The Goliath - Another Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH Build

[knyghtryda]

The Goliath: Core i7-2770k - GA-Z77X-UP5 TH - 32GB RAM - GTX 460 768MB

knyghtryda's Build: Core i7-3770k - GA-Z77X-UP5 TH - 32GB RAM - GTX 460 768MB

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Components Bought

Note that these are only the components which are directly applicable to the Hackintosh. I've got a few other drives which are booting other OSes and are not on this list.

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5 TH ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Intel-Thunderbolt-Motherboard-GA-Z77X-UP5-TH/dp/B008LTB3QW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353988327&sr=8-1&keywords=gigabyte+up5+th

Intel Core i7-3770K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 8 MB Cache LGA 1155
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-3770K-Quad-Core-Processor-Cache/dp/B007SZ0EOW/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1353988451&sr=1-1&keywords=intel+i7-3770k

Patriot Memory Viper 3 Series DDR3 32GB 1600MHz (PC3 12800) Quad Kit PV332G160C9QK
http://www.amazon.com/Patriot-Memory-Viper-1600MHz-PV332G160C9QK/dp/B00453R7SQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1353988531&sr=1-2&keywords=patriot+32gb+ddr3

Antec P280 Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.amazon.com/Antec-P280-Black-Tower-Computer/dp/B005X3E5BO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1353988587&sr=1-1&keywords=antec+p280

Antec EarthWatts EA-650 GREEN 650W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044


Components Already Owned

GALAXY GTX 460 768MB Video Card (What I had on hand, will be replaced with something better later)

Dell U2311H 23" LCD

Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000 with Cherry MX Blue Switches

Logitech MX1000

Western Digital Velociraptor 74GB 10K (one of the old ones)

Comments:

This was originally just gonna be a bog standard Windows 7/Ubuntu machine until I started reading up on Hackintoshs. Seeing as how this motherboard was probably the most compatible board out there (I bought just for future proofing with the Thunderbolt ports) I went for it. I ran into a few issues along the way, but nothing that completely stopped my progress.

Issue #1
The hardest part of this build was first making the UniBeast drive, which took some head scratching as I don't have access to a mac. I eventually got Mountain Lion from the Apple Macintosh App Store (an adventure in itself) and got UniBeast made.

Issue #2
My next problem was actually booting the damn thing up. It would boot, go to the grey apple screen (or with -v the startup logs) then go to a black screen and stop. I could tell stuff was happening in the background but nothing was getting to the monitor. This turned out to be fixed with a PCIRootUID=0.

Issue #3
Yay! It boots to installer! Wait... why are none of the drives showing up? So as it turns out, OS X does not like the hardware raid on this motherboard (and probably most other boards). Since my Windows 7 drives are raided (2x intel 520 240GB ) none of the other drives were showing up due to the motherboard being set to raid mode. Well crap. Then I realized that this board has a secondary Marvell SATA controller. HUZZAH! swapped the cables over to the grey SATA plug (swapped the cable as well to an orange one in order to identify it later) booted back up and YAY! the raptor drive is showing up. Commence installation!

Issue #4
After everything got installed and the machine was humming along nicely I walked away for a bit only to come back and find that it had died while asleep. Well crap again. Went ahead and disabled sleep (for now).

After all that and an update to 10.8.2 everything seems to be great.

MultiBeast Configuration for Mountain Lion

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Outstanding Issues/Notes

The Gigabyte wifi/BT card is somehow half working (aren't most people's cards just completely not working?). Wifi doesn't work (and won't unless I can dig really hard for some nonexisting drivers) but somehow the Bluetooth is working OTB. I'm able to pair my Galaxy Nexus and transfer files as well as tether internet.

 

[Stork]

Welcome to the Thunderbolt age! I toyed with the P280 case, but it was too big for setting the desktop. How do you like the P280? Did you consider the Fractal Design Define R4 as a good silent case?

 

[knyghtryda]

Welcome to the Thunderbolt age! I toyed with the P280 case, but it was too big for setting the desktop. How do you like the P280? Did you consider the Fractal Design Define R4 as a good silent case?

I looked at it, but I was able to get the p280 for a really good price after rebate. I actually thought the P280 was too small for my needs (crazy I know) cuz it didn't have 3x120mm fans up top and the clearance from top fans to motherboard is really tight. I originally had wanted to transplant my old watercooling setup (3x120mm radiator) over to this new machine, but ended up getting a refurb Corsair H100 closed loop system which seems to be working fine and fits nicely up top.

