First Build - Need Somebody to Double Check

[blackthund3r]

Hi guys and girls! First of all I'm Chris and I've been lurking these forums for over two years. I'm very competent with all things PC/Mac (as well as hackintoshing generally) but now I'm about to spend some money I was hoping somebody could check this build over for me! Thanks

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570k (stock cooler for now)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H
RAM: 8GB Corsair Ballistix Sport (2x4GB Kit, dual channel)
SSD: OCZ SLD-3-23SAT3-120G (SATA III 120GB SSD)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB - SATA III - 7200RPM
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B
GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GT 640 2GB (Overclocked)
Wi-Fi: TP-Link WDN4800 (of course!)
NIC: TP-Link TG-3269 (I wanted a secondary NIC anyway but I can easily live with this one until the DS3H rev1.1 issue is properly sorted)

Case: Zalman Z9-U3
PSU: Coolermaster GX Lite 600W PSU
Standard USB Keyboard & Mouse
Cheap Speakers (Logitech LS11)
Also an extra SATA Cable as there's only two included with the DS3H
Cheap USB3 Flash Drive (although I'm aware I'll be stuck with the USB2 ports for the installation until I get working USB3 kexts installed, if available)

Whilst most of the components came straight off the compatibility list, the OCD kicked in and I thought I'd double check!

I also wanted to know which ports of the GT 640 card work best. I have an HDMI cable lying around so I was planning to buy a cheap HDMI monitor unless somebody says that VGA and/or DVI-D work better. Even if the compatibility are identical, is there an advantage of one over another? And if I get a monitor with speakers built in, will the HDMI sound work or would I only have luck with VGA/DVI-D + separate sound cable?

As for the installation I'm planning to use my Snow Leopard DVD plus iBoot for Ivy Bridge in order to get a system working as far as desktop and USB (I can even copy the files over from another PC with internet access if neither of the three NICs work in SL! ) so I can make the UniBeast USB and nuke the SSD again.

Finally, any issues with Windows 8? I'm planning to dual boot 64GB/64GB on the SSD and make the 1TB HDD an HFS+ volume (apparently this is the best option due to BootCamp drivers in Windows being much better than NTFS ones in Mac OS X and FAT32 being generally sucky due to the 4GB limit etc).

Many thanks!

 

[nobodynose]

Finally, any issues with Windows 8? I'm planning to dual boot 64GB/64GB on the SSD and make the 1TB HDD an HFS+ volume (apparently this is the best option due to BootCamp drivers in Windows being much better than NTFS ones in Mac OS X and FAT32 being generally sucky due to the 4GB limit etc).

Many thanks!

You'll find that 64GB will get quite cramped very quickly on both OSes (but especially Windows) once you start installing any applications. My opinion is you'd be better off with two separate 128GB SSD's (if you can stretch your budget a little, they're becoming pretty cheap), one for OS X and one for Windows.

If I'm not mistaken, Boot Camp does not work on non-Apple hardware; you're going to have to rethink your plan to format the HDD as HFS+. However, there are solutions; there are third-party NTFS drivers available for Mac OS X (there are two implementations, from Tuxera and Paragon, each is $19.95), and there are third-party HFS+ drivers available for Windows (from Paragon for $19.95 and from MacDrive for $49.99).

 

[Stork]

For Multi Booting, especially with a 60GB SSD, I'd go with separate drives. I recommend using the SSD drive for the OS you are going to be in the most or the need for speed; the other OS can go on a HDD.

I recommend Going Bald's Multi Boot Guide: http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leop...multibooting-novice-updated-3-12-see-log.html

 

[blackthund3r]

For Multi Booting, especially with a 60GB SSD, I'd go with separate drives. I recommend using the SSD drive for the OS you are going to be in the most or the need for speed; the other OS can go on a HDD.

