ASUS ROG Maximus X HERO Hackintosh Build Guide

I have macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 installed on my Z370 ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero hackintosh and I’m really liking it so far.

I needed something that could serve reliably as my main system and could be an absolute beast of a machine, without having to shell out $5000 for an iMac Pro. I also wanted WiFi + Bluetooth so that I could use my iPhone & iPad with macOS, which I was able to do with a this hackintosh compatible WLAN card The monitor featured in this build is the Dell Ultrawide U3417W

Fully Working

• Sound
• Ethernet
• Sound
• UHD 630 iGPU Acceleration
• UHD 630 iGPU Sleep/Wake
• AMD Graphics Card, Nvidia Graphics Card
• AMD/Nvidia Sleep/Wake
• Hardware Encoding, HEVC
• Ethernet + WiFi
• Bluetooth
• iMessage, iBooks, App Store
• Continuity: Handoff, Universal Clipboard, etc

The only thing I didn’t bother to look into is Thunderbolt as I don’t have any TB3 devices, other than that this is a fully working hackintosh.

The Package

CPU: Intel i7-8700k 6C/12T Cooler: NZXT Kraken 62

Of course for my main system that I was going to run everything on I wanted to go with the best of the best this Intel i7-8700k 12 thread CPU is an absolute beast I also didn’t think it was appropriate to pair a almost $300 motherboard with any other CPU. For my cooler I originally went with the NZXT Kraken 62, despite reading about all the people who have had their pump stop working on them. I bought it anyways because I wanted to go with the whole NZXT look to match my case. I didn’t think it would happen to me, but it did. The pump died on me as I was writing this so I can’t recommend it. If I had known about the Corsair H115i PRO that just came out in Jan. 2018, right after I bought the X62 I would have definitely gotten that instead for something newer and from the reviews seems less prone to failure.

ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero

The ASUS ROG Maximus X HERO makes a great motherboard for a hackintosh. I was very happy with my ASUS Z270i SFF hackintosh so I decided to go with ASUS again for my main build.

The ASUS ROG Maximus X Code is also another good ASUS motherboard to turn into a hackintosh and to which this guide can also be used for as it’s so similar to the HERO. I’ve would have gotten it myself, but when I at the time I bought the HERO the CODE wasn’t out yet. What I like about the HERO and especially the CODE is that they actually come with a decent amount of USB ports something that is severely lacking on most Z370 motherboards.

ASUS Motherboard Quirks

• Audio: ASUS uses there own version of ALC1220 called S1220 or S1200A, which can be gotten working quite easily with Lilu.kext + AppleALC.kext + CodecCommander.kext. I used layout-id: 1 for S1220 chipset found on this motherboard. However there is one quirk with the audio chipset and ASUS where if you sleep the hackintosh and try to wake it as it’s preparing to sleep, audio will be broken when the screen wakes. To fix this,  sleep it again, this time allowing it sleep fully before waking it. To prevent this issue from happening, don’t interrupt sleep with wake events until after sleep starts (i.e. fans stop spinning).
• Using darkwake=0 or darkwake=1 + disabling Power Nap can help prevent audio breaking after sleeping. Doing this and not interrupting sleep S1200 works reliably and hasn’t broken for me at all. It’s also recommended to use darkwake=0,1 because leaving darkwake as default on ASUS motherboards can cause restarts in sleep every now and then.
• FixShutdown is needed so that the ASUS hackintosh doesn’t start back up after shutting down.
• All USB ports and USB 3 speeds work, however if you plug a flash drive into either the ASMedia USB 3.1 Gen2 Red port or USB-C port and sleep the hackintosh the flash drives will throw an eject error on wake. Updating the BIOS didn’t solve this issue for me, like it did with my ASROCK build.
• Depending on which motherboard you use, out of the box there may be some sensors you can see in HWMonitor like voltages. Thankfully this isn’t an issue with the Hero X here’s what I can see in HWMonitor:
  

  

RAM: G.Skill TridentZ 16GB DRR4 3000Mhz

The TridentZ RGB RAM by G.skill is perfectly compatible with a hackintosh running macOS if anyones wondering. I’ve haven’t experienced any RAM related issues or kernel panics so I can definitely a good buy if you are looking to add some RGB.

