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mini-ITX Build - Small & Powerful

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anton2k

anton2k

Joined
Jan 13, 2016
Messages
5
Motherboard
MSI B85M-E45
CPU
Intel i7 - 4980HQ BGA to LGA
Graphics
GTX 780
Hi Guys! let me just start by saying hi! this is my first post here in the forums, although I have been a reader for a long time and I am really interested in the scene.

I am looking to build the smallest, most powerful mini-ITX system I can. I am we web developer and designer as well as a reformed pc game (play allot back in the day not so much now) and the plan is to have something small and compact with enough power to play my games at a nice high level of detail. I am gonna list some hardware parts I like, that OSX will run, and am just looking for some feedback from you guys, i.e. any one who has any of the hardware, problems i might run into etc.

I play to have 3 SSD's, running WIN10, OSX & some linux distro on each - I then plan to have some hardware device that physically switches drive. I.E. i want to boot in OSX because i want to do some logic work or some photo work or final cut or w/e, i flip the switch to that SSD, i want to boot into windows. Power down the machine, flick the switch to windows and boot into windows, likewise for linux (if anyone knows of any hardware solutions that do this please reply! i only know of one solution so far).

Here are the parts I intent to use:

Case - Silverstone SG13
This is one the smallest cases (I think) on the market that will support a half decent sized GPU as well as a water cooler for the CPU which i also plan to do is i want this thing to be as silent as possible, and a full sized PSU. If any of you guys have smaller better options please list them. I won't list the water cooler or PSU here as they really aren't important to the build - my PSU will suffice and I haven't picked a water cooler yet).
Video of case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjDJNwAANwA

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-H97N-WiFi
For the motherboard I don't really want to differ from what is listed in the buyers guide. The consensus, and correct me if I am wrong, is to go with gigabyte (because mac's use allot of gigabyte parts) for the most seamless installation and the chances of the system supporting other versions of OSX as they come out is higher? I know the WiFi card doesn't work on the board I selected but thats not and issue it will be getting pulled out anyway.

CPU - Core i7-5775C i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh)
Couple of questions about this CPU, basically I want to go as high as I can with the motherboard selected and according to the GA-H97N-WIFI support list (http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4992) this is the highest it will support. I would like to get an 8 core in the machine, but one, i don't think the board would support that, and 2, i'm not sure OSX would either? this is an area my knowledge is limited in a bit, so any discussion around this area would be cool! but as a basis this is what I have in mind. Edit - After further reading it turns out the i7-5775C is not the most powerful CPU this board supports and that i might run into driver issues with the new onboard iris graphics thingy ma bob. So yea, more discussion around this would be good.
Edit - after some thinking, I've decided to go with the i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh) as its faster and i don't want to mess about / risk running into issues with the new broadwell on board iris graphics and OSX.

GPU - MSI 660 TI PE
This is the GPU I currently have in my system at the moment. I plan to upgrading to a GTX 980 TI or some TITAN in the future from the buyers list. But for now I just need to know if my current card will work, for buying it a few years ago it's still a great little card, get me by at 1080p with most game i play on high or ultra details (with some tweeks) for now this card suffices.

RAM - Corsair Vengance 2x4GB DDR3 (11-11-11-30) @ 800mhz (I believe it can go up to 1600/1333)
This is the ram in my current system, as well as building a nice small quiet powerful machine i want to save as much money doing it as I can. It seems like a no brainer, considering the board only supports up to 1600mhz max to re-use the ram. So my question is will this ram work? are more details needed? if this ram wont work what are the reasons? can you not just drop any DDR3 ram into the board as long as the board supports it? or is OSX a bit pernickety with what ram is used?

SSD
Not picked out an SSD yet but again like the RAM, as long as the board supports it can I not just use it? or is OSX pernickety about what SSD you use to? Any recommendations would be welcome to, I'm looking for a good combination of fast as possible but not too expensive.

Monitor - DELL U2312HM
Dunno how much the monitor matters but yea, this is my current monitor, it's an IPS panel and i love it, nice and clear, should work fine with OSX yea? I would like to pick up a LG 34UM95 34" UltraWide Widescreen 21:9 Monitor in the future! mainly because it would be wicked for coding and designing my sites and stuff. Here's a video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnrxNfxRK_4 - also if you guys can see OSX having any problems with this then give me a heads up.


Thanks for taking the time to read all that if you go this far, any feedback would be much appreciated!

-Anton
 
So far as the CPU is concerned, does it really matter in your case what the on-board graphics are? As I understand it, you're planning to use your current GTX 660 now and upgrade later, so you wouldn't even be using the CPU graphics.
 
My "Daily Driver"
Z370M Pro4 |  i7 8700 |  Radeon Other
Partner's Hack
Z370M Pro4 |  i5 8400 |  HD 630
nobodynose said:
So far as the CPU is concerned, does it really matter in your case what the on-board graphics are? As I understand it, you're planning to use your current GTX 660 now and upgrade later, so you wouldn't even be using the CPU graphics.
Click to expand...

