yet another yet another new build post

First off, I'd like to thank the contributors here. I've been scouring the web trying to figure out the most organized and most likely to continually be updated solution for macx86ing.
Being in CA and having to pay tax and shipping on newegg, I ended up getting pretty much everything at amazon. and with prime trial, this is all arriving on friday. hopefully i'll be up and running by the end of the week. and hopefully my aging 2.16 c2d mbp will be on ebay. guess this isn't the best place for this post, since it's all on the way and advice at this point would be a little late. oh well, hopefully i've done enough research here and can get a decent little box running. this was all right around $800 shipped, which i think is pretty decent considering the alternatives from apple. i'm just worried that next month apple is going to release new mac pros and they're finally going to realize that there's a huge market of people that don't need $3000 twin xeon workstations but aren't happy with an imac. mac prosumer? $999 tower bigger than a cube smaller than a pro. i7 etc and i would sell these parts and go buy a real mac again. is that blasphemy? sorry, don't want to offend on my first post.

here it is:
ga-p55m-ud4 mainboard

i7 860 cpu 2.8

corsair XMS3 4 GB PC3-12800 1600Mhz Dual Channel CMX4GX3M2A1600C9
have no idea what is up with all the latency and 9-9-8-1-2-3-4-xyz things are. fingers crossed.

msi gts 250 twinfrozr 1gb card. like this because it has 2 dvi ports on the card. and of course the twin frozr. wtf is a frozr?

corsair 400w i7 approved psu

samsung hd501lj 500gb drive (already had)
seagate 7200.11 barracuda 500gb drive (alread had)
samsung bd-rom/dvd sh-b083 (already had)

as of right now, i'm intending on staying stock (no overclocking) and using the included intel cooling from the i7 box.

antec three hundred case
couple extra 120mm fans for the front

Components look good, except for the PSU.

400W seems too tight for an i7 + the 250

Good luck with your build !

humara said:

corsair XMS3 4 GB PC3-12800 1600Mhz Dual Channel CMX4GX3M2A1600C9
have no idea what is up with all the latency and 9-9-8-1-2-3-4-xyz things are. fingers crossed.

Click to expand...

I know how you feel. It is a mystery. I tried to start a discussion on memory timings to learn a bit more:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1678
As I learn more I'll post against that thread. Hopefully others will chime in too.

You can't go wrong with the 1600MHz CAS 9 memory for the i7.

thanks for the info. the CAS article was very useful, glad to know the memory i bought should work as is.

as for the power supply, i'm pretty confident that the corsair 400w is fine but may be at a slightly too high percentage for peak efficiency. luckily i can still change this.
going to go up to the corsair 450w.
this review is very useful and informative.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/540/7

corsair is very conservative with their wattage ratings and the 450 is actually above 80% efficient up to 570w continuous. but anyway, the 450 with what i am running will be about 87% efficient. the 250 is not a particularly thirsty card from what i can tell.

humara,

I read the review...
It seems the PSU is just like the EA-500 (which I use), except the Corsair is single rail and uses better caps...
You should be fine with it !

can't wait. amazon has shipped everything either next day or 2 day. depending on how/when i ordered it. should have everything ready to install by saturday. i was almost having buyer's remorse and was checking out the 27" imac with i7. $2300 or so. this system was $850. although no fancy 27" display. my trusty dell 20" 1680x1050 should hold me over for a while. i saw a dell 1920x1080 23" IPS for $220 on sale. that'll be a nice extended desktop when i decide to spring for that.

also ordered a targus acb10us bluetooth dongle for $7.99 from shop4tech.com from the sound of it on insanelymac this seems the best way to go.

also ordered an older airport express card on ebay and a pci to mini-pci adapter thing with antennaeii on the back. also seems the least hassleful way to go.

woot!!!!!!!
making this post from my hackintosh.
booyah!
followed the instructions! and it worked. first try.
love the guide from tony. this has been an incredibly esoteric experience, a little annoying but somehow still kinda gratifying. very unmaclike process. but i'd do it again.

Excellent Isn't it amazing watching that welcome to Macintosh video the first time you get your hackintosh running?

Congratulations

humara said:

woot!!!!!!!
making this post from my hackintosh.
booyah!
followed the instructions! and it worked. first try.
love the guide from tony. this has been an incredibly esoteric experience, a little annoying but somehow still kinda gratifying. very unmaclike process. but i'd do it again.

Click to expand...

Kudos !
And now... Show us your system...

all is not perfect. argh
can not for the life of me get audio going.

in system profiler/audio
it shows intel high definition audio
has the device ID
and the audio ID 885
but no available devices
been crazy researching this.
have not found a solution. everytime I think I find something, it's old and already fixed in multibeast 1.1. thinking of deleting /extras and reinstalling 10.6.3 and gigabeast. not sure about that though. there was also the dsdt.ami file thing? looks like that was also updated in multibeast 1.1.0.