[Success] Gigabyte z87-OC, 4790k, Gigabyte 280x, 32 GB RAM - OSX 10.9.5

mg23's 4k/2k/1080p Final Cut Pro X Editing Rig:
Gigabyte z87-OC, 4790k, Gigabyte 280x, 32 GB RAM - OSX 10.9.5​

Components:

Processor: Intel 4790k Haswell Quad Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128594

RAM: 32 GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical DDR3 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148659

GPU: Gigabyte GV-R9280XOC-3GD Rev2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125490

Storage: 500 GB Samsung 840 Evo - for the OS, FCPX and current FCP project files
2 TB Western Digital Green - for storing completed, rendered projects
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147249
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236404

Power Supply: Rosewill 630w PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182200

Case: DIYPC FM08-W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353018


Comments:

This was my first ever hackintosh build. I've built a few PC's in the past, but have had very little experience with the Mac OS. I built this rig for a friend who will be using it to run FCPX. He will mostly be editing 4k, 2k and 1080p footage from the new Panasonic GH4 camera. I chose the R9 280x as my graphics card for it's superior Open CL performance - which, from what I understand, is very important when working with FCP.

Pre Installation:

I started by following the Unibeast guide to get a copy of Mavericks 10.9.5 (that I downloaded from the app store) onto an old 8GB USB 2.0 thumb drive I had laying around. I used UniBeast 4.0.2

Installation:

I assembled the entire build, minus the 280x Graphics Card, 2 TB HDD, and 24 GB of RAM (only 1 stick of ram for installation!). I plugged my HDTV into the motherboards HDMI input, and powered on the machine. I went into the BIOS and loaded optimized defaults, then disabled VT-d.

I booted from the USB drive and installed OS X with no issues.

Post Installation:

I ran MultiBeast 6.5.0 using DSDT Free and, in addition to the default kexts, I also added:

• Audio - ALC892
• Disk - Trim Fix and 3rd party SATA
• Network - Intel e1000 v3.1.0
• System - USB 3.0

I didn't change anything in the customize or bootloader tabs of MultiBeast. System profile was set to Mac Pro 3,1 (which is default). I installed my MultiBeast build, and did one additional step before restarting.

I knew that I would want to boot from the discrete graphics card instead of the onboard 4600HD. So I followed tonymac's guide on moving the bootloader and Extra folder to the EFI partion. I then powered off the computer and installed my Gigabyte R9 280x graphics card and the additional 24 GB of RAM.

I moved the HDMI cable from the on-board HDMI input to the 280x's HDMI input and booted up the computer with my fingers crossed. The operating system booted up in about 10 seconds! The apple logo shows, and then the screen goes black for about half a second before OSX desktop is displayed.

What Works:

• Booting using HDMI or DVI through discrete graphics card.
• Sound through stereo out port on motherboard.
• LAN
• TRIM and 3rd Party SATA (See benchmarks)
• Graphics card seems to be performing at the level it should be (See benchmarks)
• Both onboard graphics card and discrete graphics card are shown in system information and Luxmark as well.

What Doesn't Work (yet):

• Sound through the graphics card HDMI port. I will try and follow toleda's guide for getting HDMI audio working in Mavericks when I get the computer back and report back to you guys if I can get it working.

Benchmarks:

Luxmark 2.1 (Just 280x): 2431


Luxmark 2.1 (280x and Iris): 2770


Luxmark 2.1 (CPU & GPU): 2453 (is it normal for CPU & GPU to be lower than GPU?)


Black Magic Disk Speed Test: 494 MB/s write speed
513 MB/s read speed


Geekbench 3: 3884 32-Bit Single Core
14877 32-Bit Multi Core


Brucex Test: 22 - 24 seconds (I ran the test 5 times)

Final Thoughts:

For a Hackintosh newbie, this installation was fairly painless. There were a couple instances where I messed with the multibeast and bios settings and then was unable to boot without using -x, but once I figured out the correct settings, everything was really easy and straight forward.

Aside from the HDMI audio, the only thing I need to fix is running the RAM at 1600 instead of 1333. I forgot to set the memory profile to profile 1 in my BIOS settings before doing my initial install of OSX. I realized about 20 minutes before my buddy came to pick up the rig that the memory was only being recognized as 1333 in OSX and when I tried to change the memory profile in my BIOS, I was unable to boot (stuck at the apple screen). Again, I will look into this issue and update you guys with any progress after I get the computer back.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to these forums and shared their knowledge and experience. And especially thank you to tonymac and the crew who have developed, designed and tested these tools and made this all so easy. You guys rock!

Great build description and build. Enjoyed the read and looking forward to the updates. I like how you covered each aspect of getting the system running with the newer Haswell chip and 280x. Enjoy.

Any update?

To the OP, I seen you had been unable to get the machine to boot after setting the XMP to profile 1 - and as a result, unable to have RAM running no higher than 1333Mhz.

In my experince with a machine I just completed (has a 4790K as well), I found that I had to reinstall and instead of selecting 'DSDT Free' in Mulitbeast, I had success when going with EasyBeast.

Lastly, I was wondering how the machine performs when video editing. I friend who is interested in editing 4K in Final Cut and would like me to build a rig for him..

Any other thoughts or replies will be greatly appreciated!

Sorry for taking so long to update.

I found out that in order to get sound working through the video card, I would need to flash it. I decided not to do this since the onboard sound worked perfectly fine and my buddy planned on using external speakers anyway.

As far as getting the RAM to 1600, I ended up doing the same thing as you described, B-San.

My buddy just recently started using this rig to edit 4k, 2k, and 1080p shot on a Panasonic Lumix GH4 and he says there are no hiccups whatsoever when editing and rendering is pretty fast. The one thing I might change is throwing in a higher speed PCI SSD instead of the Samsung Evo, but the Evo seems to be performing alright for his needs.

Fantastic guide and I'm going to be trying this for the very same reason as your friend. 4k editing in FCPX with a GH4 camera, rather spooky to say the least.

I was just wondering if your friend had updated to Yosemite as of yet or does this method only successfully work in Mavericks?

Thank you.

We haven't updated to Yosemite yet, mainly because he is in Chile with unstable internet connection and needs the computer to work without issue for the next 2 months (he's currently editing videos for clients). When he comes back to the states in March we will update to Yosemite. I'm hoping this will solve some of the very minor issues he's been experiencing, such as the computer automatically turning back on after shutting it down. I will keep you guys posted on how the Yosemite update works.

As far as how effective the machine is at doing its job: he's edited 3 - 50 min films with effects like slow-mo, speed-up, transitions, text, and audio adjustment all without hickups. Each film consists of approximately 40 separate clips. He has been shooting mainly in 2k 59.9 fps @ 100 mbps.

His workflow is pretty simple and straight forward: copy the raw footage from the microSD card to the SSD using a high speed usb 3.0 card reader, open up in FCPX, and start editing.

It takes him around 5 minutes to offload a single 64 GB high speed microSD card to the SSD. Rendering a 50 min video has been taking him on average around an hour.

After editing and rendering the video (the final videos come out to about 8 GB) he transfers the video to cheap USB 3.0 thumb drives, which takes about 2 mins per drive. For his purposes, this machine is performing perfectly, and for a fraction of the price of the new iMac 5k with comparable specs.

He says that FCPX has crashed once, but all his work was autosaved (I'm guessing this was more an issue with FCPX rather than the rig itself).

Let me know if you guys have any other questions; I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my knowledge.