First Hackintosh - Advise/Opinion/Questions ?

[kvdm]

Hello All,

I planning on building my first hackintosh with the following components:

MB : Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H
CPU : Intel Core i7-4771 3.5Ghz
CPU Cooler : Stock Intel Cooler or Corsair Hydro H60
GPU : onboard GPU HD 4600 or ASUS GeForce GTX660-DC2OCPH-2GD5
SSD : Samsung 840 EVO 120GB (x2 for dual boot Windows 8.1)
HD : WD Green 2TB + 2 x 1TB Samsung HD
Case : Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black Solid
Memory : 32GB Corsair Vengeance (4 x 8GB) CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10
PSU : Corsair CS750M
Bluray Writer : LG Internal Bluray Writer 16x, SATA (BH16NS40.AUAU10B)

My questions:
- will this run OS X Mavericks (without DSDT) using Unibeast/multibeast or OS X Mountain Lion ?
- if I do not use GTX660 (do not install it) but only iGPU HD 4600, will this work for HDMI, DVI and DP connection ? (a lot of mixed messages in different forums on this)
- if I disable iGPU HD 4600 and only use the GTX660, will both DVI and HDMI and DP work ?
- will audio (from the motherboard) work out of the box (Multibeast) ?
- will Bluray Writer work out of the box ?
- will both lan ports work ?
- will USB 3.0 work on all ports ?
- is hardware raid 1 supported in OS X Mavericks using the Z87 SATA controller on the MB ?

Any advice/feedback is welcome as I am a newbie on building a hackintosh machine.

Regards,
Kris

 

[nobodynose]

Hello All,

I planning on building my first hackintosh with the following components:

MB : Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H
CPU : Intel Core i7-4771 3.5Ghz
CPU Cooler : Stock Intel Cooler or Corsair Hydro H60
GPU : onboard GPU HD 4600 or ASUS GeForce GTX660-DC2OCPH-2GD5
SSD : Samsung 840 EVO 120GB (x2 for dual boot Windows 8.1)
HD : WD Green 2TB + 2 x 1TB Samsung HD
Case : Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black Solid
Memory : 32GB Corsair Vengeance (4 x 8GB) CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10
PSU : Corsair CS750M
Bluray Writer : LG Internal Bluray Writer 16x, SATA (BH16NS40.AUAU10B)

My questions:
- will this run OS X Mavericks (without DSDT) using Unibeast/multibeast or OS X Mountain Lion ?

Yes, it will run either version of Mac OS X without a DSDT.

- if I do not use GTX660 (do not install it) but only iGPU HD 4600, will this work for HDMI, DVI and DP connection ? (a lot of mixed messages in different forums on this)
- if I disable iGPU HD 4600 and only use the GTX660, will both DVI and HDMI and DP work ?

I will defer these two questions to someone more knowledgeable about graphics cards.

- will audio (from the motherboard) work out of the box (Multibeast) ?

Yes, the onboard Realtek ALC898 codec will work with the AppleHDA driver from Multibeast.

- will Bluray Writer work out of the box ?

Yes and no. OS X doesn't natively support Blu-ray - you always need 3rd party software. See https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2881 for more info.

- will both lan ports work ?

Yes.

- will USB 3.0 work on all ports ?

Yes, as far as I know.

- is hardware raid 1 supported in OS X Mavericks using the Z87 SATA controller on the MB ?

No. No drivers exist for the motherboard's Intel RAID.

 

[kvdm]

@nobodynose, thx for your replies.

I don't know if you know anything about freezes with this combination of components.
I've read a lot of posts heaving the Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H as MB that experience freezes on their system randomly, in OS X Mavericks, OS X Mountain Lion and even Windows 7 and Windows 8.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/115637-z87x-random-freezes-please-help.html
http://www.tonymacx86.com/mavericks-desktop-support/122451-mavericks-ga-z87x-ud5h-freezing.html
http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-help/110874-i7-4770k-z87x-u5dh-build-freezing.html

Some say it is due to the corsair memory, others point to the MB from Gigabyte.
Another issue, I experienced in the past on my HP laptop Hackintosh was that not all cores of my CPU were used in OS X. I hope this problem is not present with the Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H and the intel Core i7-4771 ?

Of course you only read about the once that have problems, maybe the majority do not have problems and for that reason do not read forums or reply to questions posted in the forums.
Anyway I'm puzzled on what to do because I do not have any experience with Gigabyte boards. I'm more an ASUS guy but the Gigabyte boards are most likely very good also and I can't find an ASUS board in the same price/functionality range as the Gigabyte board that is also very compatible with OS X 10.9. Or are there ASUS boards out there that I missed ?

Any thoughts are welcome.

Regards,
Kris