First steps in Hackintosh. Mobo, HD questions :)

[JanHo]

Hello everyone,


I've spent the afternoon looking at reviews and finding parts for my machine. Heres what I got so far:


Mobo: I'm thinking about the Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H instead of the GA-Z77X-UD5H. I've seen it suggested in a few topics here as a viable alternative. But its not on the list of january 2013. UD5H is and I've also read that almost everyone on here uses it. The UD5H has a lot more USB ports and the ability to run SLI cards. I don't think I'm ever going to need the SLI functionality, and my current laptop only has 2 USB slots. So I'm not going to need 10 of them . As far as I can tell, it fits the rest of my hardware perfectly. I'm not sure how much a mobo contributes to the speed of the machine.


Processor: Intel core i7 3770. I think its plenty fast for my budget. Not sure if I need the unlocked multiplier from the K version. the K version is also 100 mhz faster. But it costs 40 euro's more. This comes from the january list so should give me little to no problems.


RAM: Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M2A160 (16gb). Comes from the list if I'm not mistaken so I don't expect any problems. If I'm right I need to use 8gb's while installing tho.


GPU: ASUS GTX 670 DC2. A nice silent card, that can achieve the 680 with some over clocking if I'm not mistaken, and the website I got this info from is correct. The GTX670 is on the january list as well. But I'm not sure yet if using any of the after-market brands will give me problems?


SSD: Samsung 830, 128gb.


Normal HD: Western Digital 1tb SATA600. This should work on my motherboard if I'm not mistaken. Does anyone have a better alternative that will work?


Housing: Probably the corsair Carbide 500R black. Cause it comes with 4 fans for the price and has plenty of room. I might look around for a cheaper housing to bring my budget down a little bit. But I'm not sure about airflow or room for all my components. Anyone have any good suggestions on this?


Power: Seasonic G serie 450watt. Not sure if this is enough power but I got it out of a list somewhere. If its not enough I got the Corsair gold AX650 (650watt) on standby. That will bring my total cost up by 40 euro's. Do you know the Seasonic Brand and if I have enough watt's for my system?


Optical drive: LG GH24NS90, haven't checked wether this is compatible tho. I'll check that out asap.


Its around 1152,78 total from a quick glance around.


What do you guys think? ^_^ Its for video-editing, visual effects and gaming (dual boot Windows 7).

 

[Going Bald]

Hello everyone,


I've spent the afternoon looking at reviews and finding parts for my machine. Heres what I got so far:


Mobo: I'm thinking about the Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H instead of the GA-Z77X-UD5H. I've seen it suggested in a few topics here as a viable alternative. But its not on the list of january 2013.


What do you guys think? ^_^ Its for video-editing, visual effects and gaming (dual boot Windows 7).

It is not on the list due to the problems with the rev 1.1 board's Atheros network NIC.

Try the UD4H if you think the UD5H is overkill for you.

 

[JanHo]

Aha thanks! I'll look up tomorrow what that means ^_^

Also another general question: I see that the processor comes equipped with a graphics processor as well. Is it worth it to invest in a processor with a better graphics processor if I'm already investing in a good GPU? Will they help each other? Or won't the processor's GPU do a thing when I have a good external GPU installed?

 

[nobodynose]

Hello everyone,
RAM: Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M2A160 (16gb). Comes from the list if I'm not mistaken so I don't expect any problems. If I'm right I need to use 8gb's while installing tho.

Almost any RAM should work. The Corsair is good quality. Many people (including myself) have installed with all 16GB in place. But if you have installation problems (which I don't think you will), remove one and see if that helps.

GPU: ASUS GTX 670 DC2. A nice silent card, that can achieve the 680 with some over clocking if I'm not mistaken, and the website I got this info from is correct. The GTX670 is on the january list as well. But I'm not sure yet if using any of the after-market brands will give me problems?

As long as it's a reference card (i.e. one built according to Nvidia's specs) it shouldn't matter too much what the brand is. Asus is reputable.

Normal HD: Western Digital 1tb SATA600. This should work on my motherboard if I'm not mistaken. Does anyone have a better alternative that will work?

Hard drives, like SSDs and RAM, are basically commodity items, so almost any should work fine. There are 2 caveats:
(1) If you're using a hard drive larger than 1TB as your boot drive, your Mac OS X boot partition cannot be greater than 1TB. I assume this isn't a problem in your case, as you're buying an SSD, presumably to use as your boot drive.
(2) Hard drives with a 4K sector size (as opposed to the old standard 512b sector size) cannot be used as boot drives without performing a workaround.

Power: Seasonic G serie 450watt. Not sure if this is enough power but I got it out of a list somewhere. If its not enough I got the Corsair gold AX650 (650watt) on standby. That will bring my total cost up by 40 euro's. Do you know the Seasonic Brand and if I have enough watt's for my system?

Seasonic is considered a good brand. They actually makes the PSUs for a lot of other companies. As far as power is concerned, according to the PSU calculator at http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp, your list of components requires at least 363W. So a good quality 450W (like the Seasonic you've chosen) should do.

 

[JanHo]

Awesome! Thanks for the answers. Whats funny is that your the first person to say 450 watts is enough :0 2 other people on another website sais I needed the 650 at least. Ill read in to power management this evening and checkmout the tool you posted. Might need to put in a newer mobo so that might change things.

Im going to partition the TB in 200 gb for windows and the rest for mac. But ill be booting of the ssd for sure