Old Mac User Needs New Hackintosh Advice- First Build

Hi All,

First off. What an amazing resource this site is! I have spent the last couple of weeks reading up on this site and huge thanks to Tony and the many other geniuses on here.

I am looking to build a good 'all rounder'. I am primarily a graphic designer and often work on large (billboard sized) artworks using CS6 etc, I also spend time on video projects and some web design too. I would like to build something relatively similar to a new Mac Pro, but have room to over clock the system at a later date.

So here are my specs:

Gigabyte Z87X-UD5H

Intel i7 4770K 3.5ghz

Crucial M500 90GB

Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 16GB (would these interfere with a Crossair H80i?)

Crossair RM650W 80 Plus Gold PSU

BluetoothT GMYLE adapter

Pioneer BDR 209DBK

NZXT Phantom 410 MIDI case

ASUS MX299Q 2560x1080 Monitor (will this run off the integrated graphics on the mobo?)

...and at a later date/once I have more confidence I would like to overclock/upgrade the system to 4ghz+, so would add:

Crossair 120mm Hydro H80i

More RAM - to take it to 32GB

MSI Nvidia GTX 760

I would appreciate any comments/things I've missed/improvements you guys may have. Thanks in advance.

Burty

For your boot drive get at least the M500 120GB it shouldn't cost much more
than a 90GB. Didn't think they even make that size. The integrated HD4600
will handle the monitor with no problem. Crucial Ballsistix XT ram will not interfere
with the water cooling as the radiator is not directly over the CPU. If I were
you I'd just start out with a 32 GB ram kit as you'll likely need that much at
some point over the next 3-5 years. Newegg has the best deal on a 1866 MHz
32 GB kit right now.

Good luck on your build.

Thats great, thanks.

I did mean 960GB version of the M500, doh, sorry.

Before I order my parts, do you think its worth doing the entire build to start with i.e all the overclocking and extra cooling, rather than doing in it in 2 stages? Is it a real pain to do after the OS is installed?

Is there any advantage to 1866mhz RAM or is this advantageous when overclocking?

Also, I still have my old firewire iSight camera. Do you think it would still run off a compatible FW card, as I believe the mobo has a FW header?

Sorry for the noob questions...

Whit this MB, great for Mavericks. No problems for me

Burty77 said:

Thats great, thanks.

Before I order my parts, do you think its worth doing the entire build to start with i.e all the overclocking and extra cooling, rather than doing in it in 2 stages? Is it a real pain to do after the OS is installed?

Click to expand...

I would build it, install OS X and get everything working before attempting an
overclock. This system will be so much faster than your aging Mac that you may feel no overclock at
all is necessary. I would install the water cooling from the start though as it sounds like you will want to get more performance out of the system at some point later on.

Is there any advantage to 1866mhz RAM or is this advantageous when overclocking?

Click to expand...

If the 1866 ram goes for about the same price why not ? It will still work at 1600MHz just fine.

Also, I still have my old firewire iSight camera. Do you think it would still run off a compatible FW card, as I believe the mobo has a FW header?

Click to expand...

I'm not 100% sure but I don't believe the onboard firewire works with OS X. Just plan on buying a compatible card, they're fairly inexpensive and a nice option to have.

I'm also about to start a build that includes the Pioneer BDR-207DBK. However I haven't found any evidence of anyone using this for a hackintosh either successfully or unsuccessfully so I'm a little apprehensive. Would love to know how it works for you. I imagine it won't be a problem considering I have heard that the older Pioneer 207 model worked well.

danneg said:

I'm also about to start a build that includes the Pioneer BDR-207DBK. However I haven't found any evidence of anyone using this for a hackintosh either successfully or unsuccessfully so I'm a little apprehensive. Would love to know how it works for you. I imagine it won't be a problem considering I have heard that the older Pioneer 207 model worked well.

Click to expand...

I am using thid blu-ray drive and it works just fine. I would recommend it to anyone.

Thats great, thanks for all your comments guys.

I have been doing a bit more researching/procrastinating and I am tempted by the Gigabyte GA-Z78X-UD5H-TH instead. I am aware of the Thunderbolt issues, but am trying to future proof as much as I can.

Is there any disadvantages of going for the TH version over the GA-Z87X-UD5H?

After some tweaking my build looks like this:

GA-Z87X-UD5H-TH -Motherboard

Intel i7 4770K 3.5Ghz -Processor

Corsair Vengeance 2133Mhz 32Gb -RAM

Corsair RM750 80 Gold -PSU

Crucial 550 1Tb -SSD

NZXT Phantom 410 Midi -Case

ASUS MX299Q 2560x1080 -Display

Once I am 100% happy and all is working I will be overclocking and adding:

Corsair H80i -Cooler

Pioneer BDR 208DBK -Bluray Drive

Again, thanks for all you advice in advance! Love this site, takes me back to my cubeowner.com days

Your choices look good except for the Ram. Very few community members have been able
to run 32 Gb of Corsair Vengeance successfully on Haswell systems without freezes and
lockups. Especially when it is overclocked.

We've taken it off the list for this reason. For a 32 GB kit I would choose the following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148726&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=4902415&SID=

Wow, thanks for the 'heads up' on the RAM.

What about the differences between the GA-Z87X-U5H and the GA-Z87X-U5H-TH?

Ive had a look at the specs on both boards and apart from the addition of Thunderbolt and loss of Display port etc. I can't really find anything?

The only thing thats making me hesitate is the lack of the display port on the TH model. I assume a DP to Thunderbolt adapter won't work? Is there a disadvantage to running this monitor off the HDMI instead? Will I still be able to achieve the full 2560x1080 ratio?

I guess I can always add a graphics card later.....

Apologies for my procrastinating, it drives my wife nuts.

*thinks* Maybe I shall call my build 'The Procrastinator'!