Video Editing Machine: Z390 + Nvidia Pascal GPU + DELL 5K UP2715K on High Sierra 10.13.6 (17G65)

Build

This build is mainly for medium load video editing (6K RED, 4K H.265 in Adobe Premiere) and some light coding etc.

  • Intel Coffee Lake i9-9900K (Best consumer grade CPU as Ryzen builds' poor performance pairing with nVIDIA gPU)
  • AsRock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac (2 M.2, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1 gen2 for great expandability)
  • EVGA GTX 1070 8GB SC (2X performance with RED codec than AMD Vega, similar performance in Premiere vs 1080Ti)
  • Broadcom BCM94352Z 802.11ac BT NGFF Lenovo OEM (swapped out the onboard WiFI module)
  • Crucial 16GB x2 DDR4 3200Mhz (The only DDR4 high frequency module without heatsink / RGB etc I can find)
  • Samsung 870 EVO 1TB Nvme
  • DELL 5K UP2715K through 2 Displayports on GTX 1070
  • ViewSonic VP2785-4K through HDMI on GTX 1070

What's working?

  • GTX 1070 with CUDA acceleration
  • Headliness iGPU with QuickSync hardware acceleration
  • ALL USB ports
  • Sleep / Wakeup on both monitors
  • APFS file system
  • Shutdown / Restart
  • 5K Resolution on UP2715K via 2 displayports , no need to power cycle on anything
  • Second Monitor on HDMI
  • Onboard Audio ; HDMI Audio through displayports => speaker on monitor
  • CPU temp and fan monitoring via Monit gadget

What's not working?

  • GPU temp monitoring ( can work with FakeSMC but doesn't work with VirtualSMC)
  • Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C ( hasn't looked into it yet)
  • Sometimes the audio is enabled but no sound, need to mute then unmute, should be problem of UP2715K

Installation

First time I did hackintosh I used hackintosher's guide and EFI, and it gave me a lot of headache. So I decided to redo everything from scratch using Vanilla build.

  1. I downloaded Mac installer from hackintosher's guide simply because Apple do not allow me to download High Sierra anymore on Mojave equipped Macbooks.
  2. Simply followed this guide: https://hackintosh.gitbook.io/-r-hackintosh-vanilla-desktop-guide/ to create the USB installer. Added FakePCIID.kext and FakePCIID_XHCIMux.kext , may not be neccessary though.
  3. Used Atom to edit the config.plist as I use it for work as well and I like its formatting etc. I uses iMac 18,3 as I plan to keep iGPU headless.
  4. Boot from USB driver, formatted the SSD and install with only the 4K monitor attached to prevent any unexpected issues.
  5. First reboot, select install Mac OS from clover and continue with the install.
  6. First time log in, load clover configurator, mount EFI, and copy the EFI folder from USB drive to EFI on the SSD.

nVIDIA Graphics

Depsite I understand why this board hate hackintosher so much , this guide seems to be comprehensive and useful, especially when I accidentally get black screen due to not enabling SIP. https://hackintosher.com/guides/properly-install-nvidia-drivers-high-sierra-10-13/

  1. Check nVIDIAWeb in System Parameters in config.plist
  2. Enable SIP (CsrActivateConfig = 0x00)
  3. Add EmuVariableUefi-64.efi (not sure if actually necessary)
  4. Install WebDriver: https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/136062/en-us (for 17G65)
  5. Reboot, adjust BIOS settings if apply
  6. Install CUDA driver: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/cuda/macosx-cuda-418-105-driver/
  7. Reboot, Disable SIP (CsrActivateConfig = 0x67)

WiFi / Bluetooth

  1. WiFi and bluetooth works right away with the kexts mentioned here: https://hackintosh.gitbook.io/-r-hackintosh-vanilla-desktop-guide/gathering-kexts#wifi-and-bluetooth
  2. While I do lean towards installing all my kexts into /Library/Extensions and delete everything in EFI/kexts/others, I need one extra step of replacing BrcmFirmwareData.kext with BrcmFirmwareRepo.kext, otherwise bluetooth won't work.

DELL UP2715K 5K Display

  1. Plug in the Displayport cables, connector with blue indicator goes the first displayport of the graphics card, the other goes to the second. I find it does matter.
  2. Configure the Displays settings for the main display and resolution etc, I use the 4K monitor as the main display.
  3. Add boot flags: nvda_drv=1 ; nv_spanmodepolicy=1 ; agdpmod=pikera (this replaced the ngfxpatch flag in whatevergreen)
  4. Reboot and display should initiate 5K resolution without any power cycle etc.

iGPU

Will continue researching on enabling TB3, see you next time.

submitted by /u/smilenceyu
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