Hackintosh Gaming / Editing Rig

[LX1]

Hackintosh Gaming / Editing Rig

 

Hi,

So this is my first build which I actually built in May/April but only recently have I had a real chance to finally install Mountain Lion. My build (including accessories) is not totally finished, there are a few extra things here and there that I need to get in order to make it polished.
 

 

My Specs are:
 
CPU: Intel core i5 3570k
HSF: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
M/B: Asus P8Z77-V
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance (2x4GB)
GPU: MSI Nvidia GTX 660 ti Power Edition
HDD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14
           1TB Hitachi 7200rpm
VDU: Lenovo L197 1440x900
MOUSE: Cyborg RAT 7
PSU: XFX Core 550w
CASE: NZXT Phantom
 

The Apple Logo Makes it go faster
 
From my specs you can see that my GPU is slight overkill for my current resolution, but I am getting a 1080p monitor soon: The LG 22EA63V, along with the monitor I have a Blue Snowball Microphone inbound. My system is not overclocked at the moment, I am waiting for my monitor to arrive because I don’t have a need to overclock at 1440x900. You may also notice a lack of SSD, I am saving up for one as well but to me a monitor will give me more of a benefit as well as a mechanical keyboard to replace my crappy Microsoft Keyboard and a sound card (Xonar DGX) instead of the onboard but may have access to a USB DAC instead. To replace my V2 Siberias I am hoping to get a pair of Sennheisers: HD 518s at a later date.
 
Since this is a Hackintosh build I am going to be including the instructions that I went through to get it working to the point that I am at.
 
Working (Notable):
Sleep (Speedstep, Turbo etc...)
USB (Both USB 2.0 and all 3.0 ports, including the front panel)
Graphics (Woo Native support in >10.8.3)
Network
Audio
Bootloader
 
Not Working:
Nothing that I know of that I haven’t tested.
Haven’t tested the Wifi Go Card, doubt it will work and I doubt that I will ever need it.
Haven’t tested the 3^rd party SATA connectors.
 
I would like to thank Tonymacx86, RehabMan as well as all the other people involved with Multibeast and Unibeast and the user bridgeridoo whose guide I based mine off of.
His Guide is here

Unibeast Guide is here
 
My Installation:
 
Note: this may not be the best way of doing this, it is just that this one worked for me
My first hard drive (Seagate) is my windows drive (Windows, Data + Programs) my other drive (Hitachi) is OSX and a Scratch Partition, I have this because when I do editing it is great to have a drive separate from your OS/Programs drive and because I formatted it as ExFAT both OSX and Windows can read and write from it natively. I recommend this setup (having separate drives for OSs) in case something goes wrong you can boot into the other OS and either fix it or get on with something.

• I flashed my UEFI with the latest BIOS for my board with this site: http://biosrepo.wordpress.com/ The BIOSs are patched to prevent kernel panics when trying to update the part of the UEFI that deals with C States for power management. USB Bios Flashback on Asus boards comes in handy for this.
• UEFI Settings, everything was at Optimized Defaults except for these settings
  • USB > xHCI: Auto
  • USB > EHCI Hand-off: Enabled
  •  Secure Boot: Disabled
  • I had XMP and Asus MCE enabled for this, while not necessary and can sometimes cause more problems, I did not encounter any problems.
• Unless your Unibeast drive has 10.8.3 or above on it remove your graphics card completely including from the PCI-E slot and use the iGPU for now.
• Make sure all devices that are not needed are disconnected: External Hard drives, sound cards etc. Disconnecting Hard Drives you aren’t using for the install can’t hurt either.
• Install OSX using the Unibeast drive Note: Using a Unibeast drive make sure that the drive that you are using to install OSX on is formatted and partitioned with the Mountain Lion installer.
• Ran the latest Combo Update, at the time 10.8.4. For my mouse (Cybord RAT 7) I had to install the software otherwise it wouldn’t register when I hovered over something. Restarted.
• Switched to Graphics Card, Had to use Unibeast drive to boot into OSX but I had native graphics support.
• I ran the lastest version of Multibeast  (At the time 5.4.1)
  • Selected these options:
    • User DSDT or DSDT Free Installation
    • Audio Realtek –> without DSDT –> ALC892
    • Miscellaneous -> Zenith432's GenericUSBXHCI
    • Network -> AppleIntelE1000e Ethernet
    • Customisation –> Boot Options – >Graphics Enabler=No
• I installed HWSensors
• I set the UEFI to boot from the OSX drive to give me access to the chameleon boot menu.

Everything now works perfectly. From my limited time with OSX (I haven't used it since Snow Leopard) I have to say that even compared to Windows 7/8 (I am using Windows 8) it is far faster to use when you have more than two windows that you are using frequently. As with Windows 8 don’t miss the start menu at all, the start screen looks and feels a lot nicer, search is great but I wish it was more intelligent and oh my god do I miss aero, installed DWM aero which worked well but there is a notification which pops up to remind you of this. If you want to try it the link is here
 
GeekBench Score:

 

While I have the ability to take decent photos, it is no excuse for a crap camera :(

 

Close up of Graphics Card

 

My cabling skills

 

My View of my Computer, When You take off the dust filter the mesh acts like a window, which is nice

 

PS: Please excuse the quality of the images, I had to use an iPhone 4s (Not mine), will take some more glamour shots hopefully with a proper camera.

 

Temps at Idle - Stock

 

Temps at Load - Stock (They may be high but my fans are silent)

[MrSuperb]

yay ... another hackmac ;)

[<boss2939>]

Dat cable management is smexy

[Frix]

Love the idea of hackinthosh's love the build good job

[CJPowell27]

Please tell me you plan on liquid cooling

[LX1]

Please tell me you plan on liquid cooling

Don't know if i have a terrible CPU/contact but my heatsink fan is at super low a rpm and cant be heard above the case fans even at their lowest settings, will make the fan more aggressive when I decide to overclock.

[CJPowell27]

Don't know if i have a terrible CPU/contact but my heatsink fan is at super low a rpm and cant be heard above the case fans even at their lowest settings, will make the fan more aggressive when I decide to overclock.

It's just a big case to not have a custom loop thats all

[LX1]

It's just a big case to not have a custom loop thats all

I will at a later date but there are no full cover blocks for my gpu :( however with some slight modding I can add a triple in the top though so when I upgrade at a later date it will be on my list. Will probably get an h220 or the upcoming h320 to give me some expandability.

[Nicktrance]

Not a fan of the case, especially if it has a large apple sticker on the front :p, but good job on the cable management!

[LX1]

Not a fan of the case, especially if it has a large apple sticker on the front :P, but good job on the cable management!

Thanks

[Monty007]

Nice Hack!