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

[Stingray454]

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.

Thanks for reporting back, interesting to know how it worked out for you. While not a super silent build, I can't say that my build is noisy (water cooled cpu and very quiet noctua fans), and I can't tell any difference in noise idling in windows or OS X, fan noise from the GPU's seems the same for me. Anyway, glad you didn't have the 100% fan issue

 

[Cinner]

I'm not water cooled so your system is probably even more silent than my air cooled system, so I'm surprised you don't hear a difference. I do my comparing late at night when it is absolutely silent indoors, so maybe that makes a difference? During the day it would be hard for me to notice any difference between Windows and OS X sound-wise. Not that is matters that much, I'm happy with this new build right now. Hopefully Apple will release drivers for these cards in the future so our builds will get even better

 

[Mulder]

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).

Hi Stingray! Nice build you have there and a nicely detailed first post too. It was a blast to read.
However, I have a question concerning your 280x card. If you would run your system with only one 280x, are you still able to have it run two monitors? I can't seem to find a good read on this matter anywhere on the forum. Do you happen to know if other 280x cards, like the Sapphire Toxic, work as good as yours?

 

[Stingray454]

Hi Stingray! Nice build you have there and a nicely detailed first post too. It was a blast to read.
However, I have a question concerning your 280x card. If you would run your system with only one 280x, are you still able to have it run two monitors? I can't seem to find a good read on this matter anywhere on the forum. Do you happen to know if other 280x cards, like the Sapphire Toxic, work as good as yours?

Hi there! And thank you, glad you enjoyed it .

Yes, two monitors from the same card works nicely, I have tried hooking up a monitor to the DVI port and my old iMac in Target Display Mode to the DP port, and that worked without issues. I haven't tried three or more monitors on one card though, but I tried all the ports and they all work independently, so I don't see a problem with using even more monitors on one card.

About the Sapphire Toxic, I'm not sure. I've read about people using all kinds of 280X models for hackintosh, and didn't see any mention of a card that doesn't work. I bet some cards might have different quirks / require different settings, but most post I've read say they work great out of the box. Have a look around this site, I'm sure there is someone using a Sapphire Toxic that can answer your question better

I went with MSI only because of the very limited space in my case, and MSI is the shortest card available. In retrospect, the card works great, but they seem to have fan issues. The bearings on one fan fell apart after a while, and when I googled it, it looks like a common problem. Because of that I'm not sure if I would recommend a MSI card, but the other MSI card has worked very well.

Good luck with your build!

 

[Mulder]

Hi there! And thank you, glad you enjoyed it .

Yes, two monitors from the same card works nicely, I have tried hooking up a monitor to the DVI port and my old iMac in Target Display Mode to the DP port, and that worked without issues. I haven't tried three or more monitors on one card though, but I tried all the ports and they all work independently, so I don't see a problem with using even more monitors on one card.

About the Sapphire Toxic, I'm not sure. I've read about people using all kinds of 280X models for hackintosh, and didn't see any mention of a card that doesn't work. I bet some cards might have different quirks / require different settings, but most post I've read say they work great out of the box. Have a look around this site, I'm sure there is someone using a Sapphire Toxic that can answer your question better

I went with MSI only because of the very limited space in my case, and MSI is the shortest card available. In retrospect, the card works great, but they seem to have fan issues. The bearings on one fan fell apart after a while, and when I googled it, it looks like a common problem. Because of that I'm not sure if I would recommend a MSI card, but the other MSI card has worked very well.

Good luck with your build!

Thank you for your reply. Great to hear that everything works! By the way, are you running 10.9.3?
I did find one guy in the forums here who got the 280x Toxic working:
http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-ad...-our-hackintoshes-further-explanation-16.html
The problem is that he doesn't respond. I would really like to hear from someone with experience if the card can handle two monitors simultaneously, before I buy it.

The MSI is indeed short. I use two of them for mining and have had the same problems with the fans. Also the reason why I don't want to buy one for my Hackintosh.

 

[Stingray454]

My 290X is now fully working - awesome to have this monster finally work well under OS X

 

[Dizono]

That's one great build!

One question regarding the case: do you like the Prodigy case? I've got one myself (using Z87 as well) but I found the case quite stupid. Where did you put your SSD? The extra insert for installing two HDD's or SSD's (you can't instal both) is stupid because you install the SSD's in such a way that it is impossible to connect the sata-cables without using a metal saw. I had to place two HDD's and one SSD and ended up installing the two HDD's in the bottom and taping the SSD to the area above the power supply (using the extra insert wasn't an option for the HDD's because the optional cooling was to big and using it for only one SSD is ugly and is not helping giving acces to the MB).

 

[Stingray454]

That's one great build!

One question regarding the case: do you like the Prodigy case? I've got one myself (using Z87 as well) but I found the case quite stupid. Where did you put your SSD? The extra insert for installing two HDD's or SSD's (you can't instal both) is stupid because you install the SSD's in such a way that it is impossible to connect the sata-cables without using a metal saw. I had to place two HDD's and one SSD and ended up installing the two HDD's in the bottom and taping the SSD to the area above the power supply (using the extra insert wasn't an option for the HDD's because the optional cooling was to big and using it for only one SSD is ugly and is not helping giving acces to the MB).

Thank you!

Well, the case was quite tight to work with, but I love the look of it and overall everything could fit pretty well. The feet / handles could have been more sturdy, and it's a bit wide (I saw someone that moved the motherboard plate to the middle of the case, still had room for all pcie cards and such, and could fit the PSU behind the motherboard - excellent idea!). But overall I'm happy with it .

Abouth the drives I have two SSD's in case in the pictures. I used the "rack" on the side panel to mount my drives behind the motherboard so they aren't showing, you can easilly fit two 2.5" drives behind there -I took the door on the right side that has the USB / sound ports and such, and turned it upside down and mounted on the other side. The cables are running behind the motherboard to the PSU and SATA connectors. A bit of a tight fit to have all the cabling behind the PSU and motherboard, but violence solves everything . Very nice to have them out of the way though, as you hardly ever touch them once everything is installed. I can open the case now with no cables or drives in the way.

This only works well with 2.5" drives though, with regular 3.5" drives I don't think fitting them behind the motherboard is an option. Not sure how you mount things if you need a metal saw though, I certainly didn't need one, and I tried having the drives mounted in both the front and the back.

 

[Dizono]

Ahh, never thought of placing the ssd behind the MB. But I suppose you have to unmount the MB to be able to do so... I've put the USB-panel and on-switch on the left side as well, only I've still got to turn those two buttons a 180 degrees... Thanks for your quick reply!!!

 

[Stingray454]

Ahh, never thought of placing the ssd behind the MB. But I suppose you have to unmount the MB to be able to do so... I've put the USB-panel and on-switch on the left side as well, only I've still got to turn those two buttons a 180 degrees... Thanks for your quick reply!!!

You don't have to unmount the motherboard. The "door" with the on/reset/usb on it has a 2.5" rack factory mounted on it (some plastic grid), at least mine did. Just mount the SSD:s to the door itself in that rack, connect the cables and let them run behind the motherboard and close it, and you're done I don't have any picture of it sadly, but the next time I open it up I can try to remember to snap one.