SUCCESS: GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 / i7-2600k / EVGA GeForce GTX 560

[slugnet]

Success: GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 / i7-2600k / EVGA GeForce GTX 560

Component List
Motherboard: Flashed to F11 BIOS
GIGABYTE GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005484N9W?ie=UTF8

Processor:
Intel Core i7-2600K Processor 3.4GHz 8 MB Cache Socket LGA1155
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004EBUXSA?ie=UTF8

RAM:
Corsair Vengeance Blue 16 GB (4x4GB) PC3-12800 1600mHz DDR3 240-Pin SDRAM Dual Channel Memory Kit for Intel and AMD Platforms CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004RFBIUU?ie=UTF8

Graphics:
EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express 2.0 Graphics Card 01G-P3-1563-AR
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004KZHRAM?ie=UTF8
EDIT:
VisionTek AMD Radeon HD 6870 1 GB GDDR5 PCI Express HD Video Graphics Card 900338
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0048773MY?ie=UTF8
Turns out that the first video card I bought was faulty. However, Amazon would only refund, so I switched out for this card. Technically a (slight) downgrade, but it works flawlessly out of the box.

HDD 0:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 320 GB Bulk/OEM Hard Drive 3.5 Inch, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM SATA II WD3200AAKS
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Caviar-Drive-WD3200AAKS/dp/B000RT3GHI/?ie=UTF8

HDD 1:
Western Digital Caviar Green 1 TB SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive Desktop Hard Drive - WD10EARX
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053YKMGA?ie=UTF8

HDD 2:
Western Digital Caviar Green 2 TB SATA III Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive - WD20EARX
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004VFJ9MK?ie=UTF8

Optical Drive:
Sony 24X SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive AD-7260S-0B
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003MRHOQG?ie=UTF8

Chassis:
Cooler Master HAF 912 Mid Tower ATX Case (RC-912-KKN1)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZM7YTA?ie=UTF8

PSU:
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W Modular High Performance Power Supply
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001IZ7MHU?ie=UTF8

Expansion Slot:
Firewire 800 Syba Low Profile PCI-Express 1394b/1394a (2B1A) Card, TI Chipset, Extra Regular Bracket SD-PEX30009
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002S53IG8?ie=UTF8

Mac OS X:
Lion (updated to 10.7.1)

Monitor:
Asus PA246Q 24" Monitor
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004NBZ994?ie=UTF8

Comments:
Mostly painless install, except for a few issues:

Hard Drive Issues:
The Western Digital Green drives apparently do not work. The following error would occur once trying to boot from the drive:

boot0: test
boot0: test
boot0: test
boot0: error

Apparently this is an issue with drives that use 4k sectors instead of the standard 512. (I have seen a couple of work arounds on the forum, but it seemed pretty complicated). My solution was just to install another drive that used the standard sector system for my system drive. This worked great, and the typical iBoot/Snow Leopard Retail/Upgrade 10.6.8/Multibeast/xMove/Lion install worked great once I figured all of this out. I will probably try to put an SSD in at some point for my boot drive, but that wasn't quite in the cards for my budget on this build up front.

Video Card:
I seem to have full graphics capability from my video card. Final Cut 7 and X both run very well. Games look and play great. I had some flickering issues where sometimes the monitor would flicker or cut to noise. UPDATE: Flickering seems to be back. Looking into this issue. It happens under both Windows 7 and OSX, so I'm thinking it is something with the card itself. UPDATE 2: It appears to be something wrong with this cards hardware, as it did the same on another computer. Returned to Amazon, but they will only refund (out of stock at this time I guess), so switched to VisionTek AMD Radeon HD 6870. This new card works PERFECTLY out of the box, no configuration necessary. My Geekbench score dropped about 100 points, but this is still a great video card. I believe the GTX 560 ti is still a viable card, you just need one that isn't physically broken.

