First Hackintosh: GA Z77MX-D3H TH / i5 3570K / GTX 660Ti

Hi there! First of all, thanks for all the great effort being put into this site! I don't think I would have ever dared to try my hands at a Hackintosh without it.

I am about to get started on my first Hackintosh build, and just wanted to hear if there are any obvious problems with this build. I'll be using it mainly for image processing (Lightroom 4 / Photoshop CS6), some design work (Illustrator/InDesign CS6) and gaming (Starcraft 2 ++). My wishlist for the features include:

• Small box
• Thunderbolt
• Relatively "high performance"
• Max $1700 (approximately, I'm from Norway, so the prices are steep here...)

Components

• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA Z77MX-D3H TH (like this one, only with Thunderbolt)
• CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K
• GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660Ti 2GB PhysX
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600MHz CL9 (should I get the "low profile" for the mATX form-factor?)
• HDD 1: Intel SSD 330 Series 120GB
• HDD 2: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
• Optical: Sony OptiArc DVD Writer
• PSU: Corsair CX V2 600W
• Case: Fractal Design Define Mini (or possibly the In Win Dragon Slayer, but it's darn ugly...)

This ends up at about $1650. I might expand in the future with an additional SSD for Windows, and more HDDs. I know the VIA audio chip on the MB is not the first choice, but from what I have read on this forum, it seems to work fine with the MultiBeast VoodooHDA option.

Have I missed anything, or are there other obviously better (or equal and cheaper?) alternatives to the components?
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

seems really good for the one you want to go.
Only thee ssd will give a very big boost on your system.
I dont know if you experience problems with the 680 but as i m far from hackintosh for quite some time now , dont keep it in mind.
Some more experienced users will give you more proper answers.
But as a combination is really good.
Good luck....

tjodolv said:

• Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600MHz CL9 (should I get the "low profile" for the mATX form-factor?)

Click to expand...

Low profile ram is usually needed if using a large cpu cooler with low clearance that sticks out over the ram slots. Not a problem is you are using the stock fan that came with the cpu.

Thanks! I figured I probably won't do any overclocking, so I might just go for the plain i5 3570 to save some more, which will get me below $1600 if I also go for the very good (but fairly ugly) In Win Dragon Slayer case. Beyond that, I think I'm all set

I think you have a great build!
Did you start to build it?

I want the same motherboard but I'm worried about what I want to do with it. I want to use my actual iMac as a display for my future hackintosh.

Hello! I am writing this from my brand new Hackintosh. It basically works right now, and I am currently going through the MultiBeast installation, to get everything working as intended. I will make another post with the completed build when I have everything working.

Nice!
I've bought all my elements! Can't wait!
Can't wait your next post too!

Hello again,

I'm still waiting for my elements.

What DSDT did you use?

Thanks.

Just looked at your components list and noticed that its practically exactly the same as mine! good choice!
Im glad to hear you're up and running, makes me feel more confident about my build!
Looking forward to hearing an update on this!

Hello, Im writing to ask if you got the thunderbolt to work with a screen (or even hdmi with a mini displayport adapter)
As ive got allmost the same setup but i cannot run my apple cinema display trough the mainboard (using the gtx670 as graphic accelerator)

Everything works from the graphic card alone (hdmi out on gfx) and everything works running only HD4000 and thunderbolt out on mainboard..