[Success] Stingray454's Haswell uATX: 4770k - GA-Z87MX-D3H - Dual R9 280x

[Stingray454]

Stingray454's Haswell uATX:
Core i7 - 4770k - GA-Z87MX-D3H - 32GB RAM - 768GB SSD - Dual R9 280x



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Images

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Components

Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H Motherboard socket 1150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128601

Bitfenix Prodigy M uATX case, white
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811345031

Corsair AX 860i 860w PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139041

Intel Core i7 - 4770k Haswell processor, 3.5GHz, LGA 1150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116901

Samsung 840 Pro Series SSD, 512 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W00ZD1557

Samsung 840 Pro Series SSD, 256 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147193

Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 2133Mhz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233306

CORSAIR Hydro Series H80i High Performance Water/Liquid CPU Cooler 120mm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181031

2 x Noctua NF-S12A PWM 120mm Case Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608038

2 x Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Case Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608026

2 x MSI R9 280X GAMING 3G Radeon R9 280X 3GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127759

Already Owned

SteelSeries Sensei Fnatic Edition Pro Grade Gaming Laser Mouse 5700 CPI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2E118T1065

Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AJ0ZB3975


Comments

So, I finally took the plunge to build a hackintosh.

I have been using iMac's since 2009. While I love the computer itself, it has always bothered me that it's not really possible to upgrade. I have missed the possibility to upgrade harddrives (or at least add more of them), graphics card, monitor and such. I thought about getting one of the old Mac Pro's, but wanted to wait for the next update as I didn't want to buy a 2+ year old computer.

When the late 2013 Mac Pro was launched I was intrigued. Admittedly, it was pretty awesome. I love the idea of a good "workhorse" computer with dual GPU's, SSD etc in a small form factor.. BUT, even though I use the computer for work, I don't do THAT much video compression, 3D rendering and similar tasks to warrant the price tag of about $10,000 (which is the price for 8 core / 32 Gb / 1 TB mac pro where I live). I don't really need a multicore Xeon, but I do use graphics rending power. I wanted a Mac with a modular build where I could upgrade hardware, in a good looking and small form factor, with focus on graphic performance as I don't need too much multi-core performance. A hackintosh seemed like the best and cheapest option, and after reading up on this excellent site, I found enough courage to build my own "mini pro".

The build

I started with trying to fit all the components - even though I had done some extensive googling, I wasn't quite sure how well it would fit and with how much margin. Overall it was pretty effortless - I swapped the original h80i fans to the much quieter Noctua f12 fans, and I had to rotate the CPU cooler 180 degrees to clear the GPU.

I started with putting the two GPU's next to each other with 2 fans above them as intake, but the lower GPU overheated quite easilly. Since then I removed the two fans at the top, moved the top GPU up one slot, and put the fan on the front instead as intake, blowing air towards both GPU's. That made the rig run much cooler. I removed the 5.25" bay which cleared up some space and went for the MSI version of 280x cards, as they are the shortest ones available. Some 280x boards are 3-4 cm longer, and I doubt they would fit without a lot of headaches (PSU cables run to the left of the cards on my build - you can probably fit a larger card, but it would be very tight I think). The front intake might not be the best solution, but way better than placing the GPU's next to eachother with the fans on top. The fan takes up some space from the cabling, but overall it works out ok.

The case has a front panel with USB-ports, power/reset button and audio ports, located on the right side of the case (seen from the front side). I switched sides, putting the right side plate upside-down on the left side instead - this saved me from a lot of visible cables, as well as having the ports/buttons in a much better location from where I sit relative to the computer. I learned two things here - the case comes with both AC97 and HD Audio plugs for the front panel. Apparently OS X only supports HD Audio, which I didn't know, so I had to swap to that before audio would work. Secondly, I checked the case manual and saw that the headphone jack was the top one. I inserted my headphones in the top jack and tried out the sound.. Nothing. After hours or trying to figure out the problem, I remembered that I swapped sides of the case sides, turning it upside down - ie the headphone jack was now the bottom one. I swapped to that jack and everything worked fine. D'oh!!

Installation

I actually started with installing Windows on the 256 GB SSD. I wanted to make a windows partition for gaming and similar windows-only tasks, as well as check the hardware after putting it all together. Everything went smooth, so after checking the hardware I created the UniBeast USB stick and started the OS X install.

First up was the BIOS settings. After browsing these forums, I found a few settings that people recommended to change to make OS X install properly. I checked them all in my BIOS, and they were all set to the recommended values as factory default. Sweet!

I booted from the USB stick, and everything was very straight forward - I formatted the SSD and installed OS X as usual. Once done, I installed MultiBeast and configured it with the following settings:

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I rebooted, but this time I ran into trouble. I got an error screen saying "boot0: error". After some searching, I ran into this guide that explained the problem and how to fix it - apparently it has to do with the sector format of the drive. I followed the steps in that guide, rebooted, and everything was fine.


Final thoughts

After reboot, I explored the system and tested as many things as I could. To my surprise, it seemed to be fully working - ethernet, sound, the 280x GPU's, mouse, keyboard, QE/CI - it was all working beautifully.

