- Joined
- Nov 9, 2011
- Messages
- 211
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master
- CPU
- i9-9900K
- Graphics
- Vega 56
- Mobile Phone
ManHands' Haswell Build:
i7-4770K - GA-Z87X-UD5H - 32GB RAM - GTX 760
i7-4770K - GA-Z87X-UD5H - 32GB RAM - GTX 760
Components
Apple OS X Mavericks 10.9.5
iTunes
GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD5H LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel MB
Newegg | Amazon
EVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTX 760 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Video Card
Newegg | Amazon
Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
Newegg | Amazon
LG Black 16X BD-R 4MB Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner WH16NS40
Newegg | Amazon
Crucial Ballistix Tactical 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 1600 Memory BLT4KIT8G3D1608DT1TX0
Newegg | Amazon
Fractal Design Define R4 with Window Black Pearl Silent ATX Mid Tower Case
Newegg | Amazon
CORSAIR HX Series HX750 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS GOLD Power Supply
Newegg | Amazon
2 x SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s TLC Internal SSD
Newegg | Amazon
IOGEAR GBU521 USB Bluetooth 4.0 Micro Adapter
Newegg | Amazon
Logitech C920 USB 2.0 certified (USB 3.0 ready) HD Pro Webcam
Newegg | Amazon
Fractal Design Silent Series R2 140mm Fan - Added to front of case to keep hard drives cool
Newegg | Amazon
Noctua NH-D15 SSO2 D-Type Premium CPU Cooler, NF-A15 x 2 PWM Fans
Newegg | Amazon
Already Owned
5 x Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3030ALA630 3 TB 3.5' Internal Hard Drive
Amazon
2 x Acer S231HL Black 23" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor
Newegg | Amazon
Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 for Mac
Newegg | Amazon
Apple Magic Mouse
Amazon
Comments
Background
This is my second build; my first is here. My first build went so smooth, support on these forums is so great, and my itch for newer, faster, and shinier things contributed to this build. I planned out this build a little more than the first, and hopefully the results show. Please note, that this build never sleeps. It's my understanding that all components chosen fully support sleep/wake, but I can't comment on it.
One SSD is for OS X, and the other as a clone drive. Went with the Samsung EVO series based on reviews; and, 250 GB vs 120 GB as I found the latter was too small in my last build. I use multiple virtual machines in Parallels, and these tend to eat up space quickly. Also, decided against the PRO series as reviews had me convinced that performance doesn't warrant the price difference.
There's a few applications that drove my choice in components. I'm sure some may be overkill, but I can live with that. They include the Adobe CS6 Master Suite, Plex Media Server, and Parallels Desktop. The GTX 760 has plenty of power/memory for video rendering and room for more displays. The 4770K helps with HD transcoding for Plex. And, the 32 GB RAM is a nice upgrade from 16 GB in running multiple programs including a VM or two while working with the Adobe Suite at the same time.
NOTE - Haswell seems to be less tolerant of older memory used in 6 & 7 series motherboards. Older memory may result in system freezes. Be sure to use new memory on Gigabyte's list of supported memory, or newer memory that is Haswell ready/approved. The Crucial Ballistix Tactical memory used in this build is on Gigabyte's list, as well as Intel's list. The motherboard recognizes the memory and its respective DDR3 1600 parameters with the BIOS XMP parameter set to Profile1.
The Build
My starting point for all of the components was tonymacx86's monthly buying guide. I went with the Gigabyte MB vs other brands because of seamless hackintosh compatibility, and the UD5H because of the number of SATA ports. The EVGA GTX 760 is a great value for performance at it's price point; EVGA because of brand reputability.
Fell in love with the Fractal R4 case right away. It's sleek, quiet, and has tons of space for my drives, quiet 140mm fans, and lots of room for expansion. I probably don't need more than a 650W power supply, but had to bump it up to the 750W for the added SATA connectors. The HX series was the same price as the TX series at the time, so same price for higher efficiency was a no-brainer. I wish there was room left on the bottom for another 140mm intake fan, but the HX750 won't allow for it. The AX760 is not as deep and would allow, but bad reviews due to hissing steered me away.
Now on to why I have so many damn drives. As mentioned before, I run a Plex media server for family, friends, and of course myself. With a lot of media, comes the need for a lot of drive space. Two of the 3 TB drives are in an Apple striped RAID array. The other three are also striped, and are used for my Time Machine backup. I went with these drives because of warranty, noise levels, and brand reputation. They're a few years old now and nearing end of warranty status, but I've never had any issues. Everything's also backed up remotely, just in case.
