i7-4930K - Asus Rampage IV Extreme - 32GB RAM - GTX 770 4GB [Success!!]

[solal]

Hey Shilohh!

I just wanted to thank you for this incredible guide!

My machine is entirely up and running on 10.10.2 with everything working, from all USB3.0 ports (OOB surprisingly), esata ports, speedstep, OC (could only reach 4.3 with the 64gigs of ram), sleep mode, Bluetooth and even wifi 5Ghz.

Thank you you so much!! Without you I'd be running Windows 8 and probably cursing the OS right now!

RIVBE
4930k
2x GTX770
64GB 2133Mhz

Cheers and keep up the great work!

 

[leftfield11]

Hi Everyone,
I wanted thank Shiloh and everyone else for their help in getting my system going. This has been a great experience and I finally have the mac pro I've wanted for years and could never afford, and doesn't exist anyway now.

Up until about an hour ago I had everything working 100%, to my knowledge. I went in and added a couple 4tb sata drives for storage and now I can't get back in. Initially after making the hardware changes got a CPU fan error and instructions to enter BIOS. I entered the BIOS and exited without saving and I was able to boot into Yosemite. I immediately got 2 errors about not being able to initialize the new drives as I would expect. I rebooted again and got the CPU fan error again, searched the forums for help and found info about setting a low rpm threshold for liquid cooling as to not set alerts. I have a kraken x61 AIO cooler for the CPU. I went into the BIOS and disabled monitoring for the CPU fan. I am now getting a "insert proper boot device" error, I have tried booting with F8 and selecting MacOS and making the boot order changes in the BIOS with no luck.
I am really hoping I don't have to start from scratch since I had already gotten a lot of my things in place since the system had been running like a champ for a week now without issue.
Anyone's help would be greatly appreciated

 

[leftfield11]

I've disconnected all drives except for the SSD boot drive. I now get the error in the pic. Gonna keep looking for a fix. Wondering if it might be better to just start from scratch with all the final hardware in place. I had no issues with the initial install until I added the new drives. I am a little confused since I had already successfully added a 2nd drive before adding the 3rd and 4th with these issues.

 

[leftfield11]

I got it fixed, I went back to the OP, double checked all of my BIOS settings to match the guide. Everything came back up like before. Everything is working like before in addition to the new drives.
Whew! That dropped my stomach for about 12 hours.
Thanks again everyone!

 

[sebtech]

Hello,

After a long moment being busy, I've a little moment to update my mac, so I decide to upgrade from 10.9.5 to 10.10.2. Start fresh and clean I decide to reinstall all from scratch.
like asual Shilohh, great support and guide description. Thanks for that.

I've read many pages here and can't find anyone who has the same issue that mine. I follow all instructions but still have no infos about how to fix it.

Like on mavericks, after installing nvidia webdrivers, I got a blank screen, no video signal. All is working but I have to access through a vnc connection to my machine. GPU is recognized, hardware acceleration ok, but my monitors are not detected....

EDIT

This issue looks like totally random. Sometimes my GPU is not detected, sometimes that's only one of my monitors, sometimes it's both of them, and sometimes all is correctly detected. When it is, I have to wait 45secs to see my monitors turning on.
The only way to fix it for now it's to turn off / turn on again my monitors once os x is started up. (But that's not work everytimes lol)


EDIT2
Just for information, I have also some stability issues with Cinema 4D. For now all crashes have been noticed when I work in the gui, not in render time, so I'm guess this is some OpenGL problems. Absolutely no performance problems with After Effects. I think that's related to my GPU issue mentioned above...

 

[jaxxx]

Really great work Shiloh.

I'm thinking about doing the same config than yours.

It would be my first built and I am just wondering if this config can handle a GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4G without being too tricky to set?

Thansk

 

[WilliamHarp]

Hello,

I am looking to build my first hackintosh. I am aiming to build an audio workstation. 10.9.3 will be the OS ill run. Pro Tools will be the main application I use this computer for. I want to build this to be as quiet as possible. I want my machine to be viable as an entry level video editing computer as I want to get into it in the future. Also, ill play video games on this computer but I am less concerned with performance there.

This thread has been incredibly information so far! However, I have a few questions I was hoping to find the answer to:

Mobo:
I want to use ASUS Sabertooth x79 (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0061XSBZG/) instead of the IV Extreme. Shilohhs first post is very detailed for the IV. Is the Sabertooth very similar in setup, or should I anticipate having to jump through different hoops? And if so, how do I jump through them?

I need the ethernet port to work as Ill be using a EUCON controller thats connected via ethernet

CPU:
The CPU I want to use is the 4930k (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EMHM622/). I want to overclock this to 4.2-4.4 gHz. How do I go about doing this? From my readings, Ive deduced that I have to go into the bios and change a multipler and the voltage. Does anyone have specific numbers I could plugin to achieve reliable clock speeds of ~4.2-4.4 gHz?

