- Joined
- Nov 8, 2011
- Messages
- 53
- Motherboard
- GA-Z77-DS3H ver1.1
- CPU
- i5 3570K
- Graphics
- Intel HD 4000
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
Success: Mountain Lion Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H, i5 3570k, 660Ti, 16GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H (updated to f9 Firmware Ver1.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128547
CPU: i5-3570K Ivy Bridge
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
Ram: Kingston HyperX 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3X1K2/8GX (Already had it)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104266
Graphics: (old) EVGA Geforce 9600GT 1GB 256 bit (Already had it)(Swapped with EVGA 660Ti)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130345
Graphics: EVGA GTX 660Ti 2GB DDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130810
Power Supply: OCZ 600 Modular
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341017
Case: Antec 300
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
SSD: OCZ Agility 3 120GB (already had)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227725
HDD: WD 1.0 TB, Seagate 1.5TB (already had)
http://www.newegg.com
Rosewill 40 in 1 w/USB port Card reader
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820223103
Wireless Card: Apple Airport Extreme Card MA688Z/B BCM94321MC 802.11n (eBay) No drivers needed!
http://www.amazon.com/MacBook-Airport-Card-661-4460-661-4594/dp/B00579K5J0/
Wireless Card Adapter: Mini PCI-E to PCI-E Wireless
http://www.amazon.com/Mini-PCI-E-Wireless-Card-Antennas/dp/B005Q751BA/
USB Drive: 8gb Sandisk
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-Flash-Drive-SDCZ36-008G-B35/dp/B001XURP86/
OS X: Mountain Lion 10.8
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-mountain-lion/id537386512?mt=12
Apple Wireless Keyboard
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Wireless-Keyboard-MC184LL-VERSION/dp/B005DLDO4U/
Broadcom Bluetooth Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Technology-Wireless-Broadcom-BCM20702/dp/B007MKMJGO/
Logitech Wireless Mouse
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Anywhere-Mouse-MX/dp/B002HWRJBC/
About my build
I decided that I wanted to build a new desktop for all of my photo editing with CS6 and Lightroom and said heck I might as well build a Hackintosh since I was getting the i5 processor. To find out, things have gotten easier over time since I last checked into building one over a year ago. They have UEFI Bios now and some setups do not require a DSDT like before. I followed the Customac (http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/search/label/CustoMac) suggested parts list and it doesn't get any easier than this folks, just a little bit of patience.
Needless to say, my Hackintosh is a beast and kicks the ^$*( out of my previous AMD 3.2 GHZ quad core setup with the same Ram and SSD. I'll never go back to AMD, I don't care what anyone says. There's a reason why Intel costs more and you obviously get what you pay for, plain and simple. CS6 opens up instantly and I don't have to wait around when do export / render images like before. It's definitely worth the money especially when I was considering buying an iMac, I'm glad I didn't now I don't do any gaming but I'm sure it'll do just fine if I tried with it.
I had to buy the following items
- CPU, Mobo, Case, Power supply, CPU cooler, Airport card & mini PCI adapter, 5.25 to 3.5 for my multi-card reader, Broadcom bluetooth adapter, and Apple Wireless keyboard.
I already had these items which saved me a few hundred:
- Ram (4x4GB), 120gb SSD, 2 HDDs, 9600GT 1gb Graphics card, and multi-card reader. Those parts alone saved me probably $500 bucks or so!
So if you're not happy with your AMD Build, keep what you can use on the Hackintosh and sell of the rest. I spent $30 for 8gb of Ram for my old build and sold if off as a custom computer with ease. I was actually surprised how fast it sold.
Installation Notes
I ran through the installation with only the following items plugged in:
-Airport extreme & adapter
- Use a USB Mouse and Keyboard might help with the setup too. Wait until you're into OSX before plugging in the Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse
My motherboard came with f6 firmware and I went to Gigabyte's website to get the latest which was f9 for rev1.0. Just grab the file and drag it to a flash drive. There's a flash utility which allows you to select the file from the USB so updating the firmware was a piece of cake.
