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

[Stingray454]

Updated with some better pictures, better than the mobile pic I had before.

I use an old 2009 iMac as screen for it, works like a charm. I re-arranged the desk a bit before taking a photo to fit the computer, I normally have it seated under the desk with a second monitor on the place where it's standing now, but I disconnected one monitor and moved it to the desk just to make it more visible . Very happy with it, it hides nicely under the desk, but still look good enough to have on the desk if I want to. For the record, it has been running smoothly ever since I completed the build. Workhorse by day, litecoin mining rig by night.

 

[Barenhvrd]

Really nice work

I also used the same motherboard for me and a friend. He is having the same internet issues, but I don't.
He also had the boot error0 thing, easy to fix anyway



Love your all white desktop with your case, looks good!

 

[Stingray454]

Really nice work

I also used the same motherboard for me and a friend. He is having the same internet issues, but I don't.
He also had the boot error0 thing, easy to fix anyway

Love your all white desktop with your case, looks good!

Thank you! Yes I like the white setup. If you're wondering about all the weird stuff in the background and the stone walls, it's because it's located in a big barn that me and my girlfriend have next to our house (really huge building with 1-1.5m thick stone walls, quite cozy. Built around 1850 I think, they knew how to make stuff last back then ). She makes a lot of sewing / prints / embroideries and such, so we use it as a combined studio / office. With white painted walls and pillars and such, a white desk theme felt appropriate. I love the white Bitfenix case as well, stylish and reminds me of a small Mac Pro.

Yes, the boot thing was a quick fix, so no worries about that. The internet thing only seems to happen in OS X, so it's definitely a driver / software issue, but I haven't really dug any deeper to find the cause. Let me know if your friend solves it, and I'll do the same.

Today I measured it under full load as well, with but GPU's running on max (overclocked settings) the entire system uses about 670 watts with all peripherals. This means I would probably have been fine with the corsair 760i I originally planned on buying, as I can't fit a third GPU (or any other PCI card) without some serious hacking . If I would make the same build today, I'd opt for the 760W PSU.

 

[Stingray454]

Hmm, I just edited the post to update a link in the description, and now the entire first post is gone. I hope this is due to moderation / spam filter?

EDIT: Never mind, it's back now. Phew

 

[Stingray454]

Ok, this week something interesting happened - one of my GPU's caved in. No idea why - I hadn't overclocked it and it ran at normal temperatures, although I did run it at full load 24/7, suddenly it just stopped working. Rebooted and it worked again, until I put some load on it, then it froze. Started getting artifacts and crashes as early as the bios boos screen, so something was seriously broken.

Went back to the shop where I bought the card, and they blamed a faulty card and let me exchange it. However, they had 1+ month waiting time to get a similar card, so I could either get my money back or go for another.. So I went for a 290X .

So now my rig has one 280x as main GPU (run my screens from that, works under OS X), and one 290X that I currently only use for mining. It works great under windows, but as expected, not great under OS X. I have seen some people recommending some fakeid/ati-inject stuff to get it working, but before messing with that I'll wait for 10.9.2, as it comes with a major revision-bump to the ATI gpu driver, and hopefully native Hawaii support (the chip in 290X).

Once I get 290X support in OS X I'll probably swap them, running the 290x as main and the 280x as "slave" (not that there is a huge difference).

I'll keep you guys up to date how the 290x works out.

 

[Cinner]

Ok, this week something interesting happened - one of my GPU's caved in. No idea why - I hadn't overclocked it and it ran at normal temperatures, although I did run it at full load 24/7, suddenly it just stopped working. Rebooted and it worked again, until I put some load on it, then it froze. Started getting artifacts and crashes as early as the bios boos screen, so something was seriously broken.

Went back to the shop where I bought the card, and they blamed a faulty card and let me exchange it. However, they had 1+ month waiting time to get a similar card, so I could either get my money back or go for another.. So I went for a 290X .

So now my rig has one 280x as main GPU (run my screens from that, works under OS X), and one 290X that I currently only use for mining. It works great under windows, but as expected, not great under OS X. I have seen some people recommending some fakeid/ati-inject stuff to get it working, but before messing with that I'll wait for 10.9.2, as it comes with a major revision-bump to the ATI gpu driver, and hopefully native Hawaii support (the chip in 290X).

Once I get 290X support in OS X I'll probably swap them, running the 290x as main and the 280x as "slave" (not that there is a huge difference).

I'll keep you guys up to date how the 290x works out.

I was just wondering about your 290x, do the fans spin at 100% all the time because there is no driver? I've read about this unfortunate behavior when installing an unsupported card. I would like to install an Ati 290 to use for Windows only and use the integrated Intel 4000 GPU for OS X, but if that means the Ati card will be running at 100%, making noise and wasting power, no thanks...

 

[Stingray454]

I was just wondering about your 290x, do the fans spin at 100% all the time because there is no driver? I've read about this unfortunate behavior when installing an unsupported card. I would like to install an Ati 290 to use for Windows only and use the integrated Intel 4000 GPU for OS X, but if that means the Ati card will be running at 100%, making noise and wasting power, no thanks...

No, my 290X is entirely silent when booting into OS X, not using power/producting any heat (not more than an idle card in windows would anyway, I didn't measure it directly).

I have, however, heard other people that have the 100%-fan issue you're describing with unsupported cards, so I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe the fact that I have a 280x mounted in the computer affects the behavior too? Or maybe the type of card matters - Mine is an Asus DirectCU II model.

As a small update, the 290X is still unsupported in 10.9.2, and people that tried the 10.9.3 betas says there is no support coming in 10.9.3 either. Too bad, but I'm doing what you said now - using that card under windows only.

 

[spmcveigh]

@Stingray454

When you had your dual R9 280x(s), where they recognized as D700s by default or did you have to do more work?

 

[Stingray454]

@Stingray454

When you had your dual R9 280x(s), where they recognized as D700s by default or did you have to do more work?

No work, they were recognized as D700 and fully functional on the first boot. (or, on the first boot QE/CI didn't work, but next reboot they did and has ever since - not sure why that is).

 

[Cinner]

No, my 290X is entirely silent when booting into OS X, not using power/producting any heat (not more than an idle card in windows would anyway, I didn't measure it directly).

I have, however, heard other people that have the 100%-fan issue you're describing with unsupported cards, so I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe the fact that I have a 280x mounted in the computer affects the behavior too? Or maybe the type of card matters - Mine is an Asus DirectCU II model.

As a small update, the 290X is still unsupported in 10.9.2, and people that tried the 10.9.3 betas says there is no support coming in 10.9.3 either. Too bad, but I'm doing what you said now - using that card under windows only.

So I went ahead and bought a Sapphire R9 290 Tri-x and installed it in my new Mavericks installation. The card's fans are indeed not spinning at 100%, fortunately. They do spin a little harder than when the card is idling in Windows, making slightly more noise in OS X. I have a very silent system though, so it's easy for me to notice. It's pretty silent overall though, and I'm guessing the average system build will make the extra noise unnoticeable for most people.