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

[ubermick]

Ubermick's Build - The Yeti​

Core i7 3770K / Z77X-UP5-TH / 16GB RAM / GTX 670 FTW / BLU RAY​

Previously: Core i7 2600K / GA-Z68XP-UD3 / 16GB RAM / XFX HD 6870 2GB​

Components:
CPU: Intel i7 2600k
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EBUXSA/

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0054OWTQU/

Heatsink: Noctua NH-D14
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002VKVZ1A/

RAM: 16GB Corsair Vengeance LP
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058J1QII/

Case: Corsair 600T Special Edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004O0PAKW/

PSU: Corsair AX850 Gold
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PJ6QW4/

GFX: XFX Radeon 6870 2GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005FPT37Q/

Mac HD: Crucial M4 128GB
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004W2JKZI/

Optical Drive: LG UH12LS28K Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Reader/Drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004U65FM8/

Input: Logitech Wave Wireless MK550
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003VAHYNC/

Bluetooth: Rocketfish RF-MRBTAD
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001D8CCYK/

Wi-Fi: DIY Apple Airport Card (BCM94321MC and PCI-e X1 card from ebay
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1143

Webcam: Logitech C910
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003M2YT96/

Monitor: Dell U2410
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00302DNZ4/

Already Owned
Mac Storage: 1TB WD Caviar Black
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036Q7MV0/

PC HD: OCZ Agility 3 256gb
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Z0S6S4/

PC Storage: 1TB WD Caviar Blue
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0036Q7MV0/

Operating System: Apple OSX 10.7 Lion
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-lio ... 3913?mt=12

Comments
Be warned. I tend to ramble.

Well, my 2008 iMac 24" was doing the job for the most part, but the time had come for me to invest in a new box. I checked out the Mac Pros, wanting to avoid an all-in-one system that while beautiful, is extremely unupgradable, and limited in it's customization.

When I woke up several minutes later (passed out from sticker shock), I embarked on researching the wonderful world of the Hackintosh. Three weeks of lurking and asking dumb questions from various forumites here, I started ordering. I signed up for a 30 day trial of Amazon's Prime service, which gave me free 2-day shipping on most of the parts I ordered. I intend to cancel before the trial period ends, now that I've gotten everything, but it was a nice bonus not having to wait the two weeks that their free "Super Saver Shipping" can take. Also, before you order anything, have this site open in a separate window when shopping, and click the referral links on hardware you've earmarked. This site's given us the tools to make our machines work, least we can do is give back a wee bit, right?

I should preface this by saying I've never built a computer before. I'm pretty comfortable opening a box up and doing minor things like installing memory or a hard drive, but have never started from scratch. To be honest, on build day I was terrified, and convinced I was going to fry something. Various points in the build were accompanied by panic, notably doing ANYTHING around the CPU, and installing the motherboard. But I found that the key was to just take my time, and if I was unsure about anything, stop and refer to the internet. There are so many youtube videos and guides out there to help a novice builder along, that by the time I had the system fully assembled and ready for software, I wondered what I was worried about. So if you've never built before, and are nervous, don't worry. Take a breath, take your time, you can absolutely do it.

With overclocking in mind, I wanted a case that had decent ventilation, but was still quiet. Poring over review after review, I settled on the Corsair 600T. The special edition version came with improved fans, and the built in controller was nice. I also found this case really easy to build in, with plenty of room on the "blind side", anchors for zip ties, lots of rubber cable grommets, as well as looking quite good. 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. I didn't go that extreme, settling on 4.3ghz, but I'm still happy I paid the extra $40 to protect a $319 CPU. The thing's a monster tho, so I ensured I went with low profile memory, since the heatsink overhangs the motherboard's memory slots. The Vengeance LP fits nicely, but I don't think the standard DIMMs with the fins would.

My plan was to snag a Corsair 750TX power supply, but stumbled on a great "buy it now" deal on ebay for an AX850 that had only been used for a week, and I could pick it up locally. I was absolutely DELIGHTED with the modular PSU, and would UTTERLY recommend going that route to anyone planning a build.