- After that, load optimized settings
- Change your hard drive mode to AHCI
- Save and exit
- Restart your system and press F12 for boot options.
- Select your USB drive with MTN Lion Unibeast on it
- Go to disk utility and format the drive that you will install OSX on. The detailed instructions can be found at the link below.
I followed the instructions from here:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html
Audio: works
Wifi: works
Lan: works
USB 3.0: works
***Updated 10/31***
-Updated from 10.8 to 10.8.2, lost audio, ran Multibeast to get audio back.
-Installed Multibeast 5.1.3 with following settings to get hardware monitoring, and overclocked my machine to 4.4ghz. Geekbench score went up and it's still fast as hell
-Bought a Broadcom Bluetooth adapter on ebay
-Bought an Apple Wireless Keyboard
***Update 12.01.12***
-Bought an Apple wired USB keyboard. The sleep was very tricky with the Bluetooth keyboard, maybe because I needed an IOGear USB adapter instead of Broadcom.
***Update 12.19..12***
-Purchased an EVGA 660Ti
-Had to check GraphicsEnabler=No in multibeast, changed my SMBIOS to MacPro 3.1 (wasn't sure if the iMac12.2 would work or not, changed it anyways)
-Gave me a kernal panic because of the GPUSensors, fixed it by following this link http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-lion-desktop-support/75401-fakesmc-kp-ml-10-8-2-a-2.html
**Update 12.20.12**
- Took out the 660Ti and put back in the 9600GT, it had problems when waking up, could have been from me overclocking it to 4.4, I think the fix for it is to go back to stock speed and disable overvoltage PLL or something like that in the BIOS. I may be looking towards another Graphics card in the future. The images itself didn't look any better than my 9600GT, but I'm sure the 3D graphics and gaming features would blow the 9600 GT away.
Here's a real image of it
djsmootht's Build: GA-Z77-DS3H - i5-3570K - 9600GT - 16GB - Photo Editing Machine
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H (updated to f9 Firmware Ver1.0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128547
CPU: i5-3570K Ivy Bridge
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
Ram: Kingston HyperX 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3X1K2/8GX (Already had it)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104266
Graphics: (old) EVGA Geforce 9600GT 1GB 256 bit (Already had it)(Swapped with EVGA 660Ti)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130345
Graphics: EVGA GTX 660Ti 2GB DDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130810
Power Supply: OCZ 600 Modular
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341017
Case: Antec 300
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
SSD: OCZ Agility 3 120GB (already had)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227725
HDD: WD 1.0 TB, Seagate 1.5TB (already had)
http://www.newegg.com
Rosewill 40 in 1 w/USB port Card reader
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820223103
Wireless Card: Apple Airport Extreme Card MA688Z/B BCM94321MC 802.11n (eBay) No drivers needed!
http://www.amazon.com/MacBook-Airport-Card-661-4460-661-4594/dp/B00579K5J0/
Wireless Card Adapter: Mini PCI-E to PCI-E Wireless
http://www.amazon.com/Mini-PCI-E-Wireless-Card-Antennas/dp/B005Q751BA/
USB Drive: 8gb Sandisk
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-Flash-Drive-SDCZ36-008G-B35/dp/B001XURP86/
OS X: Mountain Lion 10.8
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-mountain-lion/id537386512?mt=12
Apple Wireless Keyboard
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Wireless-Keyboard-MC184LL-VERSION/dp/B005DLDO4U/
Broadcom Bluetooth Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/Bluetooth-Technology-Wireless-Broadcom-BCM20702/dp/B007MKMJGO/
Logitech Wireless Mouse
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Wireless-Anywhere-Mouse-MX/dp/B002HWRJBC/
About my build
I decided that I wanted to build a new desktop for all of my photo editing with CS6 and Lightroom and said heck I might as well build a Hackintosh since I was getting the i5 processor. To find out, things have gotten easier over time since I last checked into building one over a year ago. They have UEFI Bios now and some setups do not require a DSDT like before. I followed the Customac (http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/search/label/CustoMac) suggested parts list and it doesn't get any easier than this folks, just a little bit of patience.
