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Cindori Custom: Building an i7 Hackintosh
- Thread starter Cindori
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It's slightly noisier than the Mac Pro at idle but conversely it is quieter than the Mac Pro at full load. The H50 water cooler unit, once bedded in, is remarkably quiet and I have some large silent Noctua fans on the chassis to replace the stock units.
It's a different kind of noise at idle, similar to the background sound on the original Star Trek Enterprise in the corridors. It's there but not in your head unless you are wanting to hear it...
Would some one mind looking over these components I'm planning on building a dual OSX/Windows 7 machine. It will be mostly used for video editing Pro Res 422 in Final Cut Studio and also a bit of gaming
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard
Intel Core i7 930
Corsair CMG6GX3M3A1600C7 6GB Kit Dominator GT
XFX Radeon HD4890 1GB Core Edition HDMI/DVI
Pioneer BDR-205 Blu-ray Disc Writer OEM
Antec Nine Hundred Two Case
What I like about this setup is I will be able to upgrade the GFX and CPU once Apple release drivers and when the new 6 core i7's drop in price.
What sort of speed should I be able to over clock the 930 to?
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard
Intel Core i7 930
Corsair CMG6GX3M3A1600C7 6GB Kit Dominator GT
XFX Radeon HD4890 1GB Core Edition HDMI/DVI
Pioneer BDR-205 Blu-ray Disc Writer OEM
Antec Nine Hundred Two Case
What I like about this setup is I will be able to upgrade the GFX and CPU once Apple release drivers and when the new 6 core i7's drop in price.
What sort of speed should I be able to over clock the 930 to?
Is there an off-the-shelf prouct from a "tier 1" PC manufacturer that can be used as a starting point? E.g. buy a Dell T3500 and replace the default video card and then everything works?
I admire everyone's acumen in assembling computers from kits of parts, but it would be much easier if they came "mostly" assembled from a reputable manufacturer.
Of course, I could just buy a Mac Pro, but that's a little pricey, isn't it?
I run Snow Leopard 10.6.2 on my Dell Vostro 430, it has got a P55 board. I had to replace the stock ATI HD4350 (with a 8400GS) and add a PCI Ethernet card then I was up and running. My advice is to go for a P55 based system and use the guides on www.tonymacx86.com.
Would some one mind looking over these components I'm planning on building a dual OSX/Windows 7 machine. It will be mostly used for video editing Pro Res 422 in Final Cut Studio and also a bit of gaming
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard
Intel Core i7 930
Corsair CMG6GX3M3A1600C7 6GB Kit Dominator GT
XFX Radeon HD4890 1GB Core Edition HDMI/DVI
Pioneer BDR-205 Blu-ray Disc Writer OEM
Antec Nine Hundred Two Case
What I like about this setup is I will be able to upgrade the GFX and CPU once Apple release drivers and when the new 6 core i7's drop in price.
What sort of speed should I be able to over clock the 930 to?
Depending on what cooler you get, you could be pushing 4GHz.
Can you ellaborate on this? I haven't heard anything bad about the EX58-UD5 only the EX58A-UD5.
Thanks
Quick update; Got the install working and updated to 10.6.2 and all was well.
I'm using a Sapphire 4870 1024MB card I was intending to flash for use in the Mac Pro but never got around to it. Not sure if QE and CI is working on the hack so I applied the netkas QE_CI package for exotic cards. Kernel panic on restart and verbose mode points to the X2000 drivers being the culprit. Aaargh.
So I start again, formatting and reinstalling from the beginning. I think I know the insides of this machine more intimately than I do my wife..
Hey rank, good work on getting your AppleHack up and running. What did you do to solve the problems you were facing before? Also, which method did you use in the end to make it all work?
I have the exact same components as you, hence me asking before I get my hands dirty
xm
Depending on what cooler you get, you could be pushing 4GHz.
I was thinking the Corsair Hydro Series H50 CPU Cooler
Hey rank, good work on getting your AppleHack up and running. What did you do to solve the problems you were facing before? Also, which method did you use in the end to make it all work?
I have the exact same components as you, hence me asking before I get my hands dirty
xm
After a bit of trial and error I did this:
Installed 10.6 to a fresh new disk on my Mac Pro then immediately applied the 10.6.2 combo update to it. Next step was to apply the script Cindori posted on page 1 of this thread, update the kext caches and boot it in the Hack.
All was working fine except sound so I took the DSDT file for a GA-X58A-UD7 (closest match to X58A-UD5) from kexts.com and replaced the original DSDT.
I then patched the DSDT file with the correct audio configs for the 889 chip on our motherboards with info from http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=196771
EX58A-UD5 working fine here
A hackintosh can be just as quiet as a Mac Pro as long as you use quiet low rpm fans.
I'd skip on that one, the ultra compact all-in-one liquid cooling units are more of a gimmick. I'd recommend a Megahalems cooler and one or two low noise 120mm fans in a push/pull setup. I use Scythe Kama PWMs because I wanted PWM fans and these seemed the quietest.
I've got Megahalems on my (pretty poor) 920 with only one fan (case design won't allow space for a push/pull setup) and I can run at 4Ghz 24x7. I had it 24hr prime stable at 4.2GHz but throttled it back a bit to ensure 24x7 stability because I often have to leave simulations running for more than a week.