Beyond those minor deviations, my build went along Tony's CustoMac specs. I earn my living as a creative director, so stability was/is the main priority in this build. The only decision on the graphics card was to go with the Gigabyte 6870, or spend the extra $35 on the 2GB XFX version. Since I'm a designer, and will (eventually) go with a dual monitor setup, I thought the extra couple bucks was worth the investment.

Once the machine was assembled, I did have some extremely minor teething problems during installation. I used Tony's guide for Unibeast featured here:

http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/10/ ... using.html

I discovered that it's pretty easy to get frustrated and nervous when things don't go smoothly, but it was down to me being eager to get things running. Be sure and set your bios correctly. Once you think it's set correctly, go over it again. That minute of checking will likely save you a half hour of furious resetting, wondering why it's not working. My issue was that even when I told the machine to boot from the USB drive, it would just hang for an extended period, and then just tell me that there was no operating system found. (I hadn't set HPET to 64 bit):

1 - Load Optimized Defaults
2 - Set Bios to AHCI mode (for my board, found under "Integrated Peripherals", second option)
3 - Set HPET to 64 bit (for my board, found under "Power Management Setup")

After I finally got to the Chimera screen, I fortunately had zero issues getting Lion installed. Rather than dealing with updates, I just downloaded the most current version (10.7.3) from the App Store to use with Unibeast. With everything installed, I followed the instructions, booting from the USB drive again. Slight problem occurred here - I'd inserted a second USB drive with Multibeast and my motherboard's kext on there, and the compter seemed confused as to what drive to try and boot from. So make sure your Unibeast thumb drive is the only one attached at this point, and wait until OSX is fully loaded before popping in your second one.

Multibeast was a snap, and I simply followed Gordo's guide, replicating his settings: download/file.php?id=14188&mode=view

And as of right now, that's it! Restarted the beast, and it ran like a champ. I've had no issues of note yet, other than a sticking mouse pointer that others have also documented but beyond that everything's worked nicely. I'm sure I'll encounter a few more teething problems along the way, but for now I'm just enjoying having a Mac that brings down 14,148, in Geekbench that I built myself. Thanks to everyone in the tonymac86 community that helped me get this done, as well as the boys themselves for writing the software to make this possible.

UPDATE:
Hokay, another week, another pile of boxes delivered by Brown Santa!

Webcam was ordered purely because it offers compatibility out of the box. Again, 'nuff said.

The airport card's thread explains it all better than me. Wi-Fi isn't something I desperately needed, since this machine will be living in my office, next to my router, and will be connected via ethernet cable. But it's handy to have for communicating with other boxes in the house if I run into any of the documented ethernet problems. (None yet, touch wood.) And for less than $30, why not? Only thing I had to do was rename the card under the network System Prefs, since it was showing up as Bluetooth PAN. Weeeird.

The Bluetooth adapter took a little work to get going, and had me editing some kexts. Here's the scoop:

1. Plug dongle in (dur!)[/*:m:457455x7]
2. Head to System/Library/Extensions, and find IOBluetoothFamily.kext. Holding down command to copy it, drag it to the desktop, rename it to IOBluetoothFamily.kextBACKUP. Just in case.[/*:m:457455x7]
3. Fire up Terminal and type defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES[/*:m:457455x7]
4. Hit return to show hidden files. Next type killall Finder and hit return.[/*:m:457455x7]
5. Right click on the original IOBluetoothFamily.kext and hit Show Package Contents[/*:m:457455x7]
6. Open the Plugins folder, right click BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController.kext, and show package contents.
   
   
   [/*:m:457455x7]
7. In the corresponding Contents folder, open up the Info.plist file in TextEdit[/*:m:457455x7]
8. Scroll down to the first indented section of code - Broadcom2045FamilyUSBBluetoothHCIController. Last four lines are what we're interested in.
   
   
   [/*:m:457455x7]
9. Open up About This Mac/More Info/System Report. Click on USB in the left, and highlight your Rocketfish Bluetooth Adapter. In the info window, note the Product ID and the Vendor ID. For me it was 0x4d75 and 0x0461.
   
