- Joined
- Jun 4, 2010
- Messages
- 1,155
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte Z97X-SLI
- CPU
- i7-4790K
- Graphics
- GTX 970
- Mobile Phone
wfj's Temjin TJ08B-E Build: MSI Z68MA-ED55 (B3)/i5 2500K/Radeon 6870
Components
Apple OS X Lion @ Mac Apps Store
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-lion/id444303913?mt=12
MSI Z68MA-ED55 (B3) LGA1155 Intel Z68 B3 DDR3 SATA3 and USB 3.0 A&GbE MATX Motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004ZWP1JY/
Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz LGA 1155 Quad Core Processor
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EBUXHQ/
Corsair Cooling H60 Hydro-Series All-in-One High-Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004MYFOE2/
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB (2x4 GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) 240-Pin DDR3 Memory Kit
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CRSM4I/
XFX Double D HD-687A-ZDFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150521
Corsair 60 GB Force Series 3 SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005RUBFAC/
Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Internal Desktop Hard Drive Bulk/OEM - WD1002FAEX
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036Q7MV0/
Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive (Black)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0057FRTPW/
Silverstone Tek Micro-ATX Mini-DTX, Mini-ITX Mid Tower Computer Case with Aluminum Front Panel and Steel Body TJ08B-E - Black
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DDCDH2/
SilverStone 600W Single +12V Rail ATX 12V v2.3 80 Plus Certified Active PFC Power Supply ST60F-ES (Black)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004MKNNH6/
Optional
ASUS (USB-N13) Wireless-N USB Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002UVNW5W/
Comments
I'm sure the first thing most people will ask is "Why aren't you using a Gigabyte motherboard"? First, I'm tired of reading about Gigabyte builds (even the one I recently posted viewtopic.php?f=54&t=53941). Second, truth be known, I picked up a few of these MSI boards as the result of a shell shocker special that Newegg had awhile back. They were bundled with a hard drive that I needed and the cost, after discount and rebate was about $35 per board. Not a bad deal at all! They had been sitting in my shop for awhile and I finally decided to try and use them in a hackintosh. As a side note, this is truly a great mATX motherboard. The build quality of the board is much better than Gigabyte IMO (very heavy duty heatsinks and heat pipe tubing for cooling), it has a UEFI BIOS, Realtek LAN & Audio, power and reset buttons right on the board for bench testing, and an OC Genie button which is especially nice if you're not an experienced overclocker. You'll understand what I mean about the build quality if you simply hold one of these boards in your hands…probably weighs more than a Gigabyte full sized ATX board. Motherboard specifications: http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Z68MA-ED55--B3-.html#/?div=Overview
After doing some Google research I basically found out that almost NOBODY was using this board for hackintosh. The only information I could find was from a Polish osx86 forum: http://forum.osx86.org.pl/topics25/msi-z68ma-ed55-i7-2600k-1068-vt5704.htm. If you can't read Polish, just plug this into Google Translate. After rummaging through a ton of posts I learned that the ACPI tables in the UEFI BIOS actually match up quite nicely with genuine Apple hardware, it requires no DSDT (you can still extract one and use it if it makes you happy), and is quite easy to setup. Also, with the release of MultiBeast 4.3.0, you don't have to worry about manually applying Speedstepper to activate P-States for your CPU. It is possible to get a modified BIOS for this board and eliminate the need for Speedstepper…if you end up following this build just PM me and I can put you in touch with the right guy. The only thing I can't get working on this system is waking up from sleep (big surprise). The guys at http://forum.osx86.org.pl claim that sleep does work fine with this system so I'm hoping I can get it figured out.
All of the other components in this build are pretty standard but I would like to comment on the case. If you're looking for a really nice mATX case, the Temjin TJ08B-E is worthy of consideration. It has a pretty small footprint, great cooling, and can fit large graphics cards. You would think with a case this size, a modular power supply would be required. Surprisingly, this is not so as there is plenty of room behind the motherboard tray for neatly stashing unused power leads. If you want to read a full review, go here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4533/silverstone-temjin-tj08-fat-case-in-a-little-coat. Unlike the reviewer, I didn't find the cable management to be all that difficult but it does require some pre planning because the space inside can get cramped.
Configuration
Let's first gather some tools:
OS X Lion Installation Guide - http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/10/unibeast-install-mac-os-x-lion-using.html
MultiBeast Lion Edition - viewforum.php?f=125
Chameleon Wizard - viewforum.php?f=278
Motherboard BIOS Settings:
The only things you need to change in the BIOS is set the SATA to AHCI and ensure HPET is enabled. I also disable the COM port and set the RAM to XMP for memory timings.
OS X Lion Installation:
Plug your Lion boot disc into a USB port and boot the system. No boot flags are needed FYI. After Lion is installed and you're at the desktop, download and install any Lion updates if you're not starting with 10.7.3. Next, create a folder named "Extra" in the root directory of your boot disk. When you're finished it should look like this:
We're going to use a combination of Chamaleon Wizard and MultiBeast to get everything working. The reason I didn't use MultiBeast exclusively is that it installs a lot of boot flags and patches that this system simply doesn't require. You have a little better control over the org.chameleon.boot.plist. As you'll see below, this motherboard doesn't need many items in the boot .plist. Run Chameleon Wizard, go to the org.chameleon.boot tab and set the following options:
The Timeout setting is optional so choose whatever value you wish. Click "Save As" and save the file to the "Extra" folder you just created. Now, click on the SMBIOS tab, click "Edit".
Choose iMac (12,2) from the drop down list.
Click "Save As" and save the file to the "Extra" folder. Close Chameleon Wizard.
NOTE: Make a backup copy of AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext before running Multibeast. Next, open MultiBeast and choose the following options (TRIM only required if you have an SSD):
and (Theme is optional)...
Once MultiBeast and Lnx2Mac's installation programs are finished, reboot and you're done. If Apple releases an OS X Lion update, you'll need to restore the un-modified AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext and rebuild your permissions and caches. Once the update is complete, simply re-run MultiBeast and apply the Speedstepper patch again (audio will probably be broken after the update anyway). I'll update this post if I get sleep working but for the time being I would simply turn it off. As a side note, it is pretty easy to get this system setup without using MultiBeast at all. I'm not going to list the specific steps as you might have more fun (and learn more) just figuring it out on your own.
Here is verification of the CPU's P-States using MSRDumper.kext:
If you want to try this for yourself, follow this link: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=258612. If you decide to overclock a K series CPU just realize that you'll only have 2 P-States, an idle and the overclocked multiplier you choose.
Benchmarks
This system is solid as a rock and I have yet to get a single KP or experience any flakiness other than sleep. If you try this build out I'm sure you'll be happy. Also, my guess is that other MSI motherboards with similar specifications should function equally so don't be afraid to experiment outside of the Gigabyte realm.
Shoutout to oswaldini and iStigPL from http://forum.osx86.org.pl. You guys were gracious and helpful! Special thanks to iStigPL for being the first to document how to get this motherboard working with OS X.
Pictures