Mini-ITX Hackintosh build help

[Alean]

Hello everyone on this cozy forum,

I initially posted this on the LinusTechTips forum, but quickly got redirected here.

This is the original post from over there (took me a while to write so I hope you're fine with me copying it over):
"Fellow forum members,
I call upon your expertise for I need help.

Now let me give you some information on the situation (nothing crazy or unheard, but it'll hopefully give you a better look on this case).
A friend of mine (PC hater, Mac Fanboy), asked my help to build him a Hackintosh desktop. He is a student (17 years old, about to go to Uni), who gets payed well enough to afford a laptop as well as a desktop. The machine is not meant to be a gaming rig, mostly a workstation for text editing and browsing (Don't tell me about the utter stupidity of building such an expensive rig for such nonsense tasks

. I tried to convince him too). The budget is respectively $1200.
His demands were:
- Small case (about the size of an Xbox One)
- SSD (Lightning fast boot speeds)
- Intel core i7 with at least 4 cores and a decent clock speed


He left a lot of blank spots. Its up to me to fill those in.

Regarding the CPU, I was debating on a i7 4820k and an i7 4770k. Now the 4770K has better overall performance, but the performance/$ isn't all to great compared to the 4820k.
All your input on the CPU is more then welcome!

The case is a close call. There are not many Mini-ITX cases that are flat like an Xbox One. There are two candidates in my opinion: The Lian Li PC-Q19 and the Silverstone Raven RVZ02.
Lian Li's design is unbelievably sleek, but about 1.5x the size of what the Raven RVZ02 is claimed to will be. I personally prefer the RVZ02 due to the fact that it has exactly the width and height of an Xbox, its just 90mm deeper. Another con to this case is that it is not yet released. This means that I'll have to postpone building this system until the case + the fact that not everything is known about the case itself. Will it be any good in the first place?

The GPU was an easy choice, I was thinking of a GTX 960 reference. I need to keep compatibility with the case, OS and motherboard in mind.
When I say "it was an easy choice" I actually mean I just took a wild stab in the dark and went with the graphics card that seems most fitting to me. Now I am not an expert on this matter, all help and suggestions are welcome.

I have never worked with Mini-ITX, so I have not a clue what motherboard has best overall durability, compatibility, price etc. I wanted to leave this topic up to your expertise.

RAM is not a big concern of mine. This system doesn't need lightning fast RAM, something like 1600MHz or 1866MHz should fine (I hope

). Don't worry about the RAM, I'll figure it out.

The power supply has to fit the case, I'd say something around 400-500 Watt 80 plus gold should cut it. I am not a power supply expert either, so any advice is helpful.

I am not sure how I am going to cool the system yet... The case probably doesn't support water cooling, so that's not an option. It would be lovely if you guys could help me figure out the best cooling solution to this setup.



That about concludes it. If I am unclear at certain points, please make sure to let me know and ask me!

All the help is awesomely much appreciated! Any tips or tricks on the actual assembling is always nice since I am not really considered an experienced builder. I did watch Linus's and Luke's video on Hackintosh machines.

Warm regards, Alean."

I hope the hackintosh community can help my with my struggles.

Thanks in advance,
Alean.

 

[neilhart]

Building a small OS X box with i7 CPUs is something that I understand. Generally not a good idea as the problem is getting the heat out of the box. i7-4770K and i7-4790K are the popular CPUs today can get frying pan hot quickly. Needed is an active CPU cooler which really don't play well in small flat boxes.

Now the solution is to choose a low power (watts) CPU so you don't generate the heat to begin with. I am particularly fond of the i7-4770T at 45 watts and have built several very small boxes with it.

What I don't understand is adding any Maxwell card (gaming rig or not) to a build today (that is just my bias and not shared by many).

Min-ITX boxes that can use the on-board GPU are best way to keep the size down and the system cool.

Good modding,
neil

 

[Alean]

Building a small OS X box with i7 CPUs is something that I understand. Generally not a good idea as the problem is getting the heat out of the box. i7-4770K and i7-4790K are the popular CPUs today can get frying pan hot quickly. Needed is an active CPU cooler which really don't play well in small flat boxes.

Now the solution is to choose a low power (watts) CPU so you don't generate the heat to begin with. I am particularly fond of the i7-4770T at 45 watts and have built several very small boxes with it.

What I don't understand is adding any Maxwell card (gaming rig or not) to a build today (that is just my bias and not shared by many).

Min-ITX boxes that can use the on-board GPU are best way to keep the size down and the system cool.

Good modding,
neil

Hi Neil,

I'll make sure to look into low TDP CPU's!
The case supports a medium sized GPU and the "customer" wants a "capable" rig, so why not just put in a small and low power card?

Anyhow, thanks for the help!

Gr Alean