All of the peripherals work out of the box. The Logitech K750 has built in keys for OS X, and is fully customizable in System Preferences. It's also fully supported on boot, and in the BIOS. The Magic Mouse works well when paired with the IOGear GBU521 bluetooth module. As in my previous build, I use a USB extension cable to bring the module closer to the mouse. Despite its range, lag occurs every so often if you have the module hidden behind the case. Also went with the Logitech C920 webcam because of hackintosh compatibility. Works out of the box, and very high quality.
Installation Notes
Prepare your USB drive using this guide. After everything is installed in the case, do not plug in all drives. For installation I only had one SSD, 16GB of RAM installed, and only one of the monitors hooked up to the GTX 760. All other drives, second monitor, and additional RAM can be plugged in and installed once OS X installation is complete.
Use the i210AT ethernet port. It's the one on the bottom closest to the audio ports. It's now natively supported as of the Mavericks update. The i217v controller can be used with the AppleIntelE1000.kext, however it's very buggy and dev support seems to be slowly fading. For some, large file transfers over the network fail. For me, using Plex remotely over time would literally freeze the OS and shut down my entire network. Be safe and use the i210 controller with the native Mavericks kext.
CPU Power Management: Although not necessary, native Mavericks power management is achievable by following this guide. The MultiBeast settings that follow below are designed to use a custom SSDT.aml in the /Extra folder. If you intend to go this route -- which I highly recommend -- please follow the guide by toleda in full, and make sure XCPM mode is working prior to any overclock.
UEFI Settings
- Load Optimized Defaults
- Set X.M.P. Memory Profile to Profile1
- Set Uncore Ratio to 39 (see my post here)
- Set Internal Graphics to Disabled (unless you're using)
- Save and reboot
MultiBeast Settings
Post installation is easy, as this board doesn't require a DSDT. Use the following settings and reboot following a successful installation. After rebooting, you may find that iMessage will not log in. The workaround that worked for me was found in this guide. I simply downloaded the attached modules.zip, stuck the FileNVRAM.dylib in my /Extra directory, and rebooted.
If you use the iMac 14,2 System Definition as suggested below, you'll notice the infamous audio pop. This is well documented and there are a few workarounds as documented in this post. I recommend using the workarounds than reverting to another System Definition. If you use say Mac Pro 3,1 instead, you'll be using legacy power management. You won't be able to take advantage of the native XCPM mode in Mavericks.
View attachment Haswell_MultiBeast.mb
NVIDIA Web Drivers (optional)
Some NVIDIA cards deal with an issue where the power will ramp up when using OpenCL applications, but will then get stuck and not idle back down; the GTX 760 being one. Prior to 10.9.3, the only way to fix this was to disable GPU OpenCL support. As of 10.9.3, this was fixed by using NVIDIA's Web Drivers. Simply download, install, and reboot. Upon reboot, you can either choose to use the Web Drivers via the NVIDIA system preferences pane, or modify your Boot.plist and reboot again.
Code:
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>nvda_drv=1</string>
In addition, if you're utilizing applications that use CUDA, you can download and install from here.
Overclock (optional)
I've overclocked to 4.3 GHz with the help of Sin0822's Z87/Haswell OC Guide found here. Temps are good and even when ramped up, the Noctua NH-D15 fans are barely audible. I thought about doing water cooling with this build, but temps are fine and it didn't make sense to spend more money when the air cooling set-up was working well. Plus as a home owner, the sight of water frightens me. The overclock should be done AFTER you've installed OS X, ran MultiBeast, and have XCPM mode working. The following UEFI changes were made.
Code:
Clock Ratio => 43
Uncore Ratio => 40
VRIN Loadline Calibration => Extreme
VRIN External Override => 1.80V
Vcore => 1.30V
RING Voltage => 1.15V
System Agent Voltage => +0.150V
My SSDT.aml was generated using the following:
Code:
sudo ./ssdtprgen.sh -turbo 4300
Credits
A big special thanks to all those who helped make this possible!
tonymac86 - UniBeast
MacMan - MultiBeast
jaymonkey - How to Fix iMessage
toleda - Native CPU/IGPU Power Management
MacAndor - Fix for OpenCL
toleda - Audio - Realtek ALC AppleHDA
king13p - Mod About This Mac
Benchmarks - Geekbench 3, LuxMark, and Unigine Heaven
Changelog
05/29/14 - Updated to 10.9.3. Instructions here.
06/22/14 - Upgraded CPU Cooler to Noctua NH-D15. Post here.
07/03/14 - Updated to 10.9.4. Instructions here.
09/25/14 - Updated to 10.9.5. Instructions here.