Powermac G4 Ryzentosh/Win10 Gaming Rig

[FunkyHunk]

Hello guys and gals!

Long time lurker here, been following build threads on this forum a long time. 

I decided to make my own thread about my latest custom build.

Earlier builds I have done have been with storebought cases, mostly Lian Li cases since I liked their design and build quality alot. 

Some time ago in 2016 I got a powermac g4 from the early 2000's when a friend of mine cleaned up the house after her father passed away. 

 

 

This macine was immaculate, had sat for lots and lots of years. The harddrive was noisy and the fans were all rattling, but everything was working perfectly-ish.

It even came with the original keyboard and one button mouse. 

I was thinking of using all the internals, except for a new m-atx motherboard for my then i5 4690k/atx msi gaming 5/zotac gtx780/8gb ddr3 1600mhz gaming rig in a huge Lian Li case. 

But time went by, and the case just sat there, not doing anything. 

 

Then it came time to upgrade as the old build (no slouch tho) was beginning to show its age. 

I then comprised this list of hardware for my powermac build:

Cpu: Ryzen 7 2700X

Cooler: Corsair H60 120mm AIO

Mobo: Gigabyte B450m DS3H

Ram: GSkill 3200mhz ddr4 16gb (2x8gb)

HDD: 1x samsung 960 evo m.2 nvme (from the old pc) 1x 4tb Seagate 7200rpm (from the old pc)

GPU: MSI Gaming X 1080 8gb (bought used from a friend) 

PSU: 2010 Corsair 1000w semi modular (large type) (from the old pc)

 

And the old Powermac case of course.

Here is the old 780 next to the 1080, just to compare the sizes. I was doubtful before going in to this project if I could get that 1080 into the case without problems. 

 

 

First thing I did after cleaning out the old hw from the case was going to the electronics recycling place,

to get me a donor pc that I could hack out the mobo tray with standoffs and such to transplant into the g3 case. 

I decided to try to get the pc as close to unmodified as possible, keeping all the stock look and feel, while modernizing it to be a nice powerful daily driver. 

 

First I drilled out all the rivets for the side door to get it separated from the rest of the case, and then removed ther IO panel on the back, to get rid of the strange apple layout. 

 

 

And after a LOT of cutting/measuring/cutting/measuring/drilling/riveting this was the result: 

 

 

 

I had to redesign it a bit as I hadn't made room for the hinge. But It got done, and I assembled it. 

More pictures to follow next post

 

 

[FunkyHunk]

Here it is in its proper place: 

 

Installing macOS:

 

I run macOS on a separate 80gb intel SSD, and windows 10 from my samsung nvme. 

And a cinebench run before overclocking and installing the Nvidia Web Drivers on High Sierra. 

 

 

In its temporary placement in the livingroom: 

 

When I started this build I knew that cooling would be a challenge since the case is tiny, and not many alternatives were to be found as to fan placement. 

I found the optimal position for the aio radiator, as seen on the following pics pulling air into the case.

I also had one 120mm fan in the back wall pulling air out, opposite from the door, but that was too little.

The in-case temp was around 55c when gaming or benchmarking, and the gpu/cpu was around 80c. Not good. 

 

So I had to get more air in and out. 
I ordered two noctua NF-A12, and one NF-F12 for the radiator, and got to work.

One exhaust hole was cut on the top of the case next to the psu, and one more intake hole was cut on the bottom of the case, next to the radiator.

That got the cpu temps down to 72deg max running aida54/prime95, and the GPU down to between 65/70 degrees depending on the game/benchmark.  

 

Fan placement, filters on all fans to keep the dust out: 

 

Placement of the aio and the other intake fan on the inside: 

 

There are not many options for cable management inside the case tho.  

Since it has the side door design, placement of the cables is hard to get right, and the cables from the psu is just too short for a proper routing.

This means that the cables are just placed in there, not being too restrictive for airflow. 

 

Here are a few photos of the layout inside.

It's not pretty, but the pc works great

 

Lastly, a few pics of the front/side. 

 

I installed a USB3 hub with 7 ports where the CDrom used to be. And in the panel below that is the 3 position fan controller from my old Lian Li case. 

