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Music production and gaming workhorse

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Joined
Oct 30, 2012
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9
Motherboard
Mid-2010 15'' MacBook Pro
CPU
Intel Core i7 2.66 GHz
Graphics
GeForce GT 330m
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
Classic Mac
  1. 0
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Hello everyone! This is my first hackintosh build, so yeah, I'm kind of lost here. I would appreciate any comments on my build :)

My goal: to have a powerful desktop that I can use primarily for music production (very CPU heavy) while running Mountain Lion, but also playing some games either on OS X or via a Bootcamp partition on all "Very-High" all the while keeping the price under 2000 Euros or so.



The Build:

View attachment 36392
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Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 Z68 Socket 1155
http://www.getgoods.de/hardware-sof...68ea708300...0.1351627334.1.1354219334&gclid=
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CPU - INTEL Core i7 Ivy Bridge 3770K
http://www.pixmania.de/de/de/11763173/art/intel/core-i7-ivy-bridge-3770k.html?srcid=50&CodePromo=oui
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Cooling - Corsair Hydro H60
http://www.pixmania.de/de/de/971680...uhlsystem-fur-den.html?srcid=50&CodePromo=oui
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GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 680 SC Signature 2GB
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/arti...3&agid=1156&pvid=5d4xbtoh3_h8xd9akr&ref=15&lb
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Power Supply - OCZ ModXStream Pro 700 Watt
http://www.pixmania.de/de/de/1911586/art/ocz/pc-stromversorgung-modxst.html?srcid=50&CodePromo=oui
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RAM - Corsair 16GB KIT Vengeance Blue LP PC3-12800 DDR3-1600 CL9
http://www.getgoods.de/hardware-sof...b1c049a893...0.1351621112.1.1354213112&gclid=
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HDD - Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 SATA III
http://www.getgoods.de/hardware-sof...474c599aaf...0.1351621980.1.1354213980&gclid=
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SSD - OCZ Interne SSD-Festplatte Agility 3 Series SATA III
http://www.pixmania.de/de/de/997431...tte-ag.html?srcid=50&CodePromo=oui#pix-review
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Wi-Fi - TP-Link TL-WDN4800 Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter
http://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B006PMX964/?tag=tonymacx8603-21

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Case - SilverStone TJ07B (Black)
http://www.alternate.de/html/product/SilverStone/TJ07B/80157/?

Screen - Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM 27 Inch Non-Glossy Display
http://www.vibuonline.de/product_in...8969_27-68-58cm--Dell-UltraSharp-U2713HM.html


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Now let me explain my choices of hardware a little bit.
Since music production is very CPU hungry, i decided to go for the i7 3770K. It seems like a great CPU and should be just fine for my needs, but in case I do need that extra boost I'm going to overclock the **** out of it.
I went with the water cooling because, as I understand, it's quieter than regular fans and is more overclock friendly. The computer being quiet is important to me.
The graphics card choice is more or less arbitrary, I just wanted to have a High-End GPU to run games at 2560x1400 resolution.
The SSD is to be partitioned for my music and gaming needs. 70% of it I'm going to dedicate to OS X and my music software and about 30% to a Bootcamp Windows 7 partition. The HDD is also to be partitioned in a similar fashion (80% OS X and 20% Windows)
I went for a 700 Watt power supply because the CPU consumes 77 Watts according to the manufacturer, while the GPU 550 Watts. That leaves me with surplus of about 73 Watts. I figured that should be enough to run all other components.

I think that's about it. I'd like to hear the Pros' opinion/advice. :)
Please let me know if something in my build doesn't make any sense and I'll adjust it.

Looking forward to your commentaries and thank you! :)
 
Motherboard changle please. Do not mix Sandy with Ivy. Otherwise the rest is good.
 
Nope, it has unsupported VIA audio chipset.
 
Nope, it has unsupported VIA audio chipset.

Heh, I knew it wouldn't that easy. Thanks anyway though! : D

I looked around the forum some more and found this mobo:
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H
http://www.amazon.de/dp/B007KZQFOS/?tag=tonymacx8603-21
If that doesn't work, do you think you could recommend a motherboard that would work with my specifications? The only requirement is that it has to be around the same price at the DS3H.
 
the ds3h is currently on rev1.1, and the lan chip isnt yet supported in osx.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/network/7...revisions-ga-z77-ds3h-ga-h77-ds3h-others.html

so if you need lan, or appstore, youll need to buy a pcie lan card.


have you considered looking at msi or asus boards, or going for a higher end gigabyte board?

Thanks for your reply! :)

Mhm, yeah I'd like to have the lan working too : D
I have considered mobos by other manufacturers, but the "list of compatible motherboards" on the wiki was all mostly Gigabyte, so I figured Gigabyte's mobos just work better with OS X : D The brand doesn't matter or mean anything to me. I was just trying to find a decent and working mobo, that's all : D

Do you think you could recommend me a couple of compatible mobos by other manufacturers with similar features?
 
the main difference between gigabyte and other brands is that the other brands need a modified bios flashed in order to be able to use native power management.
read the faq here http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/71307-modified-uefi-rom-faq.html

what does this mean for you? well it means that you go to biosrepo.wordpress.com/, download the rom for your board and flash it like you would a regular bios.

once thats done, pretty much everything else is the same as a gigabyte board as long as the audio and lan chips are compatible.
if you go with msi or asus boards, you wont need to use a modified dsdt, sleep will work etc.
asrock will work too, but they arent as good due to needing dsdt edits for sleep on many of their boards.


if you get a shortlist of msi and asus boards that fit your budget from a shop that you buy from, ill look at them and let you know which are good picks.
 
the main difference between gigabyte and other brands is that the other brands need a modified bios flashed in order to be able to use native power management.
read the faq here http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/71307-modified-uefi-rom-faq.html

what does this mean for you? well it means that you go to biosrepo.wordpress.com/, download the rom for your board and flash it like you would a regular bios.

once thats done, pretty much everything else is the same as a gigabyte board as long as the audio and lan chips are compatible.
if you go with msi or asus boards, you wont need to use a modified dsdt, sleep will work etc.
asrock will work too, but they arent as good due to needing dsdt edits for sleep on many of their boards.


if you get a shortlist of msi and asus boards that fit your budget from a shop that you buy from, ill look at them and let you know which are good picks.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...z77x-ud5h-i7-3770-ivy-bridge-gtx-670-a-6.html
Seems like this guy managed to make everything work on GA-Z77X-UD5H with a very similar setup to mine, so I think I'm gonna go for that one.

Once again, thanks for all the comments! :)
 
FYI im running a GTX 680. OS X 10.8.2 recognized it out of the box.
 
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