- Joined
- Sep 30, 2011
- Messages
- 45
- Motherboard
- Z390 Designare
- CPU
- i7 9700K
- Graphics
- UHD 630
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
balaclava9's build: Core i7-3770 - GA-Z77X-UP5 TH - 16GB RAM - HD4000
basic video editing machine
based on Stork's Golden Build
basic video editing machine
based on Stork's Golden Build
Components
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z77X-UP5-TH Motherboard with Thunderbolt and Intel Integrated Graphics
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008LTB3QW/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128559
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K Processor Unlocked for Overclocking and HD4000 Capable
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SZ0EOW/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116501
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Arctic White
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008HD3EA0/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352024
Power Supply: Corsair HX 750
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090I9VZI/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010
CPU Cooler: ThermalRight Macho Rev. A.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009MS326U/
Extra Case Fan: Thermalright TY-141 140 mm, 2 ball bearing fan, low noise
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00767HPYO/
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006EWUO22/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233246
SSD (x2): SanDisk Extreme 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006EKJCWM/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820171567
SATA Card: Syba 2-Port SATA PCI Card
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/08/increasing-disk-performance-sata-6gbs.html
WirFi: TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless N900 PCI Express Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GMPZ0A/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704133
Blu-ray r/w: LG Electronics 14x SATA Blu-ray Internal Rewriter without Software, Black (WH14NS40)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VPGL5U/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136250
Firewire Adapter: 6-Pin & 4-Pin IEEE 1394a FireWire Expansion Bracket
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0046VYLOA/
Keyboard: Apple Wired Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005DLDTAE/
Already Owned
Hard Drives: (7x) Various SATA 3.5" Internal HDs
Display: Dell U2713HM 27" 2560x1440 Display
Mouse: 1999-era iMac mouse
Comments
- debug LED on the motherboard was great! helped my find that I didn't seat my RAM properly and that was preventing the machine from booting up.
- with a case that can fit 8 drives and two media drives, I realized that I needed two more ports than the motherboard offered. I got the asm 1061 card. It works! I have 6x storage drives as JBOD, 1x ML boot SSD, 1x w7 boot SSD, 1x optical drive running now.
- there are two spots on the back of the motherboard mounting plate that can mount two SSD drives. I didn't put them there initially because I thought it might bring extra heat close to CPU. But, if I turn out to need more drives, as having lots of storage is important to me, I might rethink this, and change my 2 port data PCI card for a 4 port if there is such a thing.
- the Fractal Design case comes with one front fan one rear fan, both 3 pin. I put both those fans in the front of the case connected to the 5v - 7v - 12v switch. and then the Thermalright case fan on the sys1 fan header. Though the motherboard does seem to change its speed, it hands around 1050rpm most of the time. I was hoping it would go quieter and slower than that.
- WiFi card worked out of the box!
- the Firewire bracket works nicely. I unscrewed the 4pin cable from the bracket.
Issues
- FIXED: After my MultiBeast install, I had a problem where after the machine booted. I had to unplug my monitor and plug it in again to get the picture to show up. I used the graphics mode key in the /Extra/org.chameleon.Boot.plist with instructions I found in this post, and now it works like a charm.
I have to unplug/plug my monitor after booting. now my 27" 2560x1440 dell u2713hm works on both MDP1 and MDP2! see thread with the solution: I have to unplug/plug my monitor after booting
- MOSTLY FIXED: audio skips randomly. big pain when working with movies! the problem is intermittent. see threads: GA-B75M-D3P Audio Skipping, GA-Z77X-UP5 Audio Glitch, ALC898 Audio Dropouts. Currently trying the orange rear audio output as suggested in the ALC898 thread. will report back here if the skip / glitch / dropout continues or doesn't! Edit: I've watched 5 or 6 movies and listened to lots of music on the orange port. No more dropouts! Edit: Orange worked great for several months, now trying the black rear port as suggested in a new post on the above thread: no problems noticed so far listening to music for 7 hours
Things to Improve
- a drive plugged into the 7th port on the motherboard or into the Syba PCI Card appears as eject-able in OS X ... I'm not sure why exactly, or if I can fix that, but I would like to. EDIT: In comment #5 DBP explains this issue. I'm going to try the 3rd Party ktext!
- FIXED: during the POST screen the Syba Card holds things up. It shows that the card has loaded, and it asks "Press Any Key to Exit". The system pauses for a bit, then continues to boot with a rapid flicker of the Gigabyte POST image. Then it boots normally. EDIT: as per DBP's reply #5 to this thread, I edited my BIOS settings and improved this!
- fan cooling. I'm running the two front fans at +7V so that they're quieter. not sure what to do here. I may try to do pressure positive cooling to keep dust out. I'd need to add intake fans. the PMW 4-pin fan on the top rear exhaust is now usually around 1050 RPM. it's a little louder than i'd like. EDIT: Running the intake fans at +12V for the last while. no change in CPU Fan RPM (550) or Exhaust fan RPM (1050) a bit louder, but maybe more dust-free. i'm thinking of adding an intake fan on the bottom as per DBP's great build: http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...z77x-up5-th-photography-beast.html#post519852
- haven't tried several things yet: Blu-ray read or write, daisy chaining on the 1394a bracket, thunderbolt drive, thunderbolt FW800 adapter.
Multibeast Configuration
I used the same configuration as Stork's
Updating to 10.8.3 According to Stork's Post
Benchmarks
I've added an attachment with the system benchmarks from xBench. the thread test didn't seem to be working properly for me. i haven't looked into it.
Yosemite Update
My 10.9.5 install lost sound for some reason, and so I decided to upgrade. First I tried Clover and El Capitan, but ended up with a garbled boot screen, which I tried to fix according to some patch recommended in the forums for a garbled boot screen. It partially helped, but then I applied another patch and started causing kernel panics. I'm a little short on time, so I decided to dial it back to something a bit more reliable. I'm going with Chimera and 10.10.5. This is my important production machine, so I need something really stable, so I can focus on work. This install went more smoothly, but I'm still getting a garbled screen after seeing the first progress bar, but before login. Otherwise the system seems to be in good shape. Will work more on this when I get the chance.