Ubermick's Build: i7 3770K//Z77X-UP5-TH //GTX 670 OC

[Stork]

I just created a UniBeast 10.7.3 USB thumb drive today. I followed the UniBeast Guide and worked. Make sure you have the Mac App Store Install Apple app in your /Applications folder or Apple Lion USB Thumb Drive.

 

[ubermick]

EDIT: Duplicate Post

 

[ShamanGreeny]

Just ordered a similar build today - very excited to see the results.

 

[c0nartiste]

Ubermick, thank you for the inspiration!

I was going to go for the GA-Z68XP-UD4 but because of that beautiful ramble, I was convinced I needed to go for the UD3 (Cheaper too). I couldn't find the 2GB XFX in-stock at a decent price, so I settled for the 1GB GIGABYTE.

HEATSINK - Corsair H80 Liquid Cooler
PSU - Corsair TX750
GPU - Gigabyte 6870 1GB
Mac HD - OCZ Vertex 120GB
OPT/D - Sony Optiarc

Also spent money on

Drobo S 5-Bay Storage Robot
3x Samsung 1TB Spinpoint Internal SATA
Logitech C910 Webcam
Wacom Intuos4 Medium
Dell U2711 27" LCD Monitor.

I sort feel like my pockets are on the light side. haha

All worth it though.

 

[ubermick]

Congrats! I have the much the same hardware but can't get UniBeast to build the install USB stick. So, I've been looking for an alternative way to install 10.7.3. In the interim, it looks like my SSD has gone belly up, so it will take more time to resolve.

Btw, that board seems to have a reputation for wiping out your BIOS settings when you do a hard reset (hit the button). That's been my experience here.

Actually, I ran into something similar that completely slipped my mind when I wrote the build description.

The night before the build, I used Unibeast to setup a HP 16gb USB drive for my Lion install. And then it went missing. So I set up another USB drive - this time an 8gb PNY Attache that Best Buy were selling for $8 a pop - with Unibeast and my app store version of Lion. Lo and behold, I couldn't seem to get the thing to boot. Convinced I was doing something wrong, I tried again but nothing.

Headed into the kitchen to grab some water, and there was the original HP USB drive sitting there. Grabbed it and headed back into the office, used that one, and it worked like a charm. I put it down to it just being a janky PNY drive that didn't work (indeed when I shoved it into my Macbook pro, it didn't want to show up, until I went into disk utility and forced it to mount.)

So it MIGHT be a case of some USB drives being incompatible with Unibeast (Or Macs in general)?

 

[Stork]

Nope. You need to make sure you format the thumb drive with the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme per Step 2-7 of the UniBeast Guide.

 

[tamorgen]

To keep things even cooler, I opted for a Noctua NH-D14 cooler. Much chunkier (chunkier on the wallet, too) than the popular Hyper 212, it got great reviews and I read plenty of reports from folks who had their i7 2600k processors up to 4.8ghz without issue.

Ubermick,
I have a similar setup to yours. Different case, different graphics card, but same mobo and processor. I'm considering purchasing the NH-D14. Noctua lists it as compatible with my motherboard (as you have already proven), and they don't list any limitations. I want to verify that it doesn't overhang the first PCIe slot, which is the only PCIe x16 on the board. I'm also relieve that even though my RAM has coolers, they list it as compatible as well.

Only difference perhaps is I am considering purchasing the SE2011 version, which is meant for the X79 chipset, but you can purchase their NM-IE mounting kit for backward compatiblity. Reason being is the SE2011 is PWM, whereas the standard NH-14 is 3 pin power. Spending the extra $9.99 for the mounting kit is worth it in my opinion.

 

[ubermick]

Heya Tam,

It's gonna depend on how you mount it. There's folks who mount it north/south so it's exhausting out the top fan, I mounted it horizontally so it's venting out the rear. Checky checky:

Mounting it the way I have it mounted means it overhangs one of the memory slots (hence me getting the low profile Vengeance kit - note how you can't even see the DIMMs in there behind that hulking thing?!) but the card slots are unobstructed - even the top PCI-E x1. If I mounted it the other way, it'd surely eat half those slots.

 

[jerrielister]

I purchased the same spec as yours. Thanks, helped alot. By the way, your board is revision one or else. Thanks

 

[tamorgen]

Heya Tam,

It's gonna depend on how you mount it. There's folks who mount it north/south so it's exhausting out the top fan, I mounted it horizontally so it's venting out the rear. Checky checky:

Mounting it the way I have it mounted means it overhangs one of the memory slots (hence me getting the low profile Vengeance kit - note how you can't even see the DIMMs in there behind that hulking thing?!) but the card slots are unobstructed - even the top PCI-E x1. If I mounted it the other way, it'd surely eat half those slots.

Ubermick,
Thanks for the pic. God that thing is big! (that's what she said). I love Noctua products, but I'm really hesitant on this thing. I think I'll actually have much better clearance and fewer issues with a Corsair H100 water loop. I've never ventured into water cooling before, but it's about the same price as the Noctua and I won't have issues choosing between blocking the PCIe slot or blocking the DIMM slots. Thinking of doing what this guy did. If I do, I'll post pics.