tjodolv's Hack Pro mATX: Core i5 3570 / GA-Z77MX-D3H TH / 16GB RAM / GTX 660Ti

Components

Intel Core i5 3570 (not the "K" version)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0087EVHTE/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115233

Arctic Cooling 11 LP (I planned on using the stock fan, but it was defective out of the box)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0037AKXKM/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186060

Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H TH
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008U01RBI/
Not available on Newegg, but the model without Thunderbolt is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128542&Tpk=ga-z77mx-d3h

Steelseries Siberia USB Sound Card
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WJ9K4G/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829114003

Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 16GB CL9 (4x4GB)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004E0ZKLQ/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233143

Gigabyte nVidia GeForce GTX 660Ti PhysX
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008UG2W20/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125440&Tpk=GV-N66TOC-2GD

Crucial m4 SSD 2.5" 128GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W2JKZI/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442

Seagate Barracuda 1TB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005T3GRNW/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840&Tpk=ST1000DM003

Sony Optiarc DVD±RW Writer (Actually I got the AD-5280S-0B, but I couldn't find it on Newegg. A bit noisy, but works OK.)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0057FRTPW/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118067

Corsair CX600 V2
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W2T2UQ/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139028&Tpk=corsair%20cx%20600

Fractal Design Define Mini
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085RR0TY/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352011

Apple OS X Mountain Lion @ Mac App Store
http://itunes.apple.com/no/app/os-x-mountain-lion/id537386512?l=nb&mt=12


Already owned

Apple Cinema Display 23"
eBay search for ACD 23"
In time, I will probably invest in a Color Edge monitor from Eizo, for my photo/graphic needs (but they cost from about $1500 and up).

Apple Wired Keyboard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DLDTAE/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823101012

Logitech G400
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055QZ216/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104577

I also got one more Crucial m4 for my Macbook Pro, and put the 500GB disk originally in the laptop in this hackintosh to use for Time Machine.


Comments

This was my first attempt at a hackintosh. I have been a fairly long time Mac user, having previously owned a Mac Mini and two MacBook Pros over the last 7 years. Before that I dabbled a bit with building my own computers, but once I switched to Mac, i never wanted to go back.

I decided to build this because I wanted a desktop Mac. I found myself sitting by the desk with the laptop plugged into an external monitor more often than not, and I also wanted more power, both for photo editing/graphic design and gaming. I considered an iMac (Mac Pro is too expensive and non-updated for years), but landed on trying my hands at a hack.

My goals were:

• Not too big.
• Fairly silent.
• Room for more drives in the future.
• Thunderbolt for future expansions.
• Enough power/speed to run Adobe CS6 effortlessly, and games like Starcraft 2 with high graphics settings and no glitches.
• Max $1750 (I live in Norway, so the prices here are a bit steep).

Regarding my goals, I have gotten the most important aspects down: The total cost came in at around $1700, I have room for more drives, and the power is absolutely insane (compared to what I am used to, at least). Starting InDesign or Photoshop takes about the same time as starting Safari did on my mid-2010 MacBook Pro. I love it. The case was bigger than I imagined, but still within acceptable limits. I am not, however, satisfied with the noise level. I am fairly disappointed in the amount of noise this case makes when idling. The jury is still out, because I have not yet found a way to control the fans, it appears that they are going at full speed all the time. I will have to work a bit more on this.

I have not yet tested the Thunderbolt capabilities of the MB, because I don't have any peripherals for that yet.

Do note that the i5 3570 (non-"K") processor has the HD 2500 integrated graphics, not the HD 4000. The 2500 is unsupported in OS X. You will be able to get an image (1024x768) in safe mode, but no more and no less. A dedicated GPU is necessary with this CPU. It was no problem for me, because I am not going to do any serious overclocking, and wanted a dedicated GPU anyways, but keep this in mind. I got the non-"K" simply for cutting cost.


UEFI/BIOS setup tip:
The boot settings for the harddrives should be the "P0: M4 128GB...", and not the "UEFI: M4 128GB..." option. It won't boot with the UEFI option.

Problems along the way:
The aforementioned fan-problem. Perhaps I'll try some FakeSMC plugins in Multibeast. However, even setting the fan mode to "Silent" in the UEFI does not affect the speed. They are still running on full speed while I am idling in the UEFI.
The plugins just gave kernel panics. Further troubleshooting identified the case exhaust fan as the main culprit, but the system is pretty cool anyways, so I just unplugged it from the MB.

USB 3.0 does not work out of the box. I'll try the Multibeast drivers if I feel brave later today.

