tdw's Haswell ATX: GA-Z87X-UD5H - Core i7-4770K - GTX 770

[tdw]

Thanks for quick reply! Just out of curiosity, did you run any benchmarks on your build by any chance? If so, do you mind sharing the results?

Sure, I've run some benchmarks. On Geekbench 3 (64-bit) I have 4328 for single-core and 17153 for multi-core. On Cinebench R15, I have 866 for the CPU test, 171 for the CPU single-core test and 104.57 for the OpenGL test. These results are all with overclocking at 4.3 GHz. I'd like to try a higher overclock but can't get OS X to boot above 4.3 GHz. I haven't overclocked my RAM, it's running stock at 1600 MHz. I'm not sure overclocking RAM is really worth it and don't know if my Corsair Vengeance could be overclocked or not.

 

[AirConsumer]

On Geekbench 3 (64-bit) I have 4328 for single-core and 17153 for multi-core.

Wow, those are some numbers, aren't they? Can't wait the get all the parts to assemble mine...

 

[warbital]

Thanks for the great guide tdw.

I am building a very similar machine soon (4770k, UD5H, GTX 770). I noticed you went for a 2GB VRAM version of GTX 770 and have seen some other guides featuring the 4GB VRAM model...

I am debating which one to go for....how has your card been for you in OS X?

 

[tdw]

Thanks for the great guide tdw.

I am building a very similar machine soon (4770k, UD5H, GTX 770). I noticed you went for a 2GB VRAM version of GTX 770 and have seen some other guides featuring the 4GB VRAM model...

I am debating which one to go for....how has your card been for you in OS X?

Everything I read suggested that 4GB would bring no real benefit, I think 2GB is plenty. I wanted to get the GTX 780 but the new revision was starting to show up just around the time I was looking to order. So I didn't take the risk and went with the GTX 770 instead.

I would say this, although my system is quiet, the graphics card is by far the loudest component. The ACX cooler on the EVGA is quite noisy and the minimum speed is set unnecessarily high. EVGA have come out with a firmware update for some cards to lower the minimum speed but mine is not one of them. It's possible they will do the same for mine but I don't know when that would be. It doesn't need to run so fast. See this thread for more info :

http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=2036288

It is a great card however, and when I say noisy it's really pretty minimal in the case I have. I've been playing Assassin's Creed 4 in Windows and it performs quite well on close to max settings (1440p).

 

[tdw]

Thanks for the great guide tdw.

I am building a very similar machine soon (4770k, UD5H, GTX 770). I noticed you went for a 2GB VRAM version of GTX 770 and have seen some other guides featuring the 4GB VRAM model...

I am debating which one to go for....how has your card been for you in OS X?

warbital, you have inspired me to change my graphics card/spend more money! It occurred to me that it is still eligible for return with Amazon, so I have ordered

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Superclocked-Dual-Link-Graphics-04G-P4-3774-KR/dp/B00E5AEIKE

and will return my current card. It's more for the noise issue than the RAM increase, but I figured if I'm going to change it I may as well get the better version. As you can see from my previous post, the card I ordered has the new BIOS already available so I should be able to cut down some of my fan noise.

 

[FRANKINT0SH]

TDW, I have an almost exact match of your machine, but I can't get past the white Apple Logo screen before Snow Leopard installs. I have:

ThermalTake Chaser MK-1 Case

Corsair CX750M Power Supply

Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H Motherboard

Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
Corsair Vengeance 16GB RAM (2x 8gb sticks)

2x Sandisk 240GB SSD Drives (Mac OSX & Windows 8)

Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB Hard Drive (Data)

LG BluRay/DVD +/-RW Drive

TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Wireless Adapter

I have followed the iBoot and MultiBeast process to a 'T' and have tried adjusting my BIOS settings to many various confirmed successful builds found around the site and still no such luck installing OSX. Just freezes at the white Apple logo screen. CD drive stops spinning too. Any thoughts or words of wisdom/encouragement?

