Mostly Harmless' Build - Core i5-3570K - GA-Z77-DS3H - 8GB

[Mostly Harmless]

Mostly Harmless' Build - Core i5-3570K - GA-Z77-DS3H - 8GB RAM - HD6870

Components

Intel Core i5-3570K
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007RUZKK6/[/amazon-uk]

Gigabyte Z77-DS3H (F6 BIOS)
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B007KZQFOS/[/amazon-uk]

Corsair Carbibe 500R Midi PC Tower
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B005E983JW/[/amazon-uk]

Zalman CNPS9900 MAX Heatsink and Fan
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0046Y79HS/[/amazon-uk]

Corsair 8Gb 1600MHz Vengeance Memory
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004CRSM4I/[/amazon-uk]

Corsair 650HX PSU
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002W62QJI/[/amazon-uk]

Sapphire HD6870 1GB
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004R7MTPQ/[/amazon-uk]

Crucial M4 128Gb
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004W2JKZI/[/amazon-uk]

SanDisk Cruzer 16Gb
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00422DCB6/[/amazon-uk]

Dell U2711 Monitor
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003A4H17S/[/amazon-uk]


Already Owned

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB HD
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Barracuda-7200-12-Drive-ST31000528AS/dp/B002H9XAI6/[/amazon-uk]

Logitech G700 Mouse
[amazon-uk]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-910-001759-Gaming-Mouse-G700/dp/B003U53Y9Q/[/amazon-uk]

Apple A1242 Wired USB Keyboard (discontinued)
apple a1242 | eBay

Mac OS X Lion
Mac App Store - OS X Lion


Comments

I've been running this for a couple of weeks now, and it's rock solid. Setup was almost trivial thanks to the wonderful Ivy Bridge on Lion guide.

The box was built as a development and gaming machine - Windows 7 for games, OS X for spending time productively. Partition setup is with the M4 as the primary boot drive with Chimera booting to OS X 10.7.4; the Barracuda formatted as MFT and split with a 550Gb NTFS partition with Win7 and the remainder as a HFS+ data partition. Embarrassingly, Disk utility refused to create the data partition - I had to get Windows to create the 2nd partition, then use Disk Utility to reformat it to HFS+. There's also an odd issue where Windows 7 setup (installation, repair) and services pack won't run unless I unplug the M4. Otherwise, however, dual boot is working very smoothly.

The USB3 ports are slightly dodgy in Lion; they seem okay in Mountain Lion.

The MultiBeast network card does seem to lose Bonjour devices sometimes - this seems to be a known problem with the Atheros driver, and is discussed in the Network forum. As such, I've switch to this alternate driver and am having a little more success.

The graphics card does hang on boot with the default options, but I managed to get it started with GraphicsEnabler=No as a boot option. I then did some experimentation and found the following options in /Extra/org.chameleion.Boot.plish got graphics acceleration working perfectly:

<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>AtiPorts</key>
<string>4</string>
<key>AtiConfig</key>
<string>Duckweed</string>

I did try a Corsair H60 to start with - this turned out to suffer from a well known problem, so I returned it and went with the Zalman. It's pretty quiet for normal usage, and with the 'quiet' connector the CPU sits at about 32C.

I didn't save the MultiBeast configuration at time, but this should be an accurate recreation.

MultiBeast Configuration for Lion

I've recently upgraded to Mountain Lion. The graphics card hangs on booting from the UniBeast USB stick, so the following steps were needed:

1. Update Chimera to the latest version (with HD4000 support).
2. Create the UniBeast stick as normal.
3. Reboot and change the graphics init order to the internal card first.
4. Swap your monitor cable to one of the onboard ports.
5. Boot from the USB stick, install Mountain Lion.
6. Reboot and change the graphics init order back to auto.
7. Return your monitor cable to the ATi card.
8. Boot from the upgraded partition.
9. Run Multibeast with above options to restore Network and Audio.

After this it's mostly working well. There are 'pauses', where input seems to lock up, after resuming from sleep, but this sorts itself out in about a minute.