It's almost always on the quietest setting. 

 

So, what do you guys think? 

[seagate_surfer]

Looking good my friend!  And It was a great idea to use 2 separate drives for 2 different operating systems, partitioning and installing 2 operating systems in the same unit can sometimes be complicated...

[FunkyHunk]

1 hour ago, seagate_surfer said:

Looking good my friend!  And It was a great idea to use 2 separate drives for 2 different operating systems, partitioning and installing 2 operating systems in the same unit can sometimes be complicated...

Thanks buddy!

I had one spare 80gb ssd after I upgraded my old 256gb 960evo from my old pc, and bought a new 500gb 970 evo.

I took the old 80gb from the old pc, and put the 256gb in the livingroom pc where my old pc is now. 

Then the old 80gb ssd was available for new duties as macOS disk.

The mobo is also smart since it boots from the last booted disk until I choose the other one in the bios boot menu.

I've never had a mac/apple pc, so this was a learning experience for me as well.

I got great help from the amdosx forums to install macOS, as it requires a recompiled kernel to boot on amd cpus as well.

I just disconnected all drives until I was done installing High Sierra, as not to fuk up something on the other drives by mistake. 

 

I'm also contemplating upgrading the gpu to a RTX2080Super or a RTX2080TI, since they are both shorter and narrower than the gtx1080 I have now. 

That MSI Gaming X gpu is yuuge.

Since space is at a premium inside my case I think it would benefit both airflow and temperatures with a smaller albeit more powerful gpu. 

Also I want everything to run smooth in 4k/60fps. 

[seagate_surfer]

 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, FunkyHunk said:

I've never had a mac/apple pc, so this was a learning experience for me as well.

I got great help from the amdosx forums to install macOS, as it requires a recompiled kernel to boot on amd cpus as well.

Oh, I see! Interesting detail, anyone would think that it does not require any additional work to install macOS on an AMD CPU... Post the link to that forum to give it a look and thanks for sharing!

[FunkyHunk]

3 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

Oh, I see! Interesting detail, anyone would think that it does not require any additional work to install macOS on an AMD CPU... Post the link to that forum to give it a look and thanks for sharing!

Sharing is caring  

Here you go, for all interested in macOS on AMD cpus: AMD-OSX Forums

It requires some additional tinkering to get to work on AMD, a little bit extra in contrast to installing macOS on an intel system. 

Also, Nvidia drivers for macOS is not released for Mojave yet, so if you want 3d acceleration in the OS you have to stick to High Sierra for now. 

This is the guide I followed to install macOS 10.13.3 on my computer:  INSTALL AND POSTINSTALL OF HIGHSIERRAAMD V3 UNOFFICIAL

You also have to do a separate guide to install Nvidia web drivers to get a nvidia gpu to work on macOS. 

Most AMD gpus work fine natively in macOS. 

 

[seagate_surfer]

42 minutes ago, FunkyHunk said:

Sharing is caring  

Here you go, for all interested in macOS on AMD cpus: AMD-OSX Forums

It requires some additional tinkering to get to work on AMD, a little bit extra in contrast to installing macOS on an intel system. 

Also, Nvidia drivers for macOS is not released for Mojave yet, so if you want 3d acceleration in the OS you have to stick to High Sierra for now. 

This is the guide I followed to install macOS 10.13.3 on my computer:  INSTALL AND POSTINSTALL OF HIGHSIERRAAMD V3 UNOFFICIAL

You also have to do a separate guide to install Nvidia web drivers to get a nvidia gpu to work on macOS. 

Most AMD gpus work fine natively in macOS. 

 

Sharing is caring! 

[FunkyHunk]

Well, it looks like I haven't punised my bank account enough this year so,

suddenly I have a rtx2080ti Founders Edition heading my way. 

 

I guess the R7 2700x @4.1/4.2ghz won't be a bottleneck to get the full performance from the 2080ti?

Anybody know?

 

Also, I think I'm going to order an EVGA Powerlink, going to attempt a bit of a tidy of the cabling in the near future.