Sagar Hozkatua: Gigabyte Z390 Designare + i7-9700F + 32GB + Radeon RX Vega 56

[DeBilbao]

Thanks to the great Hackintosh community, my project Sagar Hozkatua (bitten apple in euskera, my mother language) is almost completed.

Everything is working perfectly under macOS Catalina and macOS Big Sur using the iMacPro1,1 profile, emulating an iMac Pro with this hardware:

• Gigabyte Z390 Designare
• Intel i7-9700F @4,7GHz cooled by a Noctua NH-U12S
• Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
• 32GB (2x16) G-Skill Ripjaws V Red DDR4 3000 CL15
• WD Black SN750 NVMe 500GB
• Fenvi T-919 Bluetooth + Wi-Fi
• Topping D10 USB DAC
• Elgato EyeTVHybrid with 64-bit EyeTV 4.0 software from Geniatech
• BenQDesignVuePD2700U 4K UHD IPS 27" monitor connected via DisplayPort to the Radeon RX Vega 56 (HDMI hasn't worked well)
  

My latests benchmarks are very good. Single-Core results are inline with the latest 10th Gen. 10core iMac and Multi-Core equals a genuine iMacPro with a 8-core Xeon processor.

I haven't used the iMac19,1 profile because I'm using an i7-9700F that doesn't have an internal GPU and macOS expects that a 27" iMac to have one, so I moved to the iMac Pro profile iMacPro1,1 as it works with Xeon processors that do not have internal GPU.

I've also successfully tested the MacPro7,1 profile, but I'm getting a weird error about reaching maximum memory, as my modules aren't ECC and macOS expects ECC memory in the 2019 Mac Pro. I've tried the MacProMemoryNotificationDisabler kext but it doesn't work in my Catalina setup and I think that it doesn't work with macOS Big Sur that is my final goal as it's going to be released soon.

This iMacPro1,1 combination provides full support to all my hardware, including full video acceleration with H264 and HEVC, and it also supports DRM in Safari so I can get 1920x1080 stream from Netflix.

I've setup a second partition to test macOS Big Sur and today I've installed the latest 10th beta, fresh from Apple and working almost flawlessly.

The only thing I'm missing is hardware acceleration for HEVC. I'm getting it for H264 but not for HEVC and any help will be much appreciated.

I've decided to go with OpenCore as my bootloader and my EFI folder uses the latest 0.6.2 released version, along with the latest versions of the kexts, drivers and the Resources folder to get a beautiful 4K graphical UI when booting.

This is my actual EFI folder

I share also my complete config.plist file (removed my machine specific data) that I always edit with the ProperTree program recommended by the OpenCore team, as other assistants could corrupt the file.

All the hardware is installed in a beautiful and dead silent Fractal Design Define R6 USB-C case, powered by a Seasonic Focus+ GX-550W 80 Plus Gold modular power supply. 

Only the 2 USB 3.0 ports in the top of the case are working, as the Fenvi T-919 needs the USB Header that powers the two other USB 2.0 ports. This case has a very useful USB-C port.

The front of the case is beautifully crafted, polished and with an understated design, as I'm not a fan of light & colour. 

Inside you have a lot of space available. Air flows easily and I'm getting 37º when working with no huge load thanks to the efficiency of the Noctua NH-U12S cooler. The Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX Vega 56 is big and it occupies 2,5 slots, but the case is big enough.

Here's a detail of the Fence T-919 Bluetooth + Wi-Fi 802.11ac PCI card, connected to both the PCI-Express bus and the USB header labelled F_USB

I like this new designs that separate the front and the back and help organising the usual cable mess. I haven't installed 3 more WD Red hard drives that are still in my old computer.

You can easily hold six 3,5" drives and two 2,5" drives on the bottom right, but you will need to add a PCI-Express SATA card, as you loose three of the six SATA ports of the motherboard if you use the two M.2 NMVe PCI-Express slots. 

The back sports a lot of connections, more than a real iMac Pro. 

My BenQ PD2700 4K UHD 27" monitor is finally connected to the Radeon RX Vega 56 with a DisplayPort cable. I tried the HDMI cable but it causes some problems not waking up the monitor from sleep. After changing it to DisplayPort, it worked perfectly.

I'm using the latest F9i beta BIOS from TweakTown forums that let me change the CFG-Lock. 

I will add the BIOS settings to this post later on.

I've tried a lot of software in macOS Catalina and I haven't found an issue. It works better than my MacBook Pro that have had many issues with macOS Catalina.

I'm waiting for the final version of macOS Big Sur to finish my project.

Until then, I'm ready to help to anyone with a similar setup.

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[MaLd0n]

very nice

[DeBilbao]

40 minutes ago, MaLd0n said:

very nice

 

Thanks Mald0n.

By te way, I've noticed that the macOS Big Sur beta version that I installed was the 9th and not the 10th.

I think Beta 10 install has some big changes inside and it took some more time than normal to complete the process also in my geniune MacBook Pro.

To get it installed in my iMac Pro "Sagar Hozkatua", it has required to change config.plist Misc > Security > SecureBootModel from Default to Disabled, as the Software Updates preferences pane required the full installer to be downloaded, and after downloading it, macOS Big Sur Beta 9 was installed and not the 10.

After installing macOS Beta 10, HEVC acceleration has come to life, so maybe it was just a bug of macOS Big Sur Beta 9.

 

[elRey]

Hi DeBilbao,

are you willing to upload you efi folder? i will try to use opencore.

Thanx in advance

[elRey]

i don't get it, maybe i'm to stupid

 

[MaLd0n]

check here

https://www.olarila.com/topic/5676-folders-for-all-chipsets-clover-and-opencore/