Sleep is not working. To be precise: The computer goes to sleep, but when I try to wake it up, the monitor stays black (even though the machine it self starts whirring). Setting the monitor to sleep is no problem.

Originally, I had intended to use the onboard VIA VT2021 audio, but the VoodooHDA in Multibeast gave me kernel panics without exception, and the fiddly hackety ways to solve that seemed too much of a hassle, so I got the Steelseries Siberia USB Sound Card instead, and it worked out of the box, instantly. Very satisfied with that little dongle

One thing that bothers me about the system is that the front usb ports on the case don't work. I don't know if the error is on the MB, BIOS settings or if the actual wiring/ports in the case are dead. I will have to troubleshoot this a bit more.

The bottom line is that I am very, very satisfied with my new Hack Pro!

This is mostly good news. I'm just need confirmation on thunderbolt drives and sleep working. Currently on a z68 system and ready to make the switch. Are you in NYC by any chance? I'd like to bring a Lacie Thunderbolt drive over.

I have this mobo my apple thunderbolt display works flawless, wake from sleep with BT apple keyboard and trackpad too. The only thing about this mobo are some USB 3 issues, on the front panel only USB 3 pens will work. Sound is working from my thunderbolt monitor and usb 2 ports and gigabyte ethernet works too on the thunderbolt display, also facetime camera. If you install voodoo from multibeast you will have onboard audio, I dont need it at the moment. Hope this helps with your TH device. Cheers.

nfilg said:

I have this mobo my apple thunderbolt display works flawless, wake from sleep with BT apple keyboard and trackpad too. The only thing about this mobo are some USB 3 issues, on the front panel only USB 3 pens will work. Sound is working from my thunderbolt monitor and usb 2 ports and gigabyte ethernet works too on the thunderbolt display, also facetime camera. If you install voodoo from multibeast you will have onboard audio, I dont need it at the moment. Hope this helps with your TH device. Cheers.

Click to expand...

Sounds awesome! How did you get SLEEP to work? Also, what identifier did you use?

Hi

2years ago I tried an Customac too, but after almost 1year I switched to an iMac, but now Im looking at an customac again and very interested in almost the same setup as here, just with an i7-3770.

But I had some problems last time, the most annoying one was that my plugins from NIK software lost its serial now and then.... Then I think about it, I have the same problem from time to time on my iMac too, but here an reboot helps.

But does the thunderbolt on this mobo works in 10.8 ?
Did you get the sleep to work?


(I live in Norway too, like the thread starter )

JBlongz Here you have more info about the build.
I read some post about using MAC PRO, but I'm using IMac 12,2 The OC is listed on the system report. I am a newbie in this hackintosh world, before I just built machines for windows. Did not use chimera on MBeast 5.1.2

So you needed no special setting for motherboard to sleep and wake successfully?

JBlongz said:

So you needed no special setting for motherboard to sleep and wake successfully?

Click to expand...

I just changed a few settings on the bios, before I updated it to F5 and used the minimum settings on Mbeast only the network onboard maolj's driver and 3th party ssd with trim support. Just a tip, If you get a new mobo wait for the release of the new iMac components and ML updates 10.8.3 it should be just around the corner. At the moment I am just waiting for the price on the 660ti to drop and use it on my other boot disk Windows 7 for games.

Hi Nfilg, Whats your full setup? I planning on starting my first Hackintosh within the next couple of weeks and have been looking for a project that gives me full use of my Thunderbolt display. What graphics card are you using? Did you experience any major problems on the way? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

drownd100 said:

Hi Nfilg, Whats your full setup? I planning on starting my first Hackintosh within the next couple of weeks and have been looking for a project that gives me full use of my Thunderbolt display. What graphics card are you using? Did you experience any major problems on the way? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Hi!
GA-Z77MX-D3H TH (rev 1.0) F5

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10

Mushkin Chronos Deluxe SSD 240GB 2,5" MKNSSDCR240GB-DX (the deluxe version is really fast)

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX850 V2 850W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply

3 more mechanical disks One for carbon copy other for mac downloads and other with windows for dual boot

Apple trackpad and wireless keyboard and a Razer USB mouse

All the apple peripherals were bought second-hand from another guy. The case mobo and PSU are new. I will post a build later. No trouble with wake up from sleep. At the moment I am using Igpu from the i5-3570K HD4000, thunderbolt display it will work in windows with a Dgpu, but at the moment apple hasn't release the drivers for the thunderbolt display to work with a graphics card and the iGPU on Mac OSx.