I was honestly expecting more problem than I had. I can only recommend the GA-Z87MX-D3H motherboard, it seems to work amazingly well as a hackintosh.

The only problem I have had to date, is that about every 5th reboot (give or take, happens randomly) I can't connect to my LAN network. I get a "self assigned IP" in the network settings. If I reboot again, everything works fine. This might very well be because of my router or other hardware, but as it's working 100% until next reboot when it does work, it's not a major problem.

In the end I got a computer that cost about a third of the Mac Pro I thought about buying, is more modular, is very quiet, looks good on the desk and has just as good (if not better) GPU throughput.

I would like to thank everyone on this site for the great resources in selecting hardware, troubleshooting problems and general support. I would never have made this build without you guys.


Performance

The performance is every bit as good as I hoped. I overclocked it in bios to 4.6 GHz. To be able to get over 4.3 GHz I had to set the "GenerateCStates" and "GeneratePStates" options in Chameleon to "no". Big thanks to "montejog" for the tip! I updated the Geekbench result below with the new scores.

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Note 1: If I ran LuxMark with my IGPU enabled, I got a 6456 score. When running the two 280x separately, I got 4573 for those, and the IGPU scored 263 on its own. I have no idea why that adds up to so much combined, I'm guessing it's a software bug.

Note 2: Crypto currency mining is a hobby, and this rig is great for it. Sadly, the ATI ADL SDK (used for controlling GPU's) is not available for mac, and you lose out on a lot of tuning options for the miner. Because of that, mining on OS X gives me about 500kh/s while I get 700-750 under windows. Bummer


Log

2014-01-15: First post
2014-01-15: Added system information screenshot
2014-01-20: Overclocked from 4.3 to 4.6 GHz, updated geekbench score
2014-02-01: Added some better pictures
2014-02-11: One of the 280x blew up (more or less). Replaced it with a 290x, stay tuned for results.

 

[worldwidewes]

Awesome build thanks for sharing! Waiting on my components in the mail...using same mobo and cpu but 16gb ram and no dedicated GPU to start. Probably will be back here to ask you questions this is my first attempt at a hackintosh

 

[Stingray454]

Awesome build thanks for sharing! Waiting on my components in the mail...using same mobo and cpu but 16gb ram and no dedicated GPU to start. Probably will be back here to ask you questions this is my first attempt at a hackintosh

Thank you! Everything went very smooth with this mobo so I think you'll do just fine, it seems to be one of best available uATX boards to use (no DSDT needed, no driver-hacking, bios settings all good from factory, everything pretty much works on the first boot). This was my first build too so I'm something of a beginner myself, but feel free to ask if you run in to any problems.

 

[Stingray454]

Update: I overclocked it in bios to 4.6 GHz. To be able to get over 4.3 GHz I had to set the "GenerateCStates" and "GeneratePStates" options in Chameleon to "no". Big thanks to "montejog" for the tip from this thread! I updated the Geekbench result below with the new scores.

I tried 4.7GHz as that would allow me to up the memory speed from 1866 to 2133 MHz through XMP profiles, but sadly I got random hangs on 4.7 . Any tip on how to reach 4.7 stable would be appreciated, as I am not very experienced with overclocking.

 

[Stork]

I recommend you head on over to the Overclocking forum section for help > http://www.tonymacx86.com/overclocking/

 

[ld6824]

How many Monitors do you have attached to your two 280x cards?
Do all graphic ports function out of the box?

 

[Stingray454]

How many Monitors do you have attached to your two 280x cards?
Do all graphic ports function out of the box?

Right now I have two monitors attached, both to the same card (that way I can keep my desktop and a game running on one card while mining on the other ). I have tried both DP ports and the DVI port on both cards and they all work fine. There are HDMI connections as well that I have not tried yet, but no reason why they shouldn't work as everything else works as expected. I did not have to change anything in bios / drivers / OS settings or similar for it to work, it all worked out of the box.

One curious note is that QE/CI didn't work the first time I booted for some reason. I tried disabling the IGPU and booting, then I had full acceleration. I enabled the IGPU again and rebooted, and I still had full QE/CI. Not really sure why I didn't have it the first time, but it has worked ever since . But no, never any problems with the output (thought I haven't tried with 3 monitors yet).

 

[ld6824]

Okay thank for the information! ;-)
It would be nice if you have time and if its possible for you to test the hdmi port and one dp port. This would be really nice. ;-)

I tried the XFX 270X 2GB card and could just get two ports working with this helping posts:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/...-270x-dual-boot-black-screen-atyinjector.html

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/294315-radeon-r9-270x-framebuffer-issue/


The result was i sended the card back because i didn't get 3 ports working... ;-)

I search for a working solution to attach 6 monitors with two cards...

 

[Stingray454]

It would be nice if you have time and if its possible for you to test the hdmi port and one dp port. This would be really nice. ;-)

I'd love to, but none of my curent monitors have a HDMI input (I only have an iMac that I use in target display mode, and a very old monitor that only has vga / dvi inputs). I will check if I happen to have some hdmi-to-dvi adapter hidden in some drawer somewhere, but I'm not sure I have one. I'll check asap!

 

[ld6824]

Thank you. ;-)

Have a nice weekend. ;-)