Was previously running most of these components in an ITX system, housed inside a boutique SFF case. Loved the small footprint and how it looked, but I had the worst luck with many parts of the build with display port adapters crashing the system (I/O on the case faced downward), wonky GPU riser cable behavior, and the nail in the coffin: AIO pump failure leading to sudden CPU temp ramp ups and system shut down. Don't have as much time as I'd like to tinker so can't deal with that kind of thing anymore.


Components:
Motherboard: Asus X670E ProArt
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7650X
Cooler: Noctua U12A
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, device ID spoofed to RX 6900 XT
SSD: WD Black SN 850X 2TB for MacOS, Samsung 990 Pro 2TB for Windows 11
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GB DDR5 5600 MHz (EXPO)
Networking: Fenvi T919
SMBIOS: MacPro7,1
Case: Fractal Meshify 2 Compacy (gray)
The Build:
Like I mentioned before, this build was focused on simplicity and ease of use. I wanted to reuse as many components as possible, minimize mechanical points of failure, and also include some quality of life features. This means: no GPU riser cable or atypical I/O placement and no CPU cooler failure concerns. I know I'm leaving a tiny bit of performance on the table by switching back to air, but the U12A provides peace of mind, tall RAM compatibility, and it's no slouch either. Also, instead of digging around and trying to replace the onboard WiFi/Bluetooth as I have in the past, I decided to just go with the Fenvi T919 option. Lastly, and I know it's a small silly thing, but I've really come to enjoy using the DisplayPort input and Thunderbolt pass through. With this, a single TB cable connected to my CalDigit TB4 dock can be plugged into this machine, or my work laptop, or my wife's M1 air and all my peripherals and the display can be used with any of those computers. With all that out of the way, no major notes or complaints about the build. Standard ATX mobo, ATX case (compact, but way more space compared to SFF), ATX PSU. The biggest frustration was the amount of trouble with the latest BIOS and my two sticks of RAM! Nothing that clearing CMOS didn't solve but still frustrating.
For gpu, I had an older supported gpu on hand for the initial install process. Then, once MacOS was installed, I used hackintool to generate the entries for my PCI devices, obtaining the address for my gpu PCIe slot. I then added that address into my config.plist, setting 'device_id' = BF730000 and I set ‘model’ to report the 6950XT, but that’s mostly just for aesthetic reasons. If you're using this motherboard and gpu combo, you probably won't need to make any changes. Just be warned that this is in the attached config.plist under Device Properties.
Ethernet should work just fined with the included and enabled Kext, but be aware that I am using the 2.5G ethernet port, the 10G does not seem to work (fine by me).
What's Working:
The attached EFI is intended for sharing for public use. It is the OpenCore 0.9.3 Release version and suitable for Venutra 13.4. If using this resource as a starting point, please keep in mind that it was made for a 7950X system running with a 6950XT GPU. You will need to make the necessary changes if using a different cpu, gpu, etc.


Components:
Motherboard: Asus X670E ProArt
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7650X
Cooler: Noctua U12A
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, device ID spoofed to RX 6900 XT
SSD: WD Black SN 850X 2TB for MacOS, Samsung 990 Pro 2TB for Windows 11
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 64GB DDR5 5600 MHz (EXPO)
Networking: Fenvi T919
SMBIOS: MacPro7,1
Case: Fractal Meshify 2 Compacy (gray)
The Build:
Like I mentioned before, this build was focused on simplicity and ease of use. I wanted to reuse as many components as possible, minimize mechanical points of failure, and also include some quality of life features. This means: no GPU riser cable or atypical I/O placement and no CPU cooler failure concerns. I know I'm leaving a tiny bit of performance on the table by switching back to air, but the U12A provides peace of mind, tall RAM compatibility, and it's no slouch either. Also, instead of digging around and trying to replace the onboard WiFi/Bluetooth as I have in the past, I decided to just go with the Fenvi T919 option. Lastly, and I know it's a small silly thing, but I've really come to enjoy using the DisplayPort input and Thunderbolt pass through. With this, a single TB cable connected to my CalDigit TB4 dock can be plugged into this machine, or my work laptop, or my wife's M1 air and all my peripherals and the display can be used with any of those computers. With all that out of the way, no major notes or complaints about the build. Standard ATX mobo, ATX case (compact, but way more space compared to SFF), ATX PSU. The biggest frustration was the amount of trouble with the latest BIOS and my two sticks of RAM! Nothing that clearing CMOS didn't solve but still frustrating.
For gpu, I had an older supported gpu on hand for the initial install process. Then, once MacOS was installed, I used hackintool to generate the entries for my PCI devices, obtaining the address for my gpu PCIe slot. I then added that address into my config.plist, setting 'device_id' = BF730000 and I set ‘model’ to report the 6950XT, but that’s mostly just for aesthetic reasons. If you're using this motherboard and gpu combo, you probably won't need to make any changes. Just be warned that this is in the attached config.plist under Device Properties.
Ethernet should work just fined with the included and enabled Kext, but be aware that I am using the 2.5G ethernet port, the 10G does not seem to work (fine by me).
What's Working:
- WiFi/Bluetooth (disabled internal motherboard MediaTek Chip, using Fenvi T919)
- 2.5G Ethernet
- Thunderbolt- using Universal Audio interfaces Apollo x8 and Apollo twinX with Logic Pro, both daisy chained and connected via TB4 dock and no issues.
- Radeon 6950XT with full acceleration
- Using Radeon Sensor and AMD power gadget to monitor temps/performance
- All Apple services (iCloud, iTunes, TV+, App Store, etc.)
- USB map...
- USB map. Like I mentioned above, I am relying fully on the thunderbolt port to connect to a dock that has all of my peripherals and display. No USB port is populated. Creating my USB map in windows using USBToolBox was simply to get MacOS installed. That definitely does not mean most of the ports don't work, I still sometimes plug in external SSDs and USB drives and haven't encountered any issues, but I just want to give a full warning that you may encounter some unexpected behaviors that I simply don't have to deal with.
- Have not tried Continuity Camera or Universal Control.
The attached EFI is intended for sharing for public use. It is the OpenCore 0.9.3 Release version and suitable for Venutra 13.4. If using this resource as a starting point, please keep in mind that it was made for a 7950X system running with a 6950XT GPU. You will need to make the necessary changes if using a different cpu, gpu, etc.