wfj's 600T White Build: GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3/i7 2600K/GTX 570

[wfj]

wfj's 600T White Build: GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3/i7 2600K/GTX 570

Components

Apple OS X Lion @ Mac Apps Store
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-lion/id444303913?mt=12

GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00518M74I/

Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz Quad Core Processor
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004EBUXSU/

Corsair Hydro Series H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051U7HMI/

Corsair Memory Vengeance 16GB Dual Channel Kit DDR3 1600 MHz 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004E0ZKLQ/

EVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD Superclocked 1280MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 Dual DVI/HDMI/Display Port SLI Ready Limited Lifetime Warranty Graphics Card
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004SMUT70/

Corsair Force Series GT 120GB SATA 2.5-Inch SATA III Solid State Drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0057QETGS/

Western Digital 1.5TB Caviar Black SATA 6 Gb/s 7200 RPM 64MB Cache Desktop Hard Drive
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CSIFG2/

Sony AD-7280S-0B 24x SATA Internal DVD+/-RW Drive (Black)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0057FRTPW/

Corsair 600T Special Edition Graphite Series Mid Tower Computer Case - White
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004O0PAKW/

Corsair HX Professional Series 750-Watt 80 Plus Certified Power Supply
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0029F21LK/

HDE (TM) 2-Port USB 3.0 A Female to 20 PIN Adapter
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064B7IYU/

Cable ties and patience.


Comments

There is nothing particularly special about this build. Gigabyte motherboard…blah, blah, blah. The main thing I'll illustrate is how to get a newer technology nVidia card working using the new Multibeast 4.3.0. Turns out to be ridiculously simple now and much easier than previously. One note: I tried using a Corsair H100 instead of the H80 and it works but the top cover is awfully tight with the radiator mounted up there. I think functionally and aesthetically the H80 is a better choice for the 600T and you really don't lose much cooling performance. Finally, if you build a lot of computers or tinker with your hardware frequently, get one of these (totally worth it): Black & Decker 9074CTN 3.6-volt Screwdriver.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000302UJ/


Configuration

Let's first gather some tools:

OS X Lion Installation Guide - http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2011/10/unibeast-install-mac-os-x-lion-using.html
MultiBeast Lion Edition - viewforum.php?f=125
DSDT - http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt.php
nVidia Cuda - http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda-mac-driver.html
Chameleon Wizard - viewforum.php?f=278

Motherboard BIOS Settings:

• Set SATA to AHCI and HPET to 64-bit.

OS X Lion Installation:

Install Lion. This is all well documented. With this specific hardware I didn't need any boot flags to get up and running. Place the DSDT on the desktop. (Be sure to rename the DSDT to DSDT.aml) Run MultiBeast. Here are the MultiBeast options I chose:

When MultiBeast and Lnx2Mac's installation programs are finished, go ahead and reboot. Once back at the desktop, mount and run the nVidia Cuda install package. You can also customize your org.chameleon.boot.plist using Chameleon Wizard. Done!

Benchmarks

Nice, fast, solid system and perfect for folks using Adobe or other Cuda accelerated applications. Sleep is still flaky but it sounds like the TonymacX86 boys are making progress on addressing the problem. Overclocking…yes you can but I'm finding with the speed of these Sandy Bridge processors it's not really necessary. Still fun to tool around though!

Pictures

Be nice…I'm a total amateur photographer. Yes, I need to iron my backdrop I never realized how challenging product photography can be, but it's also quite fun.

 

[goober296]

Your machine makes it easy to say NICE

 

[MD07]

Wao!!! I think that white case looks pretty sleek. I think I should have gone with more power. I got the corsair HX?? 650w

 

[wfj]

Wao!!! I think that white case looks pretty sleek. I think I should have gone with more power. I got the corsair HX?? 650w

The 750w is really overkill for this system but I got it on sale and the price difference was only $10 or so.

 

[wfj]

I found something pretty cool last night...haven't seen this posted anywhere on the forum so I'll share the info (possible I'm just blind).

Follow the link below, download the latest FakeSMC package, and unzip. You'll end up with a folder called "Binaries".

http://www.projectosx.com/forum/index.p ... topic=1643

Run Kext Wizard and drop in the following files (substitute RadeonX.kext for NVClockX.kext if you have a Radeon graphics card):

Click install and reboot when finished. Now, go back to that "Binaries" folder and drag HWMonitor to your applications folder. Run HWMonitor. In the menu bar, you get this:

Real time CPU/GPU/HDD temp monitoring along with clock frequency, and multiplier for the CPU. Cool! When you click on different objects (CPU 0, etc.) the values are displayed on the menu bar.

Edit - Much easier way to do this...go here and download the installer package.

 

[Mbar97]

Hot damn. Wish I had that kinda money. Congrats on the Golden!

 

[Vaffel27]

Thanks for your post, I have got the same setup and it's exactly what I needed great job.
I am going to install OS X Lion next week and I wanted to ask you if you installed Lion with all the memory in place 16GB, and the graphic card connected or you added them afterward?
Thanks.

 

[wfj]

Thanks for your post, I have got the same setup and it's exactly what I needed great job.
I am going to install OS X Lion next week and I wanted to ask you if you installed Lion with all the memory in place 16GB, and the graphic card connected or you added them afterward?
Thanks.

Memory and graphics card all in place during Lion install...actually had my 12 yr old do the install with me observing

 

[Gordo74]

Real time CPU/GPU/HDD temp monitoring along with clock frequency, and multiplier for the CPU. Cool! When you click on different objects (CPU 0, etc.) the values are displayed on the menu bar.

These are already in Multibeast if you dig deep enough into the trees

 

[wfj]

Real time CPU/GPU/HDD temp monitoring along with clock frequency, and multiplier for the CPU. Cool! When you click on different objects (CPU 0, etc.) the values are displayed on the menu bar.

These are already in Multibeast if you dig deep enough into the trees

Yep I realize that but what's missing is a nice, simple, hardware monitoring program. iStat is ok but doesn't give you real-time freq and mult for the cpu. The only other way I've seen to monitor this is msrdumper. Also, if you read the linked thread from my post, some of the HW monitor kexts are sensitive to specific versions of fakesmc and intelcpumonitor.

The HW monitor program didn't work with the versions of fakesmc and intelcpumonitor included in multibeast, FYI.