(Another) Success - i7-2600k - GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 - 16GB RAM

[dkla]

dkla's Build: i7-2600k - GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 - 16GB RAM​

Component List

Apevia X-QPACK2 micro ATX case with 500 Watt power supply
http://www.amazon.com/Apevia-X-QPACK2-X-QPACK2-BL-500-FireWire/dp/B000QDH80Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1327824986&sr=8-2

GIGABYTE GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3-Intel-Micro-Motherboard/dp/B005484N9W/

Intel Core i7-2600K Processor
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-BX80623I72600K-Core-i7-2600K-Processor/dp/B004EBUXSA/

Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB DDR3 SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengeance-Channel-Memory-CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B/dp/B004RFBIUU/


Already Owned:

Western Digital 1TB Internal HD
ViewSonic 22" Monitor


Comments

Hi everybody. Just a quick note to say that I have completed my build based on the CustoMac Budget Build 2011 successfully... woo hoo! Initial tests show it going ten times faster than my 2008 Mac Mini and just as quiet! And (almost) cheaper too!

SW Installation
This build is very similar to the ones by Gelkamar http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=44850 and alexanderspy http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=45127, so I would definitely follow their very informative thread for detailed steps to reproduce.

And of course the Unibeast http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/10/unibeast-install-mac-os-x-lion-using.html and Dual-Boot http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2009/11/dual-boot-windows-7-and-os-x-snow.html threads too.

I will just go over some of the trials and tribulations the I personally went through, but honestly if you just follow the threads above you should have no problem with your build.

• BIOS
  I immediately updated the BIOS to F12 because I saw there was a DSDT for that revision.
  
  I did my initial BIOS and OS installations with only one RAM stick in (4GB) because I noticed that the BIOS took longer to load with all my reboots and settings. Once everything was stable, I added the other RAM to get up to 16GB. YMMV of course...

• Dual Boot Preparation
  I do not have an optical drive in this system (yet) so all installations I did were from USB flash drives. I prepped three USB drives:
  
  [list:36sgt8hk]1) (8GB) Mac OSX Lion installer via the Unibeast method.
  
  2) (8GB) Windows 7 installer via WinToFlash
  
  3) (1GB) MultiBeast, my DSDT file, other software.
  
  3.5) I also had a Linux boot drive handy (I prefer Mint Linux) as a precaution just to make sure that the system hardware booted correctly.

I formatted the drive as GUID first, then proceeded to install Win7 before OSX as suggested. One quirky thing about the Win7 installer is that it really prefers to be installed from a DVD-- it does work of course, but it asks for the DVD drivers... even if you don't have one. If you are installing Win7 from USB media and have no DVD hardware, here is the workaround:

• 1) Boot the Win7 installer from the USB media
  2) Try to install Win7 -- you will be stumped when it asks you to find the DVD drives and cannot continue.
  3) Cancel the installation. When you get back to the installer's Welcome screen, remove your USB drive and plug it into a different USB port.
  4) Try installing again. It should work this time...

(Thanks to ronbo_22 on the Tom's Hardware forums for this one)

After the Win7 installation finished successfully, I installed OSX Lion. OSX Lion installer wouldn't boot, but when I tried it again with GraphicsEnabler=No it worked fine. I don't have a graphics card yet and am still using the VGA adapter on my monitor, so I will just have to boot with GraphicsEnabler=No for now. [/list:u:36sgt8hk]

Other Remarks
I know I still have a lot more tweaking to do, but I am very happy so far.

I got a Geekbench score of 11500+ (in 32-bit mode) and the system runs quite smoothly and quietly.

The best comparision so far is encoding movies with Handbrake. My Mac Mini Core 2 Duo encodes at 26 fps but this new machine encodes at over 300 fps... a ten-fold increase!!!



Of course, thanks Stork, Tony and the entire community for all their invaluable information and tutorials

 

[dkla]

Another item added: I picked up a DVI-D cable so I don't have to run in VGA mode any more from the motherboard.

I rebooted with GraphicsEnabler=Yes and now it comes up in glorious 1680 x 1050. All with the on-board HD3000 graphics... looks nice!

Next purchase will be a DisplayPort adapter so I can go to 2560 x 1600...