First Hackintosh with GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5?

[weemanpow3]

I'm a long time Mac user owning many Mini Macs, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros. I decided it's time to step up to a iMac 27" for my design & code work. After seeing the prices of top tier iMacs, I started looking into alternatives and saw I could build a very powerful Hackintosh for half the price. On my current MacBook Pro setup, I use OS X 10.9.3 for work apps (Adobe CC design apps / VM / and many other apps that are OS X only) and Windows 8 mostly for games.

So I put together a list of components following closely to the recommend buyer guides. I plan on buying this setup when the Devil's Canyon Intel CPUs are released.

CPU: i7-4790K
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5
SSD: Crucial MX100 512GB
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 16GB DDR3-1600
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB
PSU: Rosewill Hive 550W Semi-Modular
Case: BitFenix Prodigy M

My goal with this setup is to have as much compatibility as possible without having to modify something every time I use the computer. OS X updates patching is understandable. The only part I’m not sure of is the motherboard compatibility due to being Z97. I read about the sound and LAN fixes that need to be applied until Apple release support for Z97. Should I stick with this motherboard or look for an alternative Z87 Gigabyte? The motherboard would need support for the new CPU.

Also, what OS X features won’t work if any eg. AirDrop, iCloud, Time Machine, FaceTime, iMessages, App Store, etc…?

 

[DrEskimo]

Haven't seen a build with that motherboard so hard to tell. Some companies have stated that the new Haswell refresh should be compatible on the Z87 chipset with the latest BIOS. Not sure if Gigabyte have confirmed yet? Might be worth waiting until release to make sure.

 

[VioletDragon]

my friend has this board we have set the bios configurations correctly how ever it installs OSX just fine but when booting after installation of OSX it kernel panics it will only boot in safe mode with -x any ideas anyone we have tried everything but it just won't seem to boot in normal mode?

 

[SunLizard]

I have this board with i7 and Nvidia 680. Works fine under 10.9.3. If you go Chimera method, remember you'll have to add the 9 series fix for sound (found here), EFI Support for sound, and ALC 1150 to get sound to work. Rest of install is pretty straight forward. I did have a few issues with initial boot when BT devices were installed but cold booting with nothing plugged in seemed to fix it - once you have a stable system up, then start plugging things in.

Bottom line: Works fine.

 

[halfer]

If you go Chimera method, remember you'll have to add the 9 series fix for sound (found here), EFI Support for sound, and ALC 1150 to get sound to work.

I tried it on 10.9.5 and it didn't work. Are you still on 10.9.3? If not, and you're on 10.9.5 currently, does the sound work for you?

 

[allgreyarea]

I did my initial build with this board last night.

Gigabyte Z97MX-Gaming 5
Intel i7-4790K 4.4 Ghz
16 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3
256GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD

Used Clover r2953 (latest)
Yosemite 10.10 from the App Store
Atheros E2201E onboard network working with "atherose2200ethernet.kext 1.0.0" driver
TPLINK TL-WDN4800 Wifi card working out of the box
GMYLE Micro USB Bluetooth 4.0 working out of the box

I'm going to work on the ACL1150 sound card tonight. I did an injection find/replace with Clover, but realized that I skipped a step. Thanks to the original developer for that info.
I haven't tested sleep/wake functionality yet.

The Geek Bench multi-core score was 16984.

 

[Reached]

Hey allgreyarea,

Please keep us updated about your progress, I have considered getting the exact same setup that you list there !

 

[brenmcrae]

Here is a link to my Guide. Everything Works Perfect! I don't have a GPU yet but I included a link to get it set up at the bottom of my guide.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...i5-4690k-integrated-hd4600-runs-flawless.html