Napoleon and his staff reviewing the mounted chasseurs of the Imperial Guard before the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.

Bonjour !

Another success for me : dead-stable MacOS Ventura 13.6.7 / Windows 23H2 Hackintosh using only ProperTree. Indeed, I used in the past the sh*tty OCAT app to edit my plist and EFI but it's not optimal at all. It can make changes without you noticing it and saves them. LEARN TO USE PROPERTREE. I did some Hackintoshes in the past with OCAT but I never achieved to make them fully stable for obvious reasons. As the title states, I love Hackintosh and SFF (Small Form Factor) computers. More explanations below.

The glorious parts

• Ryzen 5 7500F, Asrock B650i Lightning WiFi (Latest BIOS 3.01), AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT reference model, Kingston FURY BEAST 16Gb 4800MHz CL38 DDR5, Crucial P3 Plus 1Tb (Windows), Samsung 970 Evo Plus (250Gb), Scythe Big Shuriken 3, SSUPD Meshlicious & Corsair SF750 80+ Platinum (🐐).

• The original Mediatek Wifi/BT card was swapped for an Intel AX210 because it was crap, unreliable and unsupported under MacOS. For MacOS, I'm using a MQUPIN Fenvi T919 "native" Apple card to have a native support.

• Realtek RTL8125 Ethernet controller.

• Realtek ALC897 Audio controller, Asus XG17AHPE Audio ouput and Apple USB-C to Jack dongle.

Some devices

• iPhone 13 Pro (iOS 18 last Beta), Apple Magic Keyboard, Logitech G305, Akko 3087 Silent, MacBook Air M1 13", Asus XG17AHPE display, Sennheiser HD 450BT, Moondrop CHU II IEM and tons of USB sticks.

OpenCore 1.0.0

ACPI

• I used a prebuilt SSDT-CPUR and I made the two others using CorpNewt tool : SSDTime.

SSDTs time.

Kexts

• I used the last releases of each kext. Please use OC snapshot of ProperTree to put them in the correct order.

Kexts.

What's working ?

• Pretty much everything. Wifi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, Airdrop, iServices (iCloud, iMessage, etc.), GPU acceleration (OpenCL, Metal 3), Audio (alcid=11 for me), Wake-Up, Sleep ...

• You need to make your own MMIO Whitelist using OpenCore Debug and CorpNewt's MmioDevirt tool. -> DevirtualizeMMIO quirk needs to be enabled.

• SecureBootModel is enabled with the value "j160" (corresponding to my SMBIOS) and SIP too with default value.

• Every USB ports I needed on the motherboard : I used USBToolBox. It creates a custom UTBMap.kext. It needs USBToolBox.kext.

• I'm using the GoldenGateExt custom theme for OpenCore. It looks better than the default GoldenGate theme.

What's not working ?

• Continuity with FaceTime, ApplePay, ...

• Discord crashes when joining voice calls or voice chanels. it can work fine when deleting Krisp in the library folder or patching it with AMDFriend but it's boring 'cause I'll have to do that every Discord updates... Some apps are impacted too. More details on the web. For now, I'm using the Discord web.

Specific things

The RX 6900 XT itself

• The RX 6900 XT (XTX chip) is natively supported under MacOS. I managed to make it work great in Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia Beta 1 and Beta 3. It only requires WhateverGreen.kext and agdpmod=pikera in boot-args. You can also use RX 6950 XT and 6900 XT XTXH chip variants but you will have to spoof their ID. By default, the card uses zero RPM mode that is nice under Windows but makes the card hotter in MacOS. So thanks to DeviceProperties, I disabled zero RPM fan mode and also added a less-coilwhine fix.

• For Windows, I undervolted it to gain better thermals and less noise : it turned out great. With 1100mv, 2300MHz max frequency and a pretty quiet fan curve, I manage to get only 60C, 160w power consumption in Ghost of Tsushima (1080P Very high, no FSR and no Frame Gen). Before at stock, the card was hot, noisy : 75C, 240w power consumption... So undervolting is always a good idea especially with reference models. War Thunder is also much more stable now. I only lose around 1/2% performance... negligeable while the gain is not !

• Every video outputs work fine, even the USB-C output that I use with my portable gaming monitor. Audio works fine too.

• AMD Drivers : as always, bad under Windows. Resizable-bar needed to be disabled in BIOS and set to -1 in the config.plist because it prevented booting Windows from OC picker... The AMD Drivers were the source of the issue. I'm using the latest AMD Adrenalin driver.

Not the best pic of this damn sexy madame...

Dual PCie devices on a single PCie x16 slot ?

• Mini-ITX boards only have a single PCie x16 slot for PCie devices, mainly GPUs. But with a PCie bifurcation riser, you can split this slot in two : x8/x8. So the first x8 lanes are used for the Fenvi T919 and the second ones, for the RX 6900 XT. The card doesn't lose performances from that (1%...). I use the C-Payne riser. Not cheap but normal for a niche product. You can find PCie 4.0 variants from chinese brands in Amazon or AliExpress. I used this specific riser with my first ever Hackintosh : a RTX 3080 alongside a RX 550 Lexa core for MacOS Ventura !

A very niche product, but useful ! The PCB is powered by a 4pin CPU connector.

SFF enjoyer

• Since the first time I met hardware components, I'm fascinating by compact computers. When I was younger, I was wondering if it was possible to stick a full-size GPU in a portable case. The dream was already existing in the form of the Mini-ITX form factor, more precisely, the SFF world. Since, I had tons of ITX cases. I'm actually running the Meshlicious from SSUPD. Pics will be added later. I need to clean it.

• So with my portable gaming setup, I can do everything I want, everywhere. I chose this form factor because I travel a lot ! I'm a student...

Sonoma 14.5 and Sequoia Beta 3 ?

• I use the original EFI of this config under both of theses MacOS versions without any noticeable issues but I found MacOS Ventura to be more stable : it supports natively the Fenvi T919 without patching it with OCLP. Indeed, I had to disable SIP and SecureBootModel, things that I didnt' want in my Hack'.

Future improvements

• Want to upgrade my Ryzen 5 to a Ryzen 7 7800X3D. I will receive on wednesday a 32Gb DDR5 kit to replace my single 16Gb stick : Crucial Pro 6000MHz CL36 DDR5. I will also replace the actual CPU cooler for a low-profile Thermalright. Maybe an AXP90.

• A good PBO optimization for my CPU.

• The biggest upgrade will be an investment in a LG C2 42" Oled TV to play Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, ... in 4K. Buying it after my summer job.

• Buying Airpods Max (and I'll see if it works fine with Hackintoshes) and an Apple Magic Trackpad.

"Could you share your EFI ?"

Honnestly, no. But I can provide you help here in the comments or in pm. Hackintosh is all about learning, troubleshooting, ... You can ask for help in the AMD OSX Discord server (great people) or in the Intel Discord Server. MacOS86.it is also a great place.

Feel free to ask me any questions that come in your minds ! I'm open and kind (it depends on the mood). I love helping people with SFF hardware...

Vive l'Empereur (French touch) ! 🇫🇷🦅