Video Card Install instructions (GTX 560 ti):
To achieve full card capability, I installed two extra files. In addition to the checked items in the Multibeast image I've attached, download the following two files that are attached to these forum posts and follow the installation instructions located in their respective forum threads:

1.
info.plist.zip
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=260074&st=0&p=1701923&#entry1701923

2.
NVDAGF100Hal.kext.zip
http://tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?p=182729&sid=17d2b952765182b8bc50825eb632c331#p182729

3. For OpenCL
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/in...ad3c&showtopic=266318&view=findpost&p=1739246

Audio:
Audio was a bit of an issue. I could not get sound once I installed Lion. However, I went into the extensions folder and deleted AppleHDA.kext and HDAEnabler889.kext, then reinstalled those two files (AppleHDA Rollback and Non-DSDT HDA Enabler/ALC889) plus ALC8xxHDA from Multibeast. This fixed the problem and has been working great ever since.

Sleep:
The only other thing I haven't messed with yet is sleep. It seems to be working over all, but it unmounts any USB drives that I have hooked up at the time. This won't work great for when I'm doing video editing, but otherwise isn't a huge issue. I'll update if I get that figured out.

Thanks to everyone here on the board who have created this huge wealth of knowledge.

 

[slugnet]

And in case anyone was interested, here is Geekbench for this build:

 

[wanye]

Looks good! None of your amazon links are working though.

Quick question. Does that firewire card fit in your x8 PCe slot or do you just use the x4 at the bottom?

I have the same rig and I'd like to add firewire but i'm low on pci-e slots with my vid card blocking the x1 slot and my wireless card taking up the x4.

Thanks!

 

[slugnet]

Hmmm, don't know why the links don't work. They are correct as written however, so you can copy and paste them I suppose to find the exact thing. I'll research to figure out what is going on with that.

As for the firewire card, it will fit in any of the slots. It comes preconfigured with a low profile back plate, but there is a full size plate as well. It is just held on with a couple of screws. I have it in the bottom pci-e slot due to the size of the video card. You can probably get it in the slot next to the graphics board, but I didn't try. I'll give it a shot the next time I shut down, and report back. This board isn't super pci-e friendly if you are sticking a massive video card in, so if you need more slots than that, I'd go for a different board.

 

[slugnet]

Does that firewire card fit in your x8 PCe slot or do you just use the x4 at the bottom?

I tested it out, and was able to fit it into the slot. It was tight, but my video card ends right at the edge of that second slot, leaving just enough clearance for that card. So, it will depend on the size of your video card.

Oh, and Amazon links should be working now. Seems as if the BB code wan't adding ?ie=UTF8 as part of the link. I manually added that to the end of each link, and now they work with the board formatting. Weird.

Good luck!

 

[magnosantos]

I going to finally build my system this Week. Only the i7 2600k is missing (but on the way), and i'm thinking on buying a main HDD (a have 2 WD 500GB Sata II Caviar Blue).

My Question is: Does the onboard Sata 6Gb works correctly?
Because if so i'm thinking on buying a 1TB WD Sata 6Gb Caviar Black, otherwise i will wait ou buy a Sata 3Gb HDD.

 

[wanye]

Thanks for checking on that fit. Sounds good.

My Question is: Does the onboard Sata 6Gb works correctly?

I have an Agility 3 60GB SSD running off the white Sata 6Gbit port and I get appropriate speeds.

AFAIK, You have the 2 white 6Gb sata connections that run off the intel chip and the 2 black/grey 6Gb sata connections that run off the Marvell controller. The other 3 blue sata connections are 3Gb.

In system profiler, my 6Gbit marvell slots show up as "Unknown AHCI Standard Controller." I haven't tried any hdd in those slots to see what speed they get or if in fact they work. I'm sure you could search the forum and find the answer with relative ease though.

 

[goldford]

Any comment on the SATAIII with this board - are you using these ports? Do they work full speed? If so, what kext(s) would you recommend?

 

[wanye]

Goldford, SataIII and Sata 6Gb are one and the same.

I get around 450Mb/s read and write speeds on my Agility 3 which is on par with what others get.

Unfortunately, using AJA System test with Lion disallows the use of speed tests on boot drives. So I can't check anymore.

But yes, the white sata III ports work and no additional kexts are needed to get the published speeds.

 

[goldford]

Oops sorry Wanye, that helps