I recommend Going Bald's Multi Boot Guide: http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leop...multibooting-novice-updated-3-12-see-log.html

Guide looks really helpful. Thanks! As for multibooting, I think I'll put Windows on the HDD and perhaps buy an SSD later and image it over. I suppose Chameleon will be able to chainload the second HDD's bootloader (i.e. Windows 8)

Any information with regards to the outputs on the GPU? I've seen in some places that certain cards have issues with certain outputs. Can I use any VGA/DVI-D/HDMI connection as display #1 fully accelerated? Or is one better than other? Because I'm also looking for a cheap monitor and getting HDMI seems to cost a fair bit more in comparison to getting a DVI-D or VGA so I'm wondering whether it is worth the £30+ for a decent monitor with HDMI.
The exact card I'm looking at is here: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...ds/nvidiagt640keplerseries/gv-n640oc-2gi.html

 

[nobodynose]

I did wonder if 64GB would be enough or not. Plus some SSDs have less due to parity flash chips so I'll have to rethink this one. Maybe it's a better idea to give Windows 8 a partition on the data drive. I won't get 4-5 second SSD boots though haha. But then again I am building this machine primarily for OS X anyway.



Using the Boot Camp drivers is discussed here: http://-- NON-TMX SUPPORTED INSTALL.../04/106-free-native-read-of-hfs-disks-in.html (I have an SL disc so this isn't an issue). It's just a question of whether it would be better to rip open the Boot Camp MSI to take just the HFS+ drivers, install the lot or go with a commercial solution. I would have gone with Paragon (and that was my plan up until a couple of weeks ago)

Oh, I just assumed you were planning to go with the full Boot Camp setup (which definitely won't work on a hackintosh). I've heard that Mac Drive has better performance than Paragons HFS+ solution for Windows (though it's also more expensive). One more thing on the topic of SSDs - personally I would stay away from OCZ SSDs. I've had multiple bad experiences with them. I'd stick with SanDisk, Samsung, Crucial M4, or perhaps Corsair. Just my opinion, based on my experience.

 

[nobodynose]

Guide looks really helpful. Thanks! As for multibooting, I think I'll put Windows on the HDD and perhaps buy an SSD later and image it over. I suppose Chameleon will be able to chainload the second HDD's bootloader (i.e. Windows 8)

Any information with regards to the outputs on the GPU? I've seen in some places that certain cards have issues with certain outputs. Can I use any VGA/DVI-D/HDMI connection as display #1 fully accelerated? Or is one better than other? Because I'm also looking for a cheap monitor and getting HDMI seems to cost a fair bit more in comparison to getting a DVI-D or VGA so I'm wondering whether it is worth the £30+ for a decent monitor with HDMI.
The exact card I'm looking at is here: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...ds/nvidiagt640keplerseries/gv-n640oc-2gi.html

You definitely can't use VGA. DVI and HDMI will both work equally well - in fact, I found DVI easier to get going; in some cases you have to jump through extra hoops to get HDMI working properly, at least at boot time. It really depends on the graphics card.

 

[blackthund3r]

You definitely can't use VGA. DVI and HDMI will both work equally well - in fact, I found DVI easier to get going; in some cases you have to jump through extra hoops to get HDMI working properly, at least at boot time. It really depends on the graphics card.

Thanks for the advice! I've tweaked my build now so it uses DVI. 35 Days till I can give this thing a spin!

 

[blackthund3r]

Oh, I just assumed you were planning to go with the full Boot Camp setup (which definitely won't work on a hackintosh). I've heard that Mac Drive has better performance than Paragons HFS+ solution for Windows (though it's also more expensive). One more thing on the topic of SSDs - personally I would stay away from OCZ SSDs. I've had multiple bad experiences with them. I'd stick with SanDisk, Samsung, Crucial M4, or perhaps Corsair. Just my opinion, based on my experience.

Before seeing this I actually changed to a Samsung 830 Series SSD because of far superior IOPS for random data (~80,000 vs 7,000 or so).

I guess the ultimate question is whether it will be easier to use HFS+ on Windows or NTFS on Mac. I'm starting to lean towards NTFS because reading is native in Mac anyway and due to the way Unix mounts things, it will be more user-friendly (ie it will *just work* like any other drive and get its own mount point). Although MacDrive does this on Windows I don't feel that it is completely native (feels like more of a hack). Plus Mac is so free with filenames that I'm more likely to put something on an HFS+ drive that can't be read in Windows.