Mr1inch's Silent Dual-Boot [SUCCES!]

Components

GIGABYTE GA-Z87-HD3 LGA1150/ Intel Z87/ DDR3/ CrossFireX/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard
I choose this model because it had very good support and didn’t need much work to be done about it. There were a lot of pre-made .mlb’s out there with this particular board, so it was a breeze to install really.

MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 OC 2GB GDDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card N760 TF 2GD5/OC
Initially, I wanted to go with the GTX 770. But since the price difference was so huge - 280 EUR for the 770, and 210 EUR for the 760 - and the difference in performance was not astronomical, I decided to go with the 760 instead.

Intel Core i5-4670K Quad-Core Desktop Processor 3.4 GHZ 6 MB Cache - BX80646I54670K
This build will be used mainly for gaming (windows) and general browsing and word processing (hackintosh), it would be too overkill to get an i7 which would not be used to it’s full potential. So rather than spending a lot more money on a cpu that I wouldn’t need anyway, I decided to go with this one. Probably the best bang for your buck you can get right now too, cpu-wise.

Seasonic M12II-750 BRONZE ATX 750 Power Supply
I decided to go with this model because it had decent reviews, has enough power in case I’d ever want to add a video card / change my build, and because it was on sale too.

Crucial M500 240GB SATA 2.5-Inch 7mm Internal Solid State Drive CT240M500SSD1
At first, I wanted to dual-boot from this SSD. However, that didn’t work out quite as planned. Instead, this is now my main drive for Windows. Great build quality as well, a lot better than the Samsung SSD.

Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Single Unit Version Internal Solid State Drive
I ran into some trouble dual-booting from the same SSD, which basically is the reason why I picked this one up. It was a little more expensive than the M500, but otherwise I had to wait 3-4 days to finish my build, and I am a man with little patience.

Fractal Design Define R4 Cases, Black Pearl
Probably one of the best cases out there. It’s silent (which I wanted my case to be), stealth, and not too expensive either. It’s also quite large, you’ll probably never run out of space with this case.

Crucial Ballistix Tactical Low Profile 8GB Kit (4GBx2)
This model had good reviews, and I only need 8GB for now. I got 2 rows left, so if I’d ever need more I can always buy another kit of these, as I won’t ever need more than 16GB anyway.


Accessories

Dell S2740L 927M9-IPS-LED 27-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor
I choose this monitor because it’s basically a thunderbolt display, but with HDMI, 1080p, and for only 1/3rd of the price. Keep in mind though, it’s like a mirror if you have a lot of natural light near your set-up. Other than that, it is by far the best 1080p display I have ever seen. I simply don’t like matte displays, so picking this one was a no-brainer for me.

2x
Kingston Digital DataTraveler SE9 8GB USB 2.0
To install the operating systems with. Believe it or not, I didn’t have any USB’s left that I could use .

Already Owned

ROCCAT Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard

Bose Companion 2 Series II Multimedia Speaker

Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone - Silver Edition

Apple Magic Trackpad


Comments

Late last year, I gave my old desktop to my father who was desperately in need of a new computer, as his old one was simply becoming too slow and he was simply too stubborn to just buy a new one like any sane man would in his position… I had bought my Macbook Pro Retina few months before that - I loved it, but I missed the horsepower. A Macbook is great for anything not too intensive, but anything above that is just too much for the thing.

I love the user experience of a Mac, but I also wanted the gaming power of a windows computer. Putting those two together, I decided to build a Hackintosh which could boot in both Windows and OSX. I needed windows for gaming, and I would use OSX mainly for anything else such as browsing, and word processing for school.

The build went pretty smooth, I took a bit long on connecting the PSU though, as I wanted to make sure that every cable was connected correctly. Luckily, it booted correctly the first time.

After that, I forgot a few things in the BIOS, and the dual-boot from the M500 didn’t work as planned, so things got a bit messy. I eventually just went #yolo and gave up on the ”dual boot from one disc”-idea and got another extra SSD. This made it all a lot easier and the installation was done within the hour.

Basically everything worked right out of the box after MultiBeast. I didn’t need to adjust anything, other than install a few drivers. Everything works, including sleep.

MultiBeast Settings
Post installation was pretty easy, as this board doesn't require a DSDT. Use the following settings and reboot following a successful installation.

[i’ll upload this one later, I couldn’t find it :/]

Benchmarks
General system benchmarks from Geekbench 3 (32 bit)



HD Tune disk speed on the M500 240GB. Guess this shows why this one is a little cheaper than the Samsung, as it’s not as consistent, though I’ll doubt I’d even notice unless I’d transfer some huge files.



HD Tune disk speed on the Samsung Evo 120GB



I’ll also add some benchmarks / gaming performance of the GTX 760 for reference afterwards ^.^


Silent!?

I really wanted my build to be very silent, as my desktop used to make a lot of sound - which I hated, and I simply couldn't stand the fans of my macbook either. I think that worked out quite well! Here is a screenshot of the Dba measurement, coming in at an average of ±30 Dba at about 10cm / 4 inches in front of the case




Some things I still want to do

- bluetooth: for the trackpad
- wifi: maybe, for now I got ethernet anyway
- fusion drive?
- overclock the CPU: not really needed for now, but might do this in the future


Some more pictures

Mr1inch's Silent Dual-Boot GA-Z87-HD3, i5-4670, GTX 760[SUCCES!]

Thanks to the staff for bringing this thread up again after it was flagged by the spam filters

edit: guess it gets flagged again if I edit something... :x oops