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

[theapplelover]

Great guide! Recently I have built a system very similar to yours, and I am going to install OS X as soon as my second SSD returns from RMA Hopefully I am going to post a guide once I get it all up and running

 

[tdw]

For those of you who are interested, my new graphics card has arrived and I am pleased to report it works just as I was hoping. I swapped out my EVGA GTX 770 02G-P4-2774-KR for an EVGA GTX 770 04G-P4-3774-KR. Both cards are EVGA's superclocked (SC) version, but the new card has 4GB RAM instead of 2GB and more importantly has dual BIOSes. If you look a few posts back, my original card was quite noisy when idle as the fans were running at 41% when idle. With the new card, switching to the second BIOS (using a tiny switch on the back of the card) allows the fans to run at 29% when idle, which makes for a significantly quieter card. EVGA recommend you leave the primary BIOS unaltered so you can switch back to it if need be. I like EVGA but having gone through this process I would recommend you purchase one of the cards with the dual BIOS feature if noise is of a concern to you.

As for 4GB vs 2GB, there was no need for me to upgrade but there was hardly any difference in cost so I thought why not. But, like I suspected, benchmarks are unchanged. So don't expect any better performance from 4GB. It's really more useful if you are planning on running multiple high-resolution displays and/or want to future-proof for games that might required more than 2GB in the future.

 

[ry597]

thanks, im loking forward to build a device with the same hardware as yours

 

[lucalang]

the gpu doesn't throttle down
Core gpu 979 MhZ
gpu memory 1,47 GhZ

 

[tdw]

the gpu doesn't throttle down
Core gpu 979 MhZ
gpu memory 1,47 GhZ

I'm not sure what you are talking about. The new BIOS is not intended to throttle the GPU down, it merely allows the fans to run at a lower speed. It also allows you to increase the power for the GPU up to 110%. This is only in Windows obviously using EVGA's Precision X software. In OS X you are stuck with the BIOS default. But with the BIOS update, that's 29% fan speed rather than 41% like I had on my previous card. It's going back to Amazon.

 

[rav3lo]

1 question, when you built your hackintosh and after you configured your BIOS, did you have to insall snow leopard to get to mountain lion? Or you went straight into mountain lion with Unibeast?
-Alex

 

[tdw]

1 question, when you built your hackintosh and after you configured your BIOS, did you have to insall snow leopard to get to mountain lion? Or you went straight into mountain lion with Unibeast?
-Alex

Alex, I'm running Mavericks 10.9.1. When I installed the OS, I installed Mavericks 10.9 as that was the latest version at the time. I upgraded to 10.9.1 when the update came out with no issues. If you download Mavericks from the App Store today, it will be version 10.9.1, so that would be my recommendation. No need to use Leopard/Snow Leopard/Lion/Mountain Lion at all.

 

[rav3lo]

Thanks, i made my Mavericks 10.9 Unibeast and i successfuly booted into the Mavericks Installer using PCIRootUID=1. I installed Mavericks, but now i seem to be stuck at the white apple loading screen. Ive already tried loading into "GraphicsEnabler=Yes", "PCIRootUID=1", "PCIRootUID=0", and npci=0x3000" and "-x" and ive had no success, no matter what, i seem to be stuck in the white apple loading screen.
My BIOS is currently version F7, the only changes i have done is:

Under Peripherals > xHCI Mode, change it to AUTO
Under Peripherals > xHCI Hand-OFF, change it to ENABLED
Under Peripherals > EHCI Hand-OFF, Change it to Enabled
Under Peripherals > Init Display First>First option (onboard graphics)

I currently have no progress, all ive been able to do is install Maverick.

 

[dougoftheabaci]

Hi TDW, I have the same case as you (well, black and windowless but yeah...) and I was wondering if the front/top USB 3.0 ports work? They don't with mine but I'm using a different board.

I'm also curious if all the internal SATA ports work.

 

[Mari0]

Hi TDW
Do you have sound on HDMI video card? I have a GTX 780 and is impossible (for me) to find a solution to this issue.