[Success] Mini Mac Pro :) i7-3770k - GA-z77n-wifi - 256Go SSD + 500Go DD - 16Go Ram - GeForce 640

[alexvery]

tonymacx86's Build: Core i7-3770K - GA-Z77N-WIFI - GeForce 640GT

Components

Bitfenix Prodigy Arctic White Case
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008RJQ3GQ/

Intel Core i7-3770K
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SZ0EOW/

16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600Mhz
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007TG8QRW/

Gigabyte GA-Z77N-WIFI
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009JDTWH6/

Corsair HX650W
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090I9VX0/

EVGA GeForce GT 640
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0086UXQIE/

Samsung 840 SSD - 250Go
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009NHAEXE/

Mac OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion @ Mac Apps Store
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-mountain-lion/id537386512?ls=1&mt=12


Already Owned

Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 SATA 6Gb/s 500 Go - a used HDD

Keyboard and mouse - a used Apple Keyboard, and a cheap 2 buttons mouse... for now


Comments:

The Bitfenix Prodigy computer case is ... a monster !!! I saw it on the internet, many many times, and i was dreaming on my futur "smaller but faster" Mac Pro but in fact I have something very, very, very big... almost like the original MacPro... OMG !!! It's beautiful, but it's really too big. And it doesn't need to. I mean .. there is lot of space inside, but really too much for my taste. I think that this 'great' space is usefull for 2% of users, and that a smaller case would be perfect for the 98%. A mini-itx card is 17x17cm ... and this case offers 5cm on the left and 5cm on the right... i don't talk about height and depth. And WTF ... who need 8 hard drives in his computer ?????
You get the point ?

Install process was a bit painful. I spent few hours on it because of stupid actions, this is the last and least try which was fast and successful :

MOUNTING

Did I said that the case was really really big ? Ok Ok .. Installing everything was fast and easy. I read that it's better to remove all the memory when installing OSX, and just keep only 4Go Ram. I had 8Go 2 Modules ... so i keep them plugged and it worked well.
I bought ML on the App Store and used Unibeast with nothing checked (no legacy USB support, no laptop). It took less than 10 min. Great !
The case is provided with 2 fans : one in the front, one in the back. Both fans have a 3 Pins plug. The motherboard have only 1 plug ... 4 Pins. I searched on the Internet for an explanation or a solution, but found absolutely nothing.
So I plugged the back-fan on the motherboard. It worked... and I have 1 fan useless.

IMPORTANT : i didn't use an USB stick, i used an external hard drive instead. I added the DSDT for the Z77N-WIFI and Multibeast in a USB stick

IMPORTANT #2 : don't install the graphic card for now

BIOS CONFIG

Don't touch anything just verify that you have the F2 version. That's all

OS INSTALL

Power on the case > F12 > boot on the external drive > install OS X > 12 min > reboot

IMPORTANT : when rebooting, press F12 and boot on the external drive to have a loader. Once loaded, you can choose on your external disk ... or your internal disk with OS X which is the good choice
Finish the installation ... and voila
Reboot the computer ... it boots by himself, great... Reboot once more for the cache.

HACK ... INTOSHING

Now the interesting part !

I put Multibeast and the DSDT file (.aml) on the desktop. it's important ... on the desktop !

I Ran Multibeast and used this config :

1) UserDSDT Install
2) Drivers > Audio > Without DSDT > ALC892
3) Drivers > Network > Realte Gigabit Ethernet
4) Customization > System Definitions > iMac 12,2

Reboot the computer ... at the OS choice, you have 5 sec to type "GraphicsEnabler=No" otherwise you'll have a chance to have glitches on your screen. Reboot once more (typing "GraphicsEnabler=No")for the cache.

I Ran Multibeast and used this config :
1) Drivers > Graphics > Nvidia Fermi OpenCL Patch > Nvidia Retail 304
2) Customization > Boot options > Graphics Enabler=No

I Shut down the computer, installed the graphic card, powered on and everything worked well

There is one last step, the monitoring tools, but i had tons of problems with that. Once FakeSMC ans FakeSMC plugins installed, the computer is stuck at boot and there no "coming back" solution, so i skiped this step and i'm waiting for an update of Multibeast that works on this config. There is a topic on this issue here

I will edit this topic to keep you informed

BENCH

Geekbench Score : 13568
--
Integer : 11476
Floating Point : 20784
Memory : 7656
Stream : 7462
--

In comparison, i have the most powerfull MacBook Pro 13" mid 2012, Core [email protected] with Samsung 256Go SSD and 16Go RAM

Geekbench Score : 6710
--
Integer : 4938
Floating Point : 8855
Memory : 6163
Stream : 6505
--

...It's between 2 and 3x faster ^^

[Edit - 2012-12-12] Photo added + everything works, it's a bomb !!!