In summary, very happy with this, and a big thanks to everyone here, as I couldn't have done it without the great guides and advice!

EDIT 29/7: Added notes on Mountain Lion upgrade.
EDIT 30/7: Updated CPU cooler details and added notes on Bonjour problems.
EDIT 28/10: Switch to alternate Atheros L1C driver.

 

[magnamaduin]

Your build is similar to one I've been kicking around in my head, and I have a few questions about it (your build, not my head).

Most subjectively, how much do you like the Corsair Carbide case? Do the pieces feel solid? Are they easy to work with? How is cable management?

How is the cooling doing so far without the liquid system? Is the tower just noisy without it, or is there a bit too much heat in there?

Finally, does the 650w PSU give you plenty of headroom, or are you giving it a good workout?


I'll understand if you don't have the time to deal with all these questions, but thank-you in advance nonetheless!

 

[Asus-Freak]

Nice build, enjoy... :wink:

 

[Mostly Harmless]

I'm pretty happy with the case, other than size - despite reading the dimensions at least 3 times, it still proved larger in reality that my imagination. On the upside, that makes it very easy to work with. It's definite overkill for the build, given the lack of optical drives, but there's good access to both sides, the cable management is pretty good and it generally feels pretty well built. Only downsides that come to mind are the lack of dust filters and the slightly flimsy drive bay trays, both of which are survivable.

I'm using the H60 at present - it's intermittently noisy, but works - and idle temperatures are 30C CPU/26C system (room temperature is 22C for the record). I imagine it'd be fine at present with the stock fan, but I was planning to overclock a touch when everything is working smoothly.

The PSU appears to give me plenty of headroom at present. It was bought with the plan of moving to a Crossfire setup as the 6870 drops further in price, and I'm pretty confident it'll handle that.

Hope this helps!

 

[braindeadmac]

Nice build. +1 Gold Star for Douglas Adams Fan.

 

[Koalaman]

Dang, I hope you won't regret getting the tall heat sink vengeance. That's a pain with some coolers.

 

[Mostly Harmless]

Sorry @magnamaduin - thought I'd replied to this earlier, guess I closed the window before submitting or something similarly silly.

I'm pretty happy with the case. It's big (possibly a bit big) but very easy to work on, and the cable routing/fan fittings are good. Only downsides are limited dust shielding, and the drive bay fittings are a bit plasticy.

The cooling is still on the liquid system. I was planning to overclock once all is working smoothly, hence the choice. It's certainly overkill at standard settings - CPU is sitting at ~30C, with room temperature of 24C. I'd probably avoid if you're not after overclocking though as it is nosier than a big air cooler, although the absence of a giant bit of aluminium in the middle of the case is great.

The PSU seems fine - draw isn't anywhere near the limit. It was bought in case I decide to go Crossfire in the future, and I'm pretty confident it'll hold up to that. I'm pretty sure you could knock it down by 100W without issues.

EDIT: Whoops, did reply, obviously held up in moderation. Apologies for the double-up.

 

[magnamaduin]

Thanks for your insight, Mostly Harmless. This'll help me along my way.

 

[luisdavilab]

I have the following:

i5 3570k
Corsair TX650
CoolerMaster 212
CoolerMaster 120mm extra fan
16gb Corsair memory (4x4gb) 1600 mhz
1 Tb Seagate Hard Drive
Asus DVD Drive

And a 6870 AMD SAPHIRE GRAPHIC CARD

I updated to the latest chimera and the HD4000 runs fast and even supports airplay.

I used your same multibeast settings.

Ive been having problems when I install the graphics card though, I only get one output even though it has 4

And the system seems to have hiccups regularly. How do I fix this.

It is my first hackintosh build and im having some issues with my graphics card.

Your help would be apreciated. I saw you did something with graphics enabler off. But I saw some people that got airplay, HD4000 and their discrete graphic card to work.

My setup:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...phire-6870-problems-need-help.html#post409134