Cooling:

Will I be able to have a cool quite system using the Cosair H80i (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A0HZMGA/)? Or will I have to go for the H100i? I want my system to be quiet

RAM:

I want to start off with Crucial Ballistix Elite 16GB(8x2) (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006YG9CU8/). Is this RAM compatibility? Shilohhs post made it seem as though RAM was finicky. I will expand to 32gb in the future, but for the time being will using only 2 sticks in slot 1 and 4 be okay? Or do I need 4 4gb cards for proper functionality?
GPU:

The GPU I want to use is EVGA GeForce GTX 760 4GB w/ ACX Cooler (http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=04G-P4-2767-KR). From everything I can find, this card is natively supported so I shouldn't need to do anything special to get this card work, right? I want to use this card to power a 28'' 4k monitor @ 60hz and a 24'' 1080p monitor @ 60hz. Does this card have the gusto to make that happen? Ive read there are some issues w/ 4k @ 60hz on 10.9.3, have these issues been resolved? Or do I need to go to 10.10?

Display:
The 4K display Ill be using is ASUS PB287Q 28-Inch Screen (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KJGY3TO/)

Storage:

Ill be using the trusty Samsung 850 250GB (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OAJ412U/) for my boot and I have some spare drives ill use for storage

Wifi:

TP-LINK(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GMPZ0A/) I've seen this card in 1150 builds, but not in a 2011 build. Will it work?

ThunderBolt:

I haven't been able to find much on ThunderBolt for socket 2011 builds. Are there any solutions? are there any PCIE cards that are functional? Are there any MoBos coming out in the near future that will have TB?

I want to future proof my machine and I for see my self using TB drives for audio as well as a TB interface

Power:

Even though ill be over clocking, will Corsair Professional Series 760W (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A0HZMEM/) be able to quietly delver enough power to all my components, or should I go for a 850W PSU?

Case:

Ill house everything in this NZXT(http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NGMIBXC/) case. Does anyone have experience with this case? Will I be able to have an easy build and a sturdy quiet system with this case?

I'm curious about some hyper specific compatibly. Has anyone used any of these?

I'm using:
Pro Tools 11.2.2
MOTU Track 16 Interface
NI Komplete Ultimate 9
Waves Gold V9
Ozone 6
Artist Mix EUCON Controller
Maschine NI Controller

Thank you all for reading! I appreciate any and all feedback.

Ill be sure to report back with any further findings. I will be building in the next weeks. I intend to write a very detailed post on my experience to continue to grow the hackintosh community.

Thanks again!

-Will

 

[SteveAtkinsFilm]

I've been reading up on the GTX 780 card i was looking to get and it seems that some people have had problems with it, especially with Adobe programs which is one of my main requirements.

So im thinking of going the GTX 770 or 760 4GB DDR5 route, as those are known to work pretty well, im just wondering about getting 2, on the Gigabyte MOBO X79-UP4, there's 4 16x PCIe lanes, so that would mean im then taking up both of those with 2 GTX 770/760 4GB cards, limiting myself to no PCIe slots above 4x for a Raid card or Decklink?

In the Asus RIVE build shilohh states that with the Asus Rampage Extreme Mobo you can get "5 usable PCI-E slots to allow for 2 double width GPUs, a DeckLink card, a RAID card and a Red Rocket card if you'd like." The Gigabyte board i listed as an alternative for the Asus, has 4 16x PCIe slots and 2 PCIe x1 slots, with is 1 more than the R4E Mobo, im slightly confused about how this PCIe configuration would work?

Also if am running 2 UI Monitors for editing, they are going to have to come out of the GPU surely, so i will need 2 cards to stop myself dragging down the GPU performance for programs?

 

[involver]

@WilliamHarp

I would not use water cooling for a silent machine. Most silent audio workstations use large CPU heatsinks and quiet & slow fans for practically silent operation. Look at something like Thermalright Macho or Noctua. The bigger the better as long as it fits in your case!

Also, if you are concerned about noise then make sure you choose your PSU and GPU carefully. Some motherboards also have fans on them so that's something else to look out for. It also makes sense to choose a case with good airflow to minimise the need for cooling.

Since my machine is only for audio I have a fanless PSU, fanless GPU, large CPU heatsink that can run fanless if I am not overclocking, SSD drives. The loudest thing on my machine is the motherboard, which sometimes makes some faint chirping noises from the chips. I can only hear it if i put my head next to it though

 

[shilohh]

Really great work Shiloh.

I'm thinking about doing the same config than yours.

It would be my first built and I am just wondering if this config can handle a GeForce GTX 970 Gaming 4G without being too tricky to set?

Thansk

Thanks,
The gtx 9xx, 750ti, and newer 780s, 780ti and Titans all require the Nvidia web driver. This makes things a lot more complicated for a new user. The 970 has also seen some performance limitations because it's ram is partitioned in one 3.5gb part and a second .5gb part. When the card tries to use more than 3.5gb, it's gaming performance drops significantly. This would most likely effect post production apps on the os x side too. There may also be some other quirks with functionality like only certain video ports work (which may effect only some or all cards) but not sure what can be done via acpi as I don't have a card to test. You should search around all the Hackintosh forums to see what other early adopters are experiencing. All that being said, I'd stay away from gigabyte and asus branded cards. Also, I'd stay away from anything that has a different output port configuration (the gaming has 6 ports of which 4 could only be used at once) as this could make acpi injection more tricky. If I were buying a new gpu today, I'd go for a 980 but that's not the best choice for a new user.