EliteMacx86's Budget Coffee Lake Build: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 3 - i3 8100 - UHD 630 - M.2 SSD

[EliteMacx86]

EliteMacx86's Budget Coffee Lake Build: GIGABYTE - i3 8100 - UHD 630


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Components

GIGABYTE Z370 AORUS Gaming 3 LGA 1151 Motherboard with HDMI and USB Type-C
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077JQNQKM/

Intel Core i3-8100 8th Gen Coffee Lake Desktop Processor 6MB Cache 3.60 GHz
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0759FTRZL/

Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2400MHz 8GB RAM (1x8GB) (CMK8GX4M1A2400C14)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UVN2C8O/

Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E250BW)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYFKX41/

Seagate 1 TB Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 64MB Cache 3.5 inch Desktop Hard Drive (ST1000DM010)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LNJBA2I/


Already Owned

Corsair Obsidian 750D Full-Tower Case - Airflow Edition (CC-9011078-WW)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YJJBFIO/

LG 22" Full HD IPS Monitor with VGA, HDMI, and DVI (LG 22MP58VQ-P)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AK9SQ38/

EVGA 600 BQ, 80+ BRONZE 600W Power Supply 110-BQ-0600-K1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MTJTO2O/

Dell KM636 Wireless Keyboard & Mouse Combo
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FM8H22S/


Comments

The Build
As the new Coffee Lake CPUs are out, so i decided to build a Coffee Lake system. The idea of the build is budget build with maximum hardware features. The idea of this build is compact, paired with an i3 8100 running @ 3.6GHz stock speed, having a Intel UHD Graphics 630 which is inbuilt/integrated graphics, good power supply with 600W, normal power consumption for normal users.

First i thought to get GIGABYTE Z370 HD3P but the motherboard was not having the supposed feature so i finally decided to go for Aorus Gaming 3. It's a ATX motherboard offering 8th Gen. Coffee Lake CPUs. The motherboard offers built-in HDMI port. A USB Type-C port at the rear and as well as for the front panel, Gaming style motherboard with a heavy Audio Codec (Realtek ALC1220), Dual M.2 SSD support for faster data transfer rate and RGB to match your PC Case style. Along with all these, the motherboard supports various features. The reason to go for GIGABYTE motherboard is because GIGABYTE motherboards are the best selling motherboard and it supports a lot of unique features. One of them is Dual BIOS (UEFI).

As this is a budget build, so i thought the best CPU for the normal work would be no other than Intel Core i3-8100 which is a Coffee Lake CPU, 14nm, running @ 3.6GHz stock speed and is quite cheap and easy available.

Summary

What's works?

• Audio ✔
• Graphics ✔
• Ethernet ✔
• HDMI ✔
• Power Management ✔
• iMessage ✔
• FaceTime ✔
• iCloud ✔
• USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 and USB Type-C Ports ✔

Not working

The only thing that doesn't works is the Sleep/Wake function.

Bootable Media Creation
As High Sierra is out, so i would be installing High Sierra. To create a Bootable media for High Sierra, follow the guide here. However if you wish to install Sierra, you can follow the guide here.

UEFI Settings
To access your BIOS/UEFI, press and hold Delete key on your Keyboard and then set the following.

• Set Optimized Defaults.
• Set X.M.P. Memory Profile to Profile 1.
• Set Fast Boot to Disabled.
• Set Windows 8/10 Features to Other OS.
• Set Initial Display Output to IGFX.
• Set Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT) to Disabled.
• Set Network Stack to Disabled.
• Set XHCI Hand-Off to Enabled.
• Set SATA Mode to AHCI.
• Set VT-d option to Disabled.
• Set Internal Graphics to Auto.
• Save & Exit Setup.

Installation
The installation step is simple. For this build, i'm installing High Sierra. Follow the guide here for the installation. For all the builds using High Sierra, i recommend to use APFS File System. APFS works quite fast and is a new file system from Apple. Make sure you follow the each step very carefully and don't mess with the installation.

After installation, continue with the basic options for the Country selection, Keyboard setup, network, Privacy Settings and Account creation.

Post Installation
Now, configuring the Post Installation. Before you start fixing the hardware and other things, make sure you follow the main installation guide and install Clover Bootloader on your system drive. After installing the bootloader, follow the steps below.

Graphics
This build is having a integrated GPU (Intel UHD Graphics 630). The Graphics doesn't works out of the box and has several glitch and artifacts. In order to activate the Graphics, correct settings must be applied. Refer the guide for fixing Intel UHD Graphics 630 here.

Network
The motherboard uses Atheros Killer E2500 Ethernet Chipset. All you need to do is to install the kext and reboot the system in order to activate Ethernet. The downloads for Atheros Ethernet is available in the downloads section.

The kext can be found in Release folder and installed using either Terminal or kext Utility. After installing the kext, make sure to restart your PC to activate the Ethernet.

Audio
The motherboard uses a Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec. The codec delivers a high Output Audio quality with Smart Headphone Amp.
There are several ways to activate audio. I'm using Apple ALC to enable audio on this build. If you want, you can use VoodooHDA but i don't recommend to use VoodooHDA as the quality losses too much. If you plan to use AppleALC, follow the guide here. VoodooHDA downloads are available in the downloads section.

Notes :

• Use layout id=11 only. If you use any other layout, there maybe distortion with the Speakers or the Headphones.
• AppleALC must be v.1.2.1 or greater.
• Lilu must be v.1.2.1 or greater.

USB Ports
There are two USB Chipset used by this motherboard. The default Chipset from Intel and the ASMedia for USB Type-C and Type-A. The ports works OOTB. All the USB ports are activated by default.

Note :

• For latest release of High Sierra, a new USB port limit patch has been introduced. Follow the guide below to implement that.

Add USB port limit patch
Mount your EFI Partition
Open your config.plist file using Clover Configurator
Navigate to kernel and kext patches tab and add the following patch in your config.plist.

Name: com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBXHCI
Find* [HEX]: 837D880F 0F83A704 0000
Replace* [HEX]: 837D880F 90909090 9090
Comment: USB 10.13.6 by PMHeart
MatchOS: 10.13.6

Save your config.plist file

Benchmarks
Here are the benchmark from Geekbench and Cinebench. The scores are pretty good.