WonkeyDonkey's Steambox Pro - Z87E-ITX - Core i7 4770S - GTX 760 Gaming ITX

[WonkeyDonkey]

Hell of a guide, here!
Just a quick cosmetic tip: to make better screenshots, you could press cmd+shift+4, then press the bar space and you can select any of the open windows on desktop
Congrats!

Thanks. I actually snapped them, then cropped them a bit and resized so they are not too huge. I didnt even know about cmd+shift+4 lol

 

[olliealmighty]

The in-built graphics work ok, but on a 2560x1440 display the performance isn't that great, even for a desktop setup. Its a straight forward setup though yes.

And don't worry about the bios, the hard work has already been done now

Great, thanks for the heads up - I didn't really think about that, I'm not planning to do any gaming or anything, it'd just be nice to drive both screens. I'll check up on the performance of HD4600 then!

Perfect

 

[flicka]

Thanks. I actually snapped them, then cropped them a bit and resized so they are not too huge. I didnt even know about cmd+shift+4 lol

For the same purpose you can use one of little known utilities in Mac OS X: Application/Utilities/Grab.app . This application can do what most of the other “professional” screenshot applications charge for, including selection, window, screen, and timed screenshots. With a few mouse clicks, you will be able to capture and export a screenshot to anywhere on your Mac. The advantage to using Grab over the built-in screen capture shortcuts in OS X is that you won’t clutter up your Desktop with images. Instead, Grab will open up a preview window where you can decide whether or not you want to save the image.

 

[bumgardnern]

Is this a better board for mITX than the one in the buyers guide?

 

[thenamesx86]

Hey WonkeyDonkey,

great work!

Do you got any news from Asrock when 2.30A will be made official on the ASROCK-website? (just wondering - i know we can download it from here)

Thanks again!

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Is this a better board for mITX than the one in the buyers guide?

I think it is since now it doesnt need the bios patching and everything works. Its has good flexibility with 6 sata ports and an msata port on the rear, it has one of those audio amp chips to boost the sound and its very very quick. From what ive seen of the gigabyte board reviews, its much faster, both in terms of performance and definitely for boot/reboot times.

Its now fully compatible with OSX too although the bluetooth on the supplied wifi card didnt work for me, but some other people have reported getting it going.

- - - Updated - - -

Hey WonkeyDonkey,

great work!

Do you got any news from Asrock when 2.30A will be made official on the ASROCK-website? (just wondering - i know we can download it from here)

Thanks again!

Ive not heard anything from Asrock regarding that, no. The 2.30A will do you just fine though.

 

[loztheguru]

Hi all,

New here but having recently sold my iMac I really don't want to wait until the refresh for SSD as standard and this looks very appealing!

May be a silly question, but does the brand of the GPU matter? Looking at an ASUS GTX 760, would the setup be the same? Any other advantages/disadvantages between the two GPUs?

EDIT: It is indeed a silly question! Didn't see the MSI GPU used here was ITX compatible! Will continue the search I suppose!

 

[Stork]

...May be a silly question, but does the brand of the GPU matter? Looking at an ASUS GTX 760, would the setup be the same? Any other advantages/disadvantages between the two GPUs?

EDIT: It is indeed a silly question! Didn't see the MSI GPU used here was ITX compatible! Will continue the search I suppose!

Components (in this case, graphics cards) that compatible with Mavericks are listed in the tonymacx86 Buyer's Guide whose link is located at the top of this page.

 

[thenamesx86]

Ive not heard anything from Asrock regarding that, no. The 2.30A will do you just fine though.

May be worth asking them again in a short message? Maybe they lost track.

Couldn't hurt them making the version official.

You know how it is... Worst case: They lost track and next version (probably Haswell Refresh Bios Update) may come out without your fixes because they got lost cause they were never made official.

Thanks again! Greets

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

May be worth asking them again in a short message? Maybe they lost track.

Couldn't hurt them making the version official.

You know how it is... Worst case: They lost track and next version (probably Haswell Refresh Bios Update) may come out without your fixes because they got lost cause they were never made official.

Thanks again! Greets

Well I have messaged them regarding this, but I have 2.30A tucked away safely here and it is also posted on the forums so should be safe.

I'm also waiting for information back regarding C2 versions of this board.

I got my mitts on their Z87M Extreme4, which has the new C2 version - thats got a big sticker on the front of the box, but I haven't seen anything like this for the Z87E-ITX.