 

[riccoderossi]

*[Success] Mini Mac Pro i7-3770k - GA-z77n-wifi - 256Go SSD + 500Go DD - 16Go Ram - GeForce 640

Looks really good, I hope to do this exact same build. How do you like the GPU, is it ok on light gaming?

 

[alexvery]

*[Success] Mini Mac Pro i7-3770k - GA-z77n-wifi - 256Go SSD + 500Go DD - 16Go Ram - GeForce 640

Looks really good, I hope to do this exact same build. How do you like the GPU, is it ok on light gaming?

I don't know In fact, this computer was designed for professional purposes : After Effect, Première Pro, Cinema 4D.

For gaming purposes, it's not the best config. 128 Go SSD with a 2To DD is more appropriate. An i7 3770K is too expensive and too powerful for gaming ... an average core i5 is half the price and will handle every games even the newest ones. 16 Go RAM is too much for Gaming, 4Go is enought, 8Go for comfort.
And a better GPU of course, but this one is great ... better than the HD4000 of my laptop

Any pictures of it finished?

I'm on it Will post soon

 

[chronos]

*[Success] Mini Mac Pro i7-3770k - GA-z77n-wifi - 256Go SSD + 500Go DD - 16Go Ram - GeForce 640

Thanks for your post, I have almost the same exact config (only diff is I have the Geoforce GTX 650) and have been having problems getting ML to install - keep timing out at root disk not found. I'm going to take out the video card and follow the steps you took. Here's crossing my fingers!

...
IMPORTANT : i didn't use an USB stick, i used an external hard drive instead. I added the DSDT for the Z77N-WIFI and Multibeast in a USB stick

IMPORTANT #2 : don't install the graphic card for now

BIOS CONFIG

Don't touch anything just verify that you have the F2 version. That's all

 

[alexvery]

@ Chronos :

I didn't try the install with the Video card installed, maybe it's the problem ?

 

[chronos]

Thankfully I'm finally done. There was a few things I did wrong that gave me problems.

1. I had the boot drive connected to a SATA 6Gbps port.
2. I had the video card installed prior to running multi-beast and setting graphicsenabler=no
3. Multi-beast failed to install chimera properly on my boot drive due to an issue with 4k sectors on my drive.

To fix this I moved the boot drive to a 3Gbps port, removed video card until I ran multi-beast with graphicsenabler=no, and manually installed chimera to my boot disk by following these excellent directions. Then installed the graphics card and things are working well.

The only remaining problem I have is that USB3 doesn't seem to be working. Drives I plug into the USB3 ports aren't recognized under ML, though the BIOS sees them. Not sure what I'm going to do to fix this.

This setup ROCKS. Geekbench score is 13628 which is 50% higher than when I was running Snow Leopard under a VM on Windows 7 with a similar hardware configuration. So huge boost by not running under a virtual environment.

Section Description Score Geekbench Score
Integer	Processor integer performance	11450	13628
Floating Point	Processor floating point performance	20983
Memory	Memory performance	7646
Stream	Memory bandwidth performance	74

Setup:
Bitfenix Prodigy mITX Mini-ITX Tower Case Midnight Black
GA-Z77N-Wifi
Corsair 650HX power supply
Intel I7-3770
Corsair Vengeance 16 GB RAM
2 TB Caviar Black drive
ASUS GTX 650 1GB

 

[jdfwarrior]

I built a similar machine for Christmas. Same mono, in one of the recommended cases with a 3770k. I was wondering, have you tried overclocking yours at all? I bumped mine up from 3.5ghz to 4.3ghz, but haven't tried pushing it any further yet. I've seen guys mention getting up to 5.2ghz on air with this processor.

 

[chronos]

No. I have not tried over clocking. It's more than adequate for my needs just stock.

For christmas I added the Apple Bluetooth keyboard and Magic Trackpad. They're working like a charm and the system is great. You'll be very happy with your system.

 

[alexvery]

I didn't try overclocking too

I have enought power in my hands and i used the fan delivered with the CPU, i don't think it's a good thing to play overcloking with that

Other point : i have some network issues. so overcloking is not my priority for the moment.

 

[willpass64]

I have the same build, but with a 670 card. I tried the installation that you did and after multi beast, i reboot and it get the mac death screen. Any ideas?