Challenging Apple's New Mac Pro

[Emily Young]

Apple’s new Mac Pro will max out at 28 CPU cores, but that’s projected to cost as much as a midrange sports car. Nothing a bare metal Hackintosh can’t fix…

 

 

Buy a Gigabyte C621 AORUS XTREME
On Amazon: https://geni.us/K0UF
On Newegg: https://lmg.gg/8KVzS

 

Buy a Xeon W-3175X
On Amazon: https://geni.us/lnX1
On Newegg: https://lmg.gg/8KVzr

[pizapower]

@DrMacintosh will be jumping for joy when he sees it.

[Guest]

Would be nice to explain a little as why the Gigabyte boards are more compatible with MacOS. Really trivial but could allow people to pursue a more budget-orientated route. 

[JKCT]

Why is the Geekbench 4 - CPU score for windows nearly half of what the hackintosk scored?

[Foxlet]

7 hours ago, floofer said:

Would be nice to explain a little as why the Gigabyte boards are more compatible with MacOS. Really trivial but could allow people to pursue a more budget-orientated route. 

Compatibility with macOS isn't down to generic brands, but more so the particular on-board hardware that exists in a motherboard. Networking, sound, and on-board I/O are all under consideration when picking a model.

 

Outside of that, UEFI compatibility also matters, badly written firmwares will break the boot process from Clover -> XNU either due to memory fragmentation (KASLR fail) or driver issues.

[EuroTy]

I think ASRock can be added to the list. My ASRock B365M Pro4 has CFG-Lock option so you can unlock MSR registry without using any patches on the Clover bootloader manager side. In my case Geekbench scores in macOS are higher than in Windows.

[Foxlet]

Just now, EuroTy said:

I think ASRock can be added to the list. My ASRock B365M Pro4 has CFG-Lock option so you can unlock MSR registry without using any patches on the Clover bootloader manager side. In my case Geekbench scores in macOS are higher than in Windows.

MSRs haven't been an issue since XCPM debuted in the Mavericks kernel.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Foxlet said:

Compatibility with macOS isn't down to generic brands, but more so the particular on-board hardware that exists in a motherboard. Networking, sound, and on-board I/O are all under consideration when picking a model.

 

Outside of that, UEFI compatibility also matters, badly written firmwares will break the boot process from Clover -> XNU either due to memory fragmentation (KASLR fail) or other issues.

I meant for Anthony to explain to the viewers. Thats why I said it was trivial. 

[dan42c]

The Gigabyte C621 AORUS XTREME only claims to support "up to 192 GB of system memory", even though the Xeon W-3175X supports up to 512 GB. Linus mentioned they plan on doubling the 192 GB to 384 GB; is that going to be a problem? Could you go up to the 512 GB that the CPU supports with 8 X 64 GB on this MB?

[chroman]

This is amazing. I'm in the process of getting a W-3175X and I was considering to try installing macOS. I could not find any hardware compatibility in the hackintosh community out there. I'm now seriously considering the jump. Anthony seem to be the pioneer on this built.

Would be nice to get a brief technical overview on how to accomplish the macOS installation (without virtualization) using Gigabyte C621 AORUS XTREME motherboard.

@GabenJr Any tips on how to get that working? even if you can point me to a link or something would be highly appreciated.

 

If anyone here can share their knowledge on this topic with me, I would very much appreciate it.

 

Thanks in advance.

[SenKa]

Curious... On keynote day the website for the new Mac Pro said that the board and CPU of the top end model supported up to 2TB of RAM, but would only ship with 1.5. I remember thinking this was odd, but unfortunately I have no proof of this ever existing on the site.

 

Regardless, every video with Anthony is a good one, I look forward to seeing where this is going! Even though the video wasn't a guide, I have a feeling I am not the only one who would love to see a hackintosh guide by Anthony.

[DrMacintosh]

1 hour ago, pizapower said:

@DrMacintosh will be jumping for joy when he sees it.