That's a good point, It wouldn't really matter apart form maybe future proofing me from any mac updates that might render my GPU useless. I don't know allot about OSX support life for hackintoshes with regards to hardware etc. I guess for me it's speed, I am looking for the fastest support CPU that will fit in the socket of this motherboard, i thought the 5775c was the fastest, i could be wrong though?.

Thanks for the replies.
-Anton.:)
 
anton2k said:
That's a good point, It wouldn't really matter apart form maybe future proofing my from any mac updates that might render my GPU useless. I don't know allot about OSX support life for hackintoshes with regards to hardware etc. I guess for me it's speed, I am looking for the fastest support CPU that will fit in the socket of this motherboard, i thought the 5775c was the fastest, i could be wrong though?.

Thanks for the replies.
-Anton.:)
Click to expand...

While the i7-5775C (Broadwell) is one of the newest Socket 1150 CPUs, I'm pretty sure the i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh) is still going to be the fastest CPU supported by this motherboard, and it has HD 4600 graphics so no compatibility problems there.
 
My "Daily Driver"
Z370M Pro4 |  i7 8700 |  Radeon Other
Partner's Hack
Z370M Pro4 |  i5 8400 |  HD 630
nobodynose said:
While the i7-5775C (Broadwell) is one of the newest Socket 1150 CPUs, I'm pretty sure the i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh) is still going to be the fastest CPU supported by this motherboard, and it has HD 4600 graphics so no compatibility problems there.
Click to expand...

That was kinda the suspicion I had after looking at CPU pass mark stats, i don't think there is allot in it but, as you say, if its faster, and because it is older, it might even be a bit cheaper! which makes it a no brainer. I also had a little niggle in the back of my mind that OSX might have some issues with the new on board graphics that broadwell has (believe its called iris or something). I want the install to go as smooth as possible without any patching, and if the i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh) can do that and is the fastest performing chip for the board, that is what i am gonna go with, updated the main thread.

Thanks,
-Anton.
 
Power down the machine, flick the switch to windows and boot into windows, likewise for linux (if anyone knows of any hardware solutions that do this please reply! i only know of one solution so far).
Click to expand...
Clover will do this. You have to reboot to switch OS, that's a given. When the Clover boot screen appears you just select which OS you want to boot into.

You might want to read this this forum: http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-booting/
 
RedRogue 2
Z390 AORUS PRO |  i5 9600K |  Vega 64 8GB
RedRogue said:
Clover will do this. You have to reboot to switch OS, that's a given. When the Clover boot screen appears you just select which OS you want to boot into.

You might want to read this this forum: http://www.tonymacx86.com/multi-booting/
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply @RedRogue this might sound a bit stupid but I like the idea of having a physical switches with stickers indicating the OS. I also like the way it keeps all of the hard drives separate. Probably stupid and unnecessary by most people's standards, but I just like the Idea, that said I need to make sure the switch will not hamper or SSD & HDD read and write speeds, if it does then i'll probably end up going with this option. Thanks for the reply though! :D :)




neilhart said:
anton2k I wonder why you would choose the H97N and not the Z97N?

Also, I would choose the ASUS Maximus VII Impact before choosing the Z97N-WiFi (as I own both and prefer the ASUS because of the M.2 on the x4 PCIe v3.0 buss).

Good modding,
neil

Check out my project logs on these two systems:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/others/133773-neilharts-scratch-build-3-mini-itx-tower.html

http://www.tonymacx86.com/retail-ca...-w-m-2-xp941-booting-os-x-via-clover-xw1.html
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply @neilhart If I am being honest I went for the H97N as it was the main one on the buyer's guide page for an ITX system. That said the ASUS Maximus VII Impact does look tempting, I did see it and think about it, i don't know what setup is like though? i also kinda want to try and stick to gigabyte because they seem to be the the brand to go for with regards to out working out the box with OSX. I want the installation to be as seamless as possible but I am open to options. I'll check out your builds! thanks for sharing them! just out of curiosity, i could probably google this but i may as well type it now, what do you mean by "M.2 on the x4 PCIe v3.0 bus". I thought the Z97N and the H97N both had PCIe 3.0 busses, not sure what you mean by M.2 though? how did you find the install process? any tweaks you had to make or was it as seamless as the Z97N, presuming the Z97N was seamless. Thanks for the reply :)




nobodynose said:
I think I know the answer to this - the Z97N is becoming quite difficult to find.
Click to expand...

@nobodynose I had no idea the Z97N was hard to find to be honest, like i said above the main reason was for ease of OSX installation. To be honest I would rather have a board that was more common and supported, that way I could search the forums and hopefully find people in the same boat as me if I ever came up against any issues. But yea, for the motherboard the most important thing to me is the ease of OSX install, and support further down the line - I don't know much about how hackintoshes are support, heck i've never installed one before with unibest or clover or what not, i haven't even read those guide yet, ill tackle then when i get it all built but yea... ease of install, and support a fairly powerful CPU and GPU (PCIe 3.0). Thanks again for the replys :)
 
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