Hackintosh Parts Guide – DONT BUY THREADRIPPER!
The number of people who’ve emailed me asking what parts they should buy for a hackintosh build, or honestly more that they’ve bought parts and then found out they aren’t compatible, so asked me for help. So, I thought it was about time to cover what parts you should, and more importantly, shouldn’t buy. But first, if you haven’t already, consider subscribing for more videos like this one every monday, wednesday and friday!
Now, I need to make it clear. This video isn’t a definitive guide. Videos can’t be updated, and I’m not planning on listing absolutely everything, so I highly, highly recommend you check out the dortania link in the description that is kept up to date. So with that said, lets jump in the with one of the two biggest items, the CPU.
CPU choice is a tough one, because not only do you have to consider what chip is best value for money, but also what’s most compatible with MacOS. Now, like i said this changes constantly, so this is only a rough idea. The headline though is, at least at the time of filming, DO NOT BUY 3RD GEN THREADRIPPER. Not only are they currently not supported, but the 64 core 3990X would have to have SMT disabled, as MacOS has a hard limit of 64 threads right now. If you want high core count Threadrippers, the 2990WX, while not quite as amazing, is your best option for now.
AMD CPUs in general do work – even 3rd gen Ryzen works fine as I’ve shown in a guide, but it’s technically not optimal. Since Apple doesn’t ship any Macs with AMD CPUs, support is basically “bodged in”, meaning instability is more likely, and there can be a number of other steps involved to get things working, like getting your system to sleep, or outright broken, like Docker, and some adobe products’ functionalities.
On the Intel side, you are generally safer, but it’s best to stick to chips that are similar to ones shipped in Macs, which means steering clear of LGA 2011-V3 chips so 5th and 6th gen HEDT chips are probably best to avoid, although newer ones on LGA 2066 and even the XEON W range on LGA 3647 socket should be fine.
What about GPUs? The simple answer is, use AMD. For the same reason as you might want to avoid AMD on the CPU front, since Apple hasn’t shipped a Mac with an NVIDIA GPU for years, and NVIDIA stopped releasing web drivers for OSX a few years ago, meaning you can only use up to 900 series cards, and only on High Sierra – not Mojave or Catalina. There are, however, some AMD brands you should avoid. Powercolor, HIS and VisionTek are all brands to steer very clear of for hackintoshing, and some XFX cards too, listed in the GPU buyers guide below too.
Some great options are the Asus STRIX RX 580 I used in the threadripper hackintosh build, along with a number of Sapphire, Gigabyte and MSI cards, including the brilliant RX 5700XT. Again, full list in the guide linked below.
Now for the less dangerous parts, starting with the motherboard. It seems that for Intel chips, the brand/chipset you use matters a little more than if you are on AMD, so for Intel, it seems best to avoid Gigabyte, MSI and ASRock boards, and annoyingly best to avoid Z390 and X299 too, although not the end of the world, it seems like Z370 – with a few exceptions – is the best choice for modern(ish) chips and stability.
As for storage, as long as you stay clear of the Samsung 970 EVO PLUS unless it’s had a firmware update, you are generally safe. NVME drives work, but you might need the NMVEFix kext if you have power consumption issues with yours.
CPU cooler wise, this might sound dumb, but coolers with USB cables to control them – think Corsair H100i Pro type stuff – aren’t the best as you will have to use a community made driver/tool to control it from within MacOS, so stick to analogue generally.
Networking, both wired and wireless is a bit of a minefield. Find out what controller your motherboard uses and get the right kext for it – with Aquantia NICs generally having support in MacOS natively, or most Intel NICs which the MausiEthernet or SmallTree i211 kexts can fix.
So, there you go. Quite a lot to digest, I know, but let me make it simple, don’t buy NVIDIA or 3rd gen Threadripper. The rest can – mostly – be fixed later. And read the damn guide before buying. Please.
Parts guide: https://dortania.github.io/Anti-Hackintosh-Buyers-Guide/
GPU Guide: https://dortania.github.io/GPU-Buyers-Guide/
