Hagoromo Lala Rebuild

[maxtch]

A family member of mine is asking me for a replacement PC, and she explicitly asked me for a hand-me-down, specifically my Xeon E3-1231v3 build. That was my main workstation, so in order to transfer that machine out, I have to build a replacement for myself.

 

Namesake of the machine: Hagoromo Lala from Star Twinkle Precure. The new cooler fan has a fixed color LED ring on it, making it look similar to this pastel-colored anime character. Credits: LaytonPuzzle27.

 

Requirements for the rebuild:

• It is a Hackintosh and it have to inherit an existing install, so Intel CPU only. (Switching between Intel and AMD based Hackintoshes requires at least a partial reinstall.)
• The upgrade is limited to CPU, cooler, motherboard and RAM. Everything else is inherited from the existing machine.
• It must not have less resources than my original build (4 cores, 8 threads, 32GB RAM.)

 

Here is my build, with the upgrades applied:

• CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K (8C/8T, 3.6/4.9GHz, unlocked)
• Cooler: Chinese brand cooler, closest equivalent would be Cooler Master Hyper 212.
• Mobo: Gigabyte Z390 UD
• RAM: 2x Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 16GB = 32GB total. (2 free slots)
• GPU: Sapphire PULSE RX 580 2304SP 8GB (inherited)
• SSD: Samsung 960 Pro NVMe 512GB (inherited)
• SSD: Hyperdisk SDOM 8GB (inherited)
• HDD: WD Black 2TB (inherited)
• PSU: Antec 620W continuous (inherited)
• Display: Dell P2415Q 24-inch 4K over DisplayPort (inherited)
• Case: Rackmount

My original plan was either buy an i7-4790K (I have a spare Z97 motherboard I can give to that family member) or a used i7-6700K + Z170 platform. However due to the coronavirus outbreak it is very difficult to buy used in China now. This means I have to bite the Intel tax (thanks to Apple) and buy brand new.

 

Here is a photo of the upgrade components (and the NVMe SSD) before it is put in the case:

 

FAQ

• Q: What's up with that 8GB SDOM?
  A: That is where Clover bootloader for macOS goes. By having Clover, its configuration files and Hackintosh-specific kexts away from actual drives that holds macOS, it allows me much more peace of heart when coming to system upgrades, knowing that macOS installer will not touch the Clover partition at all.
• Q: Why i7-9700K and Z390?
  A: It is based on 2019 27-inch iMac. The actual iMac used either i5-9600K or i9-9900K, so i7-9700K is a half-way option. (It is a better match than you think, as 2019 iMac 27-inch came with Radeon Pro 580, an exact match for my RX 580 8GB.)
• Q: How is the storage arranged?
  A: APFS Fusion Drive, with 2.5TB effective storage space.
• Q: Have you tried overclocking?
  A: My cooling situation in the rack is bad, so even with just +0.25V voltage delta the cores are hitting 100 degrees Celsius. Memory works correctly though at DDR4-3000 through a XMP profile, and macOS correctly identified it.