 

[idrankthebleach]

Hey Twinsies!
I'm posting this from my VERY similar build that I just booted for the first time (again..)
Antec P280
Z77X-UP5 TH W/ i7 3770k
32 GB 1600 RAM (g skill ripjaws) MSI GTX 660ti Power Edition
H100i (oh man is it quirky)
Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD

My BT card half works OTB too! Connected my Magic Mouse and Keyboard (don't own a trackpad yet) without issue. Also, I haven't run MultiBeast yet, and I'm running from my discrete which is working wonderfully OTB as well...

This thing runs like a champ, as long as I don't put chimera on there. Above, I wrote "(again..) because after I slapped Chimera on the drive in order to then boot without my Unibeast's bootloader in, graphics wouldn't come up- so I searched around tried some boot flags, booted back in with unibeast- then ran multibeast with User DSDT...no graphics. So! I stuck my Unibeast drive in a USB 2.0 port inside the case after trying 20394230947 other things and just being like "meh, i didn't have anything on there, I'll just reload."

Kudos! kindred build brethren!

*this is my first post on the forums, so if I have made any mistakes, please don't hesitate to let me know.

 

[Stork]

idrankthebleach,
Have you read Slugnet's Golden Build description? He has a 660 Ti.
http://www.tonymacx86.com/golden-bu...d5h-i7-3770k-gigabyte-geforce-gtx-660-ti.html

 

[idrankthebleach]

I had not seen this particular link! Thanks! I reinstalled AGAIN after some frustrations with having to boot with my usb stick in and generally just trying to fine tune some performance issues I was having. I followed the hacks by Alfa build to the letter of the law this time around and have had no issues since. I even slapped my time machine data onto it from my MBP because it seems so stable. I've got some financial obligations (2 vacations ) and after I recover I plan on ordering another SSD to really push some system settings and get into contributing some more to the knowledge base while maintaining my satisfactory build as I'm amazed at how much information is here.

Sorry for threadjacking!
Oh and I love my p280, just wish it came with some psu extension cables. My only other gripe (which is an impossible one to fault for anyone but myself for hardware picking) is I just wish I could control the h100i fans via the Corsair link somehow in OSX. When its set to the quiet configuration, i can't tell that its on, but when I boot into OSX- loud fans get rowdy. For the price (70$ AR) its really tough to beat.

knyghtryda what avg temps are you getting on idle with your h100/p280 setup? I'm in the 28-35c range, which isn't bad, but I expected better.

 

[knyghtryda]

Oh and I love my p280, just wish it came with some psu extension cables. My only other gripe (which is an impossible one to fault for anyone but myself for hardware picking) is I just wish I could control the h100i fans via the Corsair link somehow in OSX. When its set to the quiet configuration, i can't tell that its on, but when I boot into OSX- loud fans get rowdy. For the price (70$ AR) its really tough to beat.

knyghtryda what avg temps are you getting on idle with your h100/p280 setup? I'm in the 28-35c range, which isn't bad, but I expected better.

I'm not very impressed by the h100 to honest. I've got it mounted up top blowing out and I get around 30c idle and 70-75c load (yeah...) fully pegged with prime95. Its also running at the highest speed setting, though for some strange reason I don't think its ramping up to 2400rpm (The rpm gauge is showing a max of around 2100). Now granted, I'm running the CPU at 4.6GHz and a slight overvolt but I was expecting load temps more in the mid 60s than in the 70s. I kinda wish I had access to a corsair link box just to reset the temp thresholds and maybe ramp the fans a little faster, but at this point what I'm probably gonna do is score some PWM fans when they go on sale and just run that off the motherboard directly for a bit more control.

 

[idrankthebleach]

Yeah, I bumped mine up to 4.5 and it hit 72 max at full load on Windows- but on OSX I ran some disc imaging stuff just to give my GPU a workout as well and it didn't barely broke 60. May have something to do with it completely maxing out on OSX. Most folks grab the SP120's, but I'm leaning towards the Gentle Typhoons as I've never owned one and I'm ready to see what the buzz is about.

If you get the USB power surge issue, where OSX and Windows gives you the little super annoying notification (and all the usb ports function fully) I was able to solve it by shutting down the rig then switching the PSU off, and unplugging the power cable from the PSU- waiting ten minutes- plug back in. It's happened to me twice- once was legit as I didn't push my usb 3.0 plugs into the headers securely enough- but I troubleshot that issue last night until I tried what seemed to be the silliest solution to that issue. Kinda common for this board though.

Party on.