CPUs to avoid
While AMD CPUs can work but we advise against
them due to numerous issues still plaguing them as
they're not natively supported. They require quite a
bit more work to get setup but for those who like
would prefer AMD there is the AMD Vanilla Guide
.
Common issues with AMD:
Adobe products don't always work and there is
no fix for Lightroom at the moment
some fixes can be found here: Adobe Fixes
Do note these fixes just disable functionality,
they're not real fixes
Cubase, REAPER, and other audio software
crashes on launch
REAPER works if using the Clang build
There is no fix for Cubase at the moment
Waves plugins also cause crashes
Virtual Machine running off of AppleHV's
framework will not work(ie: Parallels 15)
VirtualBox works fine as it doesn't use
AppleHV
Docker broken
Docker toolbox is based off of VirtualBox,
many features are unavailable with this
Xcode's Apple Watch simulator is broken in
Catalina
Mojave works fine
Microphone input is not available with AppleALC
requiring VoodooHDA(quite a bit worse audio
quality and overall instability)
Audio drift issues on Ryzen APUs (G series
Chips)
USB DAC is only fix besides new CPU
Difficult to setup Sleep(or impossible on some
systems)
No CPU Power Management
Not all USB ports work on some boards
This is due to not being assigned in ACPI, you
need to manually add them in your DSDT
Delayed updates
3rd Gen Threadripper is not supported on bare-
metal
Latest BIOS and OpenCore now boot with
TRx40 CPUs
AMD CPUs:
AMD Ryzen 1000 Series
AMD Ryzen 2000 Series
AMD Ryzen 3000 Series
AMD Athlon
AMD ThreadRipper
AMD FX Series
With Intel, the thanks to most of the CPUs being
quite similar they have support when the CPU is
spoofed to a supported model. The only downside
is that the iGPU rarely work on
Atom/Pentium/Celeron these models meaning a
cheap iGPU Hackintosh is impossible with these
CPUs. Regarding X99/LGA 2011-V3 CPUs, there's
the issue that these CPUs were never shipped in a
real Mac so quite a few issues are present when
running macOS on these systems. Avoid if possible
Dual Socket User Note: Do note that the macOS
kernel only supports a maximum of 64 threads. So
for high-end setups please be aware. And for dual
socket users, you will need to use
AppleMCEReporterDisabler in macOS Catalina
Intel Atoms
Intel Celerons
Intel Pentiums
Intel X79/LGA 2011
Intel X99/LGA 2011-V3
Intel X299/LGA-2066
Recommendations
So our overall recommendation for CPUs:
Semi-modern consumer Intel CPUs
Ivy Bridge through Comet Lake are
properly supported in macOS
Unsupported CPUs
So with outright unsupported CPUs, you're split
into 2 camps: Either too old to run or too new that
patches aren't supported
Too old to run:
This mainly consists of CPUs that are missing the
SSE4.2 instruction set required for Mojave and
newer, you can get around this by replacing the
telemetry plugin but not ideal. See trashOS repo
for more info
Wolfdale (Intel Core2 Duo series)
E7xxx
E8xxx
Yorkfield (Intel Core2 Quad series)
E8xxx
E9xxx
Then there's the CPUs that are missing the SSE4.1
and older instruction sets, with these support is
stuck an OS X 10.11 El Capitan