For this build I only needed 16GB over 32GB or 64GB. I would have got more, but didn’t want to spend the extra $200-$600 for something that would have cost me half last year. Supposedly RAM prices are going to stay high until the second half of 2018 when Samsung ramps up production.

SSD: Samsung 960 EVO NVME M.2

Samsung NVME drives are natively supported in macOS High Sierra so if you want the fastest storage access on macOS, without a Mac you’ll want an NVME drive. I went with Samsung over the others because of it’s reliability.

Getting an NVME drive doesn’t really improve the boot speed over a normal SSD on a hackintosh the boot time is still around ~20 seconds for me, but it does of course does drastically improve the read write speed in macOS.

GPU: XFX GTS RX 580 8GB

For my RX 580 I choose the XFX GTS RX 580 8GB as they along side Sapphire and PowerColer were the least troublesome to get working macOS before Polaris graphics cards were given native support in Sierra 10.12.6, so I thought easier of them should work without any issue and that’s true with the XFX GTS RX 580

When using ASUS motherboards I’ve prefer AMD graphic cards because from my experience with Z170/Z270 theirs been times when sleep wouldn’t work properly with Nvidia. For example in my old ASUS Z170 build there were times when the hackintosh would wake immediately after sleeping or wake immediately and then finally go to sleep. I will say did briefly slide GTX 1050 Ti in this HERO build for a couple days and didn’t experience that same issue I did a year ago.

Luckily I was able to snag an RX 580 right before the crypto mining craze came back. If you want an AMD graphics card you can still get an RX 560 now and then sell it later for most of what you bought it for if you want to upgrade to something more powerful. I’ve also been using a Gigabyte RX 560 in this build and it works without any problems as I’ve been thinking of flipping the RX 580, while there still selling for $500 used.

PSU: EVGA G3 650W

When looking around for a new power supply with most people it usually comes down to EVGA vs Corsair. This time around I decided to go with the EVGA G3 since I already have a Corsair RMx PSU

The EVGA G3 has an ‘ECO’ switch on the back that will only turn the fan on under load and is very quiet even when the fan is spinning. This is the exact opposite of the EVGA EVGA G2 power supply I used to have, which made a repervetating/humming sound that I could hear over all the other fans in my case, likely due to it’s stamped steel design, unlike the G3. So if anyone’s power supply choice come down to the G3 vs G2, I would definitely recommend getting the quieter G3.

Case: NZXT S340 Elite

The NZXT S340 Elite has to be the best ATX case I’ve ever build in hands down. I can see now why it’s so popular by what your getting for $99. Whatever the white coating is on the case it’s really nice to touch and the tempered glass is so clear sometimes I can’t even tell that there’s a glass panel especially at night.

I was originally going to get the NZXT H700i, but then I saw the S340 Elite at only half the price for two cases that look almost identical I was leaning towards the S340 Elite, then I saw the reviews on the H700i side panel blowing up like this guy, which made the choice a lot easier.

Wifi + Bluetooth: Broadcom BCM94352Z / DW1560

There are two models of the BCM94352Z a Dell (DW1560) and a Lenovo (04X6020). I personally purchased the DW1560. Having a WiFi card will enabled in addition to WiFi, Bluetooth and all of the macOS Continuity features

The Hero motherboard comes in two variants one with AC and one without. I wanted WIFI and Bluetooth without having to add another PCIE card or dongle and that is the reason I got the AC version for the included antenna and WLAN slot so that I could replace the incompatible WiFi card included with the motherboard with the Broadcom BCM94352Z

ASUS WiFi Replacement

ASUS ROG Maximus HERO X Hackintosh Build Guide

I made a guide can be used for pretty much any ASUS Z370 motherboard. You can find instructions by heading over to the forums where it’s posted:

→ ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero Z370 Hackintosh Guide ←

Link: https://hackintosher.com/forums/thread/success-guide-asus-rog-maximus-x-hero-z370-hackintosh-build.15/