Joy and anguish. I'm just grateful that I have a Mac at all. It saves me from myself whenever Windows 10 on my PC gives me a headache. 

[Hunter259]

Just saying right now that you are going to have absolutely MASSIVE issues fitting all the stuff you want an a G5/Mac Pro case. I has a 7PESH2 in mine and it only barely fits. I also have my PSU custom fit into the original PSU shroud. It might work slightly better in a Mac Pro given the changes that were made but if I remember right, only M-ATX boards fit well in them.

[OneOrangeTreeLLC]

Hey

I am new to Hackintosh PCs so if I buy this motherboard and CPU, is there a tutorial that I can use to put it together?

 

Could I dial boot (Windows/macOS)?

 

Is virtualization a better route?

[Luscious]

Mutilating that old Mac tower might not be the best way to go if you want to cram custom water cooling in with it. Your nostalgia bug is going to bite you in the ass.

 

My suggestion is get a TT WP100 case, paint it the same silver and maybe have Alex add handles to the top. At least with that case you don't have to take a dremel to it just to fit the motherboard and it can handle a 80mm thick 560 rad down below with fans in push pull. You're going to need that kind of cooling to keep that overclocked 28 core with two graphics cards in check for real world use, and not just a once-off test.

 

And if it does end up working why WOULDN'T you include a step by step tutorial on setting up the OS and drivers? A dual booting high performance Windows/Mac setup would certainly get the attention of folks who are invested in both ecosystems, but don't want two separate rigs on their desk or pay the crazy Apple tax for their handicapped hardware.

[DrMacintosh]

12 minutes ago, Luscious said:

Mutilating that old Mac tower might not be the best way to go if you want to cram custom water cooling in with it. Your nostalgia bug is going to bite you in the ass.

You actually don't have to go very far with modifications to maintain the exterior aesthetic and fit standard components. It's a little more difficult with the Mac Pro, but all you have to do is cut out the back for the motherboard IO. 

[SenKa]

5 hours ago, Hunter259 said:

Just saying right now that you are going to have absolutely MASSIVE issues fitting all the stuff you want an a G5/Mac Pro case. I has a 7PESH2 in mine and it only barely fits. I also have my PSU custom fit into the original PSU shroud. It might work slightly better in a Mac Pro given the changes that were made but if I remember right, only M-ATX boards fit well in them.

ATX boards will fit, such a massive EATX board as the one they're using though? No idea....

[Hunter259]

1 hour ago, SenKa said:

ATX boards will fit, such a massive EATX board as the one they're using though? No idea....

They fit better for sure but you get really close between the PSU and the motherboard unless you put it to the side. I'm interested in seeing how this goes.

[williamcll]

Maybe those PCIE4 can compensate for inifinity fabric.

[Pol de Lepel]

Isn't Apple using the Intel Xeon W-3275 or Intel Xeon W-3275M instead of the Intel Xeon W-3175X? https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/compare.html?productIds=189452,193754,193752

 

They should definitely try to get one!

[Bradamante]

Will be rough to fit all of this - esp. the massive mainbaord - into a Mac Pro cheese grater case. You will find examples here. My thread with pictures is in there, too. I went with red LEDs to produce a bit of a HAL 9000 look.

 

You have probably heard of The Laser Hive and their conversion kits (which I had a good experience using). Problem is that those are made for mATX and ATX boards, respectively. If you want to preserve the four hard drive caddies a mATX board is to my knowledge the only way. With an ATX board you lose the caddies but can keep the PSU. My guess is that with a oversized motherboard you will run into trouble here. The Laser Hive conversion kits also provide one 120mm hole, so this is where usually people put a 1x 120 mm AIO cooler. If you want to go beyond that, it will be tougher to preserve the original aesthetics, since you can't really attach to or screw into the cheese grater front and back.

 

The good news however is that initializing the Thunderbolt card under Windows is relatively pain-free, according to people on the tonymacx86 forums.

[iDontKnowAnything!]

I hope Anthony can do a tutorial on how he got everything working.