neilhart
Moderator
- Joined
- May 25, 2010
- Messages
- 2,728
- Motherboard
- ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming - ITX/ac
- CPU
- i7-7700T
- Graphics
- GTX960
- Mac
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- Mobile Phone
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Motherboard selection
My choice of motherboard for this Mac Pro Hack was influenced by the purchase of an i7-950 CPU which was on sale at the time. I was not really impressed with Gigabyte motherboards having experienced two board failures last year (and enduring the RMA process). So I looked for a Micro ATX form factor alternative and identified the MSI X58M board. This board was available on sale and fit the budget. I was pleased that the OS X integration on this set-up was very straight forward on Snow Leopard and Lion has been no problem.
The idea was to use two small SSD drives in a RAID 0 for the system drive in this setup.
Video Card selection
I had my mind set on getting a AMD Radeon HD 5770 video card. When shopping for one I read that many people were having Hackintosh integration problems with that card and became fixated on the Nvidia GeForce GTX 460. Then TonyMacX86 recommended the PNY GTX 460, so that is what I purchased. Long story short, my sample of the card was unstable in every install but those that had X58 chip sets. In my Gigabyte and MSI X58 MBs, the card is a decent performer without issue (from about OS X 10.6.7 onward).
Motherboard mounting
After several test fits where I would put the MB with the video card into the chassis and try to decide on a mounting plan, I decided no tray and that I needed ½ inch tall standoffs to get the height to be able to use the existing Apple PCI slots. Using this approach, the cutout needed was just the ATX rear panel IO section.
I sliced up some ¼ inch ABS into strips and made up the spacers used between the perf rear panel and the IO panel as a frame. These I paint aluminum silver and attached with small Philips flathead screws using a small countersink to get the screw head fairly flush to the read panel. I’m not very happy with this but for now it is useable.
I shifted the MB mounting up to use the upper 4 four of the 5 existing PCI slots.
By doing this the CPU heat sink (see section on Cooling) was located where I need it.
My choice of motherboard for this Mac Pro Hack was influenced by the purchase of an i7-950 CPU which was on sale at the time. I was not really impressed with Gigabyte motherboards having experienced two board failures last year (and enduring the RMA process). So I looked for a Micro ATX form factor alternative and identified the MSI X58M board. This board was available on sale and fit the budget. I was pleased that the OS X integration on this set-up was very straight forward on Snow Leopard and Lion has been no problem.
The idea was to use two small SSD drives in a RAID 0 for the system drive in this setup.
Video Card selection
I had my mind set on getting a AMD Radeon HD 5770 video card. When shopping for one I read that many people were having Hackintosh integration problems with that card and became fixated on the Nvidia GeForce GTX 460. Then TonyMacX86 recommended the PNY GTX 460, so that is what I purchased. Long story short, my sample of the card was unstable in every install but those that had X58 chip sets. In my Gigabyte and MSI X58 MBs, the card is a decent performer without issue (from about OS X 10.6.7 onward).
Motherboard mounting
After several test fits where I would put the MB with the video card into the chassis and try to decide on a mounting plan, I decided no tray and that I needed ½ inch tall standoffs to get the height to be able to use the existing Apple PCI slots. Using this approach, the cutout needed was just the ATX rear panel IO section.
I sliced up some ¼ inch ABS into strips and made up the spacers used between the perf rear panel and the IO panel as a frame. These I paint aluminum silver and attached with small Philips flathead screws using a small countersink to get the screw head fairly flush to the read panel. I’m not very happy with this but for now it is useable.
I shifted the MB mounting up to use the upper 4 four of the 5 existing PCI slots.
By doing this the CPU heat sink (see section on Cooling) was located where I need it.
Attachments
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Done-Rear-view.jpg317.8 KB · Views: 4,455
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no more-bulge.jpg250.2 KB · Views: 3,408
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bulge-solution-drill-holes.jpg165.3 KB · Views: 3,236
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What-a-bulge.jpg227.8 KB · Views: 3,220
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final-cut-out-fit-test.jpg145.7 KB · Views: 3,685
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final-cut-out-raw.jpg139.5 KB · Views: 3,213
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InProcess-test-fitting-2.jpg166.8 KB · Views: 3,292
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InProcess-test-fitting.jpg160.4 KB · Views: 3,382
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Trial-fit-MSI-X58M-too-low.jpg186.5 KB · Views: 3,401