   
   [/*:m:457455x7]
10. Convert those two numbers to Hex using your Apple calculator in your Applications folder. Just click the 16 in the top right corner of the calculator's window, enter your four characters (the four following the "0x") and then hit the "10" next to 16 to convert to decimal. 4d75 becomes 19829, for example.[/*:m:457455x7]
11. Replace the values for "idProduct" and "idVendor" with your new numbers, and save.[/*:m:457455x7]
12. Back to Terminal, type defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE and return.[/*:m:457455x7]
13. Reboot, and you SHOULD be good to go.[/*:m:457455x7]

And that's it. Far as I can tell, aside from getting around to installing windows, my build is finished! Hooray!

Now if only I could figure out a way to stop this @#$# sticking mouse pointer problem...

(And I warned you about the rambling!)

 

[Stork]

Congratulations on a great build description! I really love the Apple on the side of the Corsair 600T. Looks so much better on your white case than it would on my black 600T.

I especially liked your candid lessons learn which will help noobs. Another lesson learned that I try to thump the desk every chance I get is to print out the guide(s) and use them as a check list. You can't believe how many "HALP!" posts we get that are attributed to missing steps in the guides.

Enjoy that great looking and performance Hackintosh!

 

[jeffbellamy]

If you don't mind me asking, How much did this build set you back?

 

[ubermick]

Congratulations on a great build description! I really love the Apple on the side of the Corsair 600T. Looks so much better on your white case than it would on my black 600T.

I especially liked your candid lessons learn which will help noobs. Another lesson learned that I try to thump the desk every chance I get is to print out the guide(s) and use them as a check list. You can't believe how many "HALP!" posts we get that are attributed to missing steps in the guides.

Enjoy that great looking and performance Hackintosh!

Cheers for that, Stork. And yep, having the step by step instructions next to you is crucial. It was great having my Macbook Pro next to me during the build process to use for reference any time I had a "Bollix, what do I do now?!" moment. (Like I said, there were many!) If you don't have the luxury of a laptop to reference, then absolutely printed instructions are a must.

I'm actually surprised at myself that I like the side window on that case - I REALLY wanted to avoid the gamer cases packed full of LEDs, but with the couple of white lights on the 200mm fans, it makes it look really cool, and that sticker gets nicely backlit at night! (Can't really see it in the photo.)

Anyways, now off to try and figure out a monitor for this!

 

[ovosodo]

How about USB problem after resume from sleep?

 

[Stork]

None of the Z68 mobos are working correctly with Sleep/wake-up. We're working on a DSDT mod to solve the problem. However, it's not a trivial problem. So, be patient, and await a tonymacx86 blog announcement on the fix.

 

[ovosodo]

None of the Z68 mobos are working correctly with Sleep/wake-up. We're working on a DSDT mod to solve the problem. However, it's not a trivial problem. So, be patient, and await a tonymacx86 blog announcement on the fix.

thanks and good job.

 

[chuck3d]

If you don't mind me asking, How much did this build set you back?

Approx $1500 if you do not count the extra equipment he already had.

Very nice reporting, Ubermick. For all of the Fence-Sitting creatives like myself -- looking for that 16,000 GeekBench mark -- this was a fantastic overview, complete with links.

I have been reading TonyMacx86 for 18 months, but watching each trial & error and wading through the issues. Think that we are getting so close to a pristine install in which sleep and sticky mice will too disappear.

Thanks again.

 

[ubermick]

If you don't mind me asking, How much did this build set you back?

Not counting the parts I had already, this ran about $1,900. The majority of the parts were snagged from Amazon so I didn't pay tax or shipping on anything (the 30 day trial of Amazon Prime was great, I avoided Newegg, since a few of the parts would have brought shipping costs as well as CA sales tax.)

The only non-Amazon parts were the case which came from Tiger Direct with free shipping. The power supply, blu ray, and Noctua came from ebay, all three were about $210 shipped. Power supply was an especially great deal, got it for $102 from a guy here in town, so was able to head over and pick it up locally. (Noctua was $70, blu ray was $40)

 

[wagerrard]

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.