A few questions on my first build. Thanks in advance.

[tsatrom]

First off, this site appears to have an awesome community which is full of amazing people. Thanks for everyone's help in advance.

Below is the system I plan on building. Does everything look compatible? I have a few questions about where to start after I put the machine together. I have read through lots of good articles here. The problem is I can never tell what is current and what is out of date. Mostly because I am a noob.

What I like to do is dual boot Lion and Windows 7. I read some good articles on how to do this. I have purchased both snow leopard and lion. Do I even need to use snow leopard at all if I plan on doing a fresh install of Lion?

Any advice and/or links on where to start would be much appreciated.


CASE:
Elite 370 Atx/micro-atx
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003O8 ... 00_details

POWER SUPPLY:
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W Modular High-Performance Power Supply Compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EZ ... 01_details

MOTHERBOARD:
GIGABYTE Socket 1155/Intel H67/DDR3/CrossFireX/SATA3&USB3.0/A&GbE/Micro ATX Motherboard GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004PG ... 00_details

PROCESSOR:
Intel Core i5-2400 3.10 GHz 6 MB Cache Socket LGA1155 Processor
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EB ... 02_details

HARD DRIVE:
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227601

MEMORY:
Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB PC3-12800 1600mHz DDR3 240-Pin SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit for Intel and AMD Platforms CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RF ... 00_details

VIDEO CARD:
GIGABYTE ATI Radeon HD6850 1GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card GV-R685OC-1GD
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004F6 ... 00_details

 

[Jamesbond007]

First off, this site appears to have an awesome community which is full of amazing people. Thanks for everyone's help in advance.

Below is the system I plan on building. Does everything look compatible? I have a few questions about where to start after I put the machine together. I have read through lots of good articles here. The problem is I can never tell what is current and what is out of date. Mostly because I am a noob.

What I like to do is dual boot Lion and Windows 7. I read some good articles on how to do this. I have purchased both snow leopard and lion. Do I even need to use snow leopard at all if I plan on doing a fresh install of Lion?

Any advice and/or links on where to start would be much appreciated.

CASE:
Elite 370 Atx/micro-atx
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003O8 ... 00_details

POWER SUPPLY:
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W Modular High-Performance Power Supply Compatible with Intel Sandy Bridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EZ ... 01_details

MOTHERBOARD:
GIGABYTE Socket 1155/Intel H67/DDR3/CrossFireX/SATA3&USB3.0/A&GbE/Micro ATX Motherboard GA-H67MA-UD2H-B3
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004PG ... 00_details

PROCESSOR:
Intel Core i5-2400 3.10 GHz 6 MB Cache Socket LGA1155 Processor
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EB ... 02_details

HARD DRIVE:
OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227601

MEMORY:
Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB PC3-12800 1600mHz DDR3 240-Pin SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit for Intel and AMD Platforms CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RF ... 00_details

VIDEO CARD:
GIGABYTE ATI Radeon HD6850 1GB DDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card GV-R685OC-1GD
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004F6 ... 00_details

The hardware looks fine. However, are you planning to install both Mac OSX and Windows 7 on the same SSD?

If you have access to a real Mac or Hackintosh, then you can use that to run UniBeast to create the bootable Lion USB stick which will allow you to install Lion without first installing Snow Leopard. If you don't have access to a Mac, then you will have to first install Snow Leopard onto your computer and then either run UniBeast to create the bootable USB stick (the current method) or use xMove (the older method, what I used) to install Lion from within Snow Leopard.

 

[tsatrom]

The hardware looks fine. However, are you planning to install both Mac OSX and Windows 7 on the same SSD?

If you have access to a real Mac or Hackintosh, then you can use that to run UniBeast to create the bootable Lion USB stick which will allow you to install Lion without first installing Snow Leopard. If you don't have access to a Mac, then you will have to first install Snow Leopard onto your computer and then either run UniBeast to create the bootable USB stick (the current method) or use xMove (the older method, what I used) to install Lion from within Snow Leopard.

Thanks so much for your help!. I think I will put in a second SATA hard drive to install Windows on and leave Mac OS on the solid state.

As I am waiting for all my hardware to get here, I got lion all ready to go on my flash drive. I was going to download the DSDT Database for my motherboard. I don't know what the ending F5, F6 and F7 mean? How do I find out which one I have. I attached a picture to show my question.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jamesbond007]

Thanks so much for your help!. I think I will put in a second SATA hard drive to install Windows on and leave Mac OS on the solid state.

As I am waiting for all my hardware to get here, I got lion all ready to go on my flash drive. I was going to download the DSDT Database for my motherboard. I don't know what the ending F5, F6 and F7 mean? How do I find out which one I have. I attached a picture to show my question.

Thanks in advance.

The F5, F6, F7 mean the different BIOS versions of the motherboards. Every once in a while Gigabyte will release new versions of the BIOSes on its motherboards to provide additional features or fix bugs discovered previously. Once you get your motherboard you should check the version of the BIOS on your motherboard (the motherboard manual can show you how) and download the matching DSDT file.

If there is a newer version of the BIOS on the Gigabyte site than that on your motherboard, of course you have the option of upgrading the BIOS on the motherboard as well. But if you wish to do that, check whether the DSDT database has a matching DSDT file for the new BIOS version of your motherboard.

 

[tsatrom]

Thank you kind sir.

Thanks so much for your help!. I think I will put in a second SATA hard drive to install Windows on and leave Mac OS on the solid state.

As I am waiting for all my hardware to get here, I got lion all ready to go on my flash drive. I was going to download the DSDT Database for my motherboard. I don't know what the ending F5, F6 and F7 mean? How do I find out which one I have. I attached a picture to show my question.

Thanks in advance.

The F5, F6, F7 mean the different BIOS versions of the motherboards. Every once in a while Gigabyte will release new versions of the BIOSes on its motherboards to provide additional features or fix bugs discovered previously. Once you get your motherboard you should check the version of the BIOS on your motherboard (the motherboard manual can show you how) and download the matching DSDT file.

If there is a newer version of the BIOS on the Gigabyte site than that on your motherboard, of course you have the option of upgrading the BIOS on the motherboard as well. But if you wish to do that, check whether the DSDT database has a matching DSDT file for the new BIOS version of your motherboard.