speeeding's TigerShark build: Core i7-3770K | GA-Z77X-UD5H | 16GB RAM | GTX 770 | Mavericks & Mounta

Components

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116501
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SZ0EOW/

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007R21JK4/

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 997110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226388

SanDisk Extreme SDSSDX-240G-G25 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171752
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00COF7E3K/

Corsair Neutron Series CSSD-N256GB3-BK 2.5" 256GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AJ1C41112
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B2X312S/

Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178430
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005T3GRNW/

MSI N770 Lightning GeForce GTX 770 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZ58WQ2/

ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX-B 135mm Long life bearing CPU Cooler Blue LED
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118074
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CZ48DE/

KINGWIN Lazer LZ-1000 1000W Modular 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC W/ 3-Way LED Switch and Universal Modular Connector Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121068

DARWINmachine TigerShark TGK686 Chassis
http://www.darwinmachine.com/tigershark.htm


Already Owned

SONY OPTIARC DVD burner/drive
Corsair 60GB SSD


Comments

A few years ago, My iMac was on the fritz, so I decided to try assembling my own system. I was a bit amused to find that PC cases had changed very little over the years, and that even the most creative ones were basically cosmetic variations of the typical, rectangular tower chassis. Coming from a Mac, I just couldn’t get myself to putting my components into something so mundane -- so, with my design background and engineering know-how, I decided to build my own. That’s how my studio, DARWINmachine came to be.

The TigerShark is the latest chassis to come out of my design studio. Thanks to all the great info on this site, this is actually my 4th Customac build. Its construction and layout is more akin to race cars and aircraft frames, and the aluminum frame is very good at absorbing and dissipating heat.

For my personal Customac, I needed it to do two things very well. First, a Mac workhorse to do all of my design & CAD work, and second, a fast gaming PC that could take the abuse and the heat it generated.

On the Mac side, I have a 240GB SSD running Mavericks, plus 1TB HDD storage. A second 256GB SSD is running Windows 7. After upgrading to Mavericks though, I had to add a third SSD running Mountain Lion, as I found out that one of my programs was no longer supported on 10.9.

The build itself was very straight-forward with no over-clocking or special tweaks. Since I picked pretty much everything from Tonymac’s list of recommended hardware, all I had to do was:
1) Set the UEFI settings: http://www.tonymacx86.com/99-quick-guide-configuring-uefi-gigabyte-s-7-series-lga-1155-boards.html
2) Install Mavericks per Tonymac's guide: http://www.tonymacx86.com/374-unibeast-install-os-x-mavericks-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html
3) Mountain Lion was the same way: http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html

MultiBeast settings


Benchmarks
General system benchmark from Geekbench 3


OpenGL test results from Unigine Heaven at 1080p

That is a pretty wild case you got yourself there. Congrats on the build.

I agree with you. The idea of a case not really changing much since the beginning of computer time, does make building a machine sometimes a little mundane.