 

[tdw]

TDW, I have an almost exact match of your machine, but I can't get past the white Apple Logo screen before Snow Leopard installs. I have:

ThermalTake Chaser MK-1 Case

Corsair CX750M Power Supply

Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H Motherboard

Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
Corsair Vengeance 16GB RAM (2x 8gb sticks)

2x Sandisk 240GB SSD Drives (Mac OSX & Windows 8)

Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB Hard Drive (Data)

LG BluRay/DVD +/-RW Drive

TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Wireless Adapter

I have followed the iBoot and MultiBeast process to a 'T' and have tried adjusting my BIOS settings to many various confirmed successful builds found around the site and still no such luck installing OSX. Just freezes at the white Apple logo screen. CD drive stops spinning too. Any thoughts or words of wisdom/encouragement?

Frankint0sh, do you mean Snow Leopard or Mavericks? I have never tried to install Snow Leopard and I think it may require a different/older version of UniBeast and/or MultiBeast. Mavericks was my first hackintosh install and the only thing I've tried. You have the same motherboard as me, so if you did mean Mavericks, I would make sure you have the latest BIOS installed (version F7) and load optimized defaults. Mavericks is free now, so I wouldn't bother with an older version of OS X. Make sure you have UniBeast 3.0.1, use it to make a USB stick for installation. After install, use MultiBeast 6.0.1 with the settings I put in my original post.

 

[Stork]

TDW, I have an almost exact match of your machine, but I can't get past the white Apple Logo screen before Snow Leopard installs. I have:
...
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD5H Motherboard
Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
...
TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Wireless Adapter

I have followed the iBoot and MultiBeast process to a 'T' and have tried adjusting my BIOS settings to many various confirmed successful builds found around the site and still no such luck installing OSX. Just freezes at the white Apple logo screen. CD drive stops spinning too. Any thoughts or words of wisdom/encouragement?

Snow Leopard doesn't support the TP-Link wifi card, so you'll need to remove it and connect to the Internet with an Ethernet cable.

Additionally, make sure you're using iBoot for Haswell.

 

[frkino]

Sounds good envoy510!

I went with the Noctua cooler because I wanted to experiment with overclocking my 4770K. I nearly got the U12S because I wasn't sure if the U14S would fit, but it's perfect. Since my last post I have managed to overclock to 4.3 GHz and it's 100% stable now I've replaced my memory. One of my Corsair memory sticks was faulty (be sure to test your memory with memtest86 before you do anything else!) and I had to get a replacement from Amazon. For some reason I can't get OS X to boot if I try and overclock above 4.3GHz, it just won't boot and hangs on the Apple logo screen. It works fine in Windows 8.1 so I'm not sure why OS X has a problem with 4.4Ghz and above. If anyone knows why >= 4.4GHz is a problem, please let me know. In verbose mode, it hangs at "Starting Apple Key Store" or something similar.

Good luck with your build!

Congrads with your new build!

You're not alone being stuck @4.3GHz
I managed to boot into mavericks @4.4GHz and get KP'd
4.5GHz+ is a no-go, verbose mode reports memory allocation problem

 

[warbital]

warbital, you have inspired me to change my graphics card/spend more money! It occurred to me that it is still eligible for return with Amazon, so I have ordered

http://www.amazon.com/EVGA-Superclocked-Dual-Link-Graphics-04G-P4-3774-KR/dp/B00E5AEIKE

and will return my current card. It's more for the noise issue than the RAM increase, but I figured if I'm going to change it I may as well get the better version. As you can see from my previous post, the card I ordered has the new BIOS already available so I should be able to cut down some of my fan noise.

Haha, I am glad I had the right influence. I too have gone for the 4GB version but went for Gigabyte's model. Read plenty of reviews on the cooler being effective but quiet.

Half my components have arrived, half in transit so should be building this weekend with any hope.

I will most definitely be using your build thread for reference, so thank you.

My next debate is whether to use Windows 7 or 8 on secondary SSD....I've used Win 8 very little but hated the UI immediately