1st Hackintosh: New and Recycled parts proposed

[siyak]

Hi all,

I've been a long time lurker on the forum but I need someone to just confirm my understanding.

I want to build a system as powerful as a Mac Mini (akak HD 4000 GPU) with the opportunity to add a dedicated GPU at a later stage if need be.

I currently own:

i7-920
Asus P6T Deluxe V1
ATI Radeon 4870X2
80Gb Intel SSD
2x 1Tb HDD

However I want the most hassle free system to begin with so I plan on buying:

i7-3770
Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH
and use the HD 4000 GPU initially.

Does it matter what HDD and SSD one uses, if not can I just reuse my current ones?

Also can someone indicate the likely areas of problems I should research for the motherboard before I buy. E.g. Sleep function, Ethernet, Audio?

Many thanks,

Siyak

 

[DBP]

I want to build a system as powerful as a Mac Mini (akak HD 4000 GPU) with the opportunity to add a dedicated GPU at a later stage if need be.

[...]

I plan on buying:

i7-3770
Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH
and use the HD 4000 GPU initially.

And with that you'll have a system which is more powerful than the current top-of-the-line Mac mini. And more expandable.

Does it matter what HDD and SSD one uses, if not can I just reuse my current ones?

Your current ones would be fine.

Also can someone indicate the likely areas of problems I should research for the motherboard before I buy. E.g. Sleep function, Ethernet, Audio?

Problems with that board? Haven't noticed any yet.
There are quite a few successful build posts using this board, check them out.
Only issue to keep in mind is that the USB3 header nearest the RAM slots on the board is not connected to a USB3 hub, so USB2 storage devices will not work at the moment without an external USB3 hub. All the other USB3 ports on the board do go through hubs, so they Just Work.

 

[siyak]

Thank you for the speedy reply.

Only issue to keep in mind is that the USB3 header nearest the RAM slots on the board is not connected to a USB3 hub, so USB2 storage devices will not work at the moment without an external USB3 hub. All the other USB3 ports on the board do go through hubs, so they Just Work.

Does this mean that all the ports on the motherboards I/O panel work?

Also what's the difference between a USB port and hub? I'm a little rusty on that side of the tech.

 

[DBP]

Does this mean that all the ports on the motherboards I/O panel work?

Yes. And it's only if you want to connect USB2 devices to those two USB3 ports on the header near the RAM that you need to do it via USB3 hubs. All other ports Just Work.

Also what's the difference between a USB port and hub? I'm a little rusty on that side of the tech.

A hub is sort of a multi-port repeater. It takes one connection from the host and splits it out into more "downstream" ports. Obviously all those downstream devices (which could include more hubs splitting things further) share the bandwidth of the single host port, but that's less of an issue with USB3 than it was with USB2.

As a MacBook user for years (with only 2 USB ports) I'm very familiar with the use of USB2 hubs...


The Z77 chip only has 4 USB3 ports. On the Z77X-UP5 TH, two of those go directly to that header near the RAM, and each of the other two go to a VIA 4-port hub on the motherboard. The 4 downstream ports from one of those go to the 4 USB3 ports on the back panel, and the 4 ports from the other hub go to the other USB3 headers on the motherboard.

As for external USB3 hubs, here's an example (on eBay) of one that I've used to connect USB2 and USB3 drives to the USB3 ports of my H77N build. http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/PC-External-USB3-0-4-Port-Hub-Extension-Share-Adapter-Super-Speed-5Gbps-w-Cable-/280800572723.
USB3 devices will work directly without going through the hub, but they work through it as well.

 

[siyak]

Thanks for taking to the time to explain that, can I just check I understood it correctly:

So it would look like this (forgive the crudeness of the diagram)



The only issue being in text box (d) only USB 3 would function not USB 2 without an additional hub?

I might be jumping the gun here a bit, when I get my copy of Mountain Lion up and running do users on the forum tend to avoid using Software Update or is that generally safe to do?

 

[DBP]

Yep, that diagram's good.

The only issue being in text box (d) only USB 3 would function not USB 2 without an additional hub?

Yes, at least for USB2 storage class devices. You may find keyboards/etc work OK without a hub, but you'd probably have those connected to a USB2 port anyway...

do users on the forum tend to avoid using Software Update or is that generally safe to do?

I haven't been here long enough to see, but even in the pure-Apple world it's generally a good idea to wait for a while and see if other people report problems.
It really depends on the content of the update, so there's no simple answer. I'm sure there'll be plenty of eager beavers here ready to test it for you.