Needless to say, my Hackintosh is a beast and kicks the ^$*( out of my previous AMD 3.2 GHZ quad core setup with the same Ram and SSD. I'll never go back to AMD, I don't care what anyone says. There's a reason why Intel costs more and you obviously get what you pay for, plain and simple. CS6 opens up instantly and I don't have to wait around when do export / render images like before. It's definitely worth the money especially when I was considering buying an iMac, I'm glad I didn't now I don't do any gaming but I'm sure it'll do just fine if I tried with it.
I had to buy the following items
- CPU, Mobo, Case, Power supply, CPU cooler, Airport card & mini PCI adapter, 5.25 to 3.5 for my multi-card reader, Broadcom bluetooth adapter, and Apple Wireless keyboard.
I already had these items which saved me a few hundred:
- Ram (4x4GB), 120gb SSD, 2 HDDs, 9600GT 1gb Graphics card, and multi-card reader. Those parts alone saved me probably $500 bucks or so!
So if you're not happy with your AMD Build, keep what you can use on the Hackintosh and sell of the rest. I spent $30 for 8gb of Ram for my old build and sold if off as a custom computer with ease. I was actually surprised how fast it sold.
Installation Notes
I ran through the installation with only the following items plugged in:
-Airport extreme & adapter
- Use a USB Mouse and Keyboard might help with the setup too. Wait until you're into OSX before plugging in the Bluetooth Keyboard and Mouse
My motherboard came with f6 firmware and I went to Gigabyte's website to get the latest which was f9 for rev1.0. Just grab the file and drag it to a flash drive. There's a flash utility which allows you to select the file from the USB so updating the firmware was a piece of cake.
- After that, load optimized settings
- Change your hard drive mode to AHCI
- Save and exit
- Restart your system and press F12 for boot options.
- Select your USB drive with MTN Lion Unibeast on it
- Go to disk utility and format the drive that you will install OSX on. The detailed instructions can be found at the link below.
I followed the instructions from here:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-install-os-x-mountain-lion-any-supported-intel-based-pc.html
Audio: works
Wifi: works
Lan: works
USB 3.0: works
***Updated 10/31***
-Updated from 10.8 to 10.8.2, lost audio, ran Multibeast to get audio back.
-Installed Multibeast 5.1.3 with following settings to get hardware monitoring, and overclocked my machine to 4.4ghz. Geekbench score went up and it's still fast as hell
-Bought a Broadcom Bluetooth adapter on ebay
-Bought an Apple Wireless Keyboard
***Update 12.01.12***
-Bought an Apple wired USB keyboard. The sleep was very tricky with the Bluetooth keyboard, maybe because I needed an IOGear USB adapter instead of Broadcom.
***Update 12.19..12***
-Purchased an EVGA 660Ti
-Had to check GraphicsEnabler=No in multibeast, changed my SMBIOS to MacPro 3.1 (wasn't sure if the iMac12.2 would work or not, changed it anyways)
-Gave me a kernal panic because of the GPUSensors, fixed it by following this link http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-lion-desktop-support/75401-fakesmc-kp-ml-10-8-2-a-2.html
**Update 12.20.12**
- Took out the 660Ti and put back in the 9600GT, it had problems when waking up, could have been from me overclocking it to 4.4, I think the fix for it is to go back to stock speed and disable overvoltage PLL or something like that in the BIOS. I may be looking towards another Graphics card in the future. The images itself didn't look any better than my 9600GT, but I'm sure the 3D graphics and gaming features would blow the 9600 GT away.
Here's a real image of it