS-specific issue and not a general hardware failure.

Thanks in advance.

 

[etorix]

Welcome @imXeno ! Note that your motherboard has a user build here, where you may get help more directly.
My guess would be that there's a TRIM issue with the Samsung 980 Pro; if so, the solution would be to get a drive which has better support under macOS.

 

[Cerberus73]

I would recommend at least considering the 12700k instead of the 12900k. I have the NH-D15 Chromax Black as well on a 12700k. At stock speeds and voltages, my CPU reaches about 85c during stress tests. Undervolting drops the temperature down to 67-70c. The other thing is, the performance; while YES, the 12900k is obviously faster, it is so by only about 20%, however where I am, it costs 40% more.

I just didn't see the value in the 12900k considering the extra costs, power consumption and heat output. The 12700k, in my view, hit the sweet spot.

As for the GPU, don't discount a 6800 as an option, it's not much slower than the XT variant (only about 15% difference) but in my local store, a Gigabyte 6800 Gaming OC goes for $1,250 whereas the XT variant goes for $1,600 (nearly 30% price difference for 15% performance increase). However, over a 6600 XT, it is significantly faster.

gotta be the i9, it just makes more sense to me, if Apple ever do put out another intel mac.. long shot i know but hey you never know, its surely going to be based on this architecture so should properly support P + E cores with proper sharing of workload for given task. also price wise the i9 over in the US compared to the UK is like i said two thirds of the retail price here, and around the same as what a i7 12700k costs here.. and.. well i have the money. i built this skylake rig back in 2015 when skylake literally just came out the week before i bought the board and cpu.. i got 7yrs out of it, and the only change i made was from a pair of NVidia GTX 970's to this AMD RX 5500 XT, and thats only because Apple in there infinate wisdom quit supporting the cards.

I will likely just pony up for a RX 6600 XT, as im just not prepared to go fork out 2x the price for a 6800XT for the tiny bit of gaming that i do, even then its stuff like Civilisation VI, Skyrim etc..only Elden Ring is interesting me at the minute. If i didnt have so much stuff on Steam, id just get a XBox Series X, it costs about the same as a 6600XT here in the UK.