It may have been just the EX58A variety (with USB 3 and SATA 3) that had the problems.
My recommendation is to spend couple extra bucks and go with the EX58A-UD7 MB.
Here is a 41 page comparison of current top coolers. It is in Romanian but the graphs are easy to read.
I have just realised that the eSATA ports on the Gigabyte motherboard are hot pluggable under Mac OS X. Very handy with an external eSATA desktop docking cradle and a stack of hard drives
Overclocking the i7 930 from its base 2.83 GHz was interesting...
Raising the clock speed to 4.45 GHz was the first attempt. Mac OS X would load but a crash would occur shortly after loading the desktop.
Falling back to 4.36 GHz enabled the OS to load and all applications worked fine initially but the temps were a bit high, idle 55C and full load 89C, causing app crashes when running for extended periods at high load.
Stepping back to 4.24 GHz resulted in much better stability, no application crashes and idle temps of 53C and highs of 83C under stress. I have run this configuration for two days with no problems. As a comparison the base 2.8 GHz temps are 35C idle and 55C full load.
The load temps are high due to the system fans running at the same apparent speed as the base clock configuration of 2.8GHz. I may fit a push-pull fan setup on the Hydro H50 CPU cooler and see what temperature drop occurs.
Cindori, did you fit the Fractal Design fan controller unit on your setup and what temps were you seeing on overclock?
A sample video file converted by Handbrake took 32 minutes to complete on my Mac Pro 1,1 and 22 minutes on my base i7 2.8GHz unit and 14.5 minutes at 4.24 GHz. I have not yet run the memory at aggressive timings so there may be more to come.
Raising the clock speed to 4.45 GHz was the first attempt. Mac OS X would load but a crash would occur shortly after loading the desktop.
Falling back to 4.36 GHz enabled the OS to load and all applications worked fine initially but the temps were a bit high, idle 55C and full load 89C, causing app crashes when running for extended periods at high load.
Stepping back to 4.24 GHz resulted in much better stability, no application crashes and idle temps of 53C and highs of 83C under stress. I have run this configuration for two days with no problems. As a comparison the base 2.8 GHz temps are 35C idle and 55C full load.
The load temps are high due to the system fans running at the same apparent speed as the base clock configuration of 2.8GHz. I may fit a push-pull fan setup on the Hydro H50 CPU cooler and see what temperature drop occurs.
Cindori, did you fit the Fractal Design fan controller unit on your setup and what temps were you seeing on overclock?
A sample video file converted by Handbrake took 32 minutes to complete on my Mac Pro 1,1 and 22 minutes on my base i7 2.8GHz unit and 14.5 minutes at 4.24 GHz. I have not yet run the memory at aggressive timings so there may be more to come.
Overclocking the i7 930 from its base 2.83 GHz was interesting...
Raising the clock speed to 4.45 GHz was the first attempt. Mac OS X would load but a crash would occur shortly after loading the desktop.
Falling back to 4.36 GHz enabled the OS to load and all applications worked fine initially but the temps were a bit high, idle 55C and full load 89C, causing app crashes when running for extended periods at high load.
Stepping back to 4.24 GHz resulted in much better stability, no application crashes and idle temps of 53C and highs of 83C under stress. I have run this configuration for two days with no problems. As a comparison the base 2.8 GHz temps are 35C idle and 55C full load.
The load temps are high due to the system fans running at the same apparent speed as the base clock configuration of 2.8GHz. I may fit a push-pull fan setup on the Hydro H50 CPU cooler and see what temperature drop occurs.
Cindori, did you fit the Fractal Design fan controller unit on your setup and what temps were you seeing on overclock?
A sample video file converted by Handbrake took 32 minutes to complete on my Mac Pro 1,1 and 22 minutes on my base i7 2.8GHz unit and 14.5 minutes at 4.24 GHz. I have not yet run the memory at aggressive timings so there may be more to come.
My mem turns really hot if I run it at 4.2 for long. It doesn't crash but some extra cooling might keep it within safe levels. To the touch it feels 70 degrees C. Scorching hot.
I feel like I need to sneak around on this forum with my "hack" lol
I sold my MP about 2 weeks ago and built a new i7 Hack and love it so far.
Just wondering if anyone with the Gigabyte mb's are running RAID 0 with OSX? I'm sure that a software raid would work fine, but I'm curious about the RAID setup through BIOS.
I sold my MP about 2 weeks ago and built a new i7 Hack and love it so far.
Just wondering if anyone with the Gigabyte mb's are running RAID 0 with OSX? I'm sure that a software raid would work fine, but I'm curious about the RAID setup through BIOS.
I've been holding out for the 2010 Mac Pro, but can't really wait anymore. I'm working on my capstone project and need a faster computer to render in Maya. Thought about getting the iMac i7, but already have a cinema display so don't really want to spend extra for the screen.
I'm thinking about building an i7 hackintosh, but have never built a computer before. Would these parts work to hackintosh?
- Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
- GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
- XFX HD-489X-ZSFC Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
- CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
- CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
- SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner
- COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
I'm not too sure about the case. Couldn't find the one Cindori used on Newegg.
Also, i'm interested in overclocking, but I think I'll save that for later. Is it possible to buy and install all the cooling stuff later if I decide to overclock?
I've been using a 2007 black macbook as my work computer for the last 3 years, so this should be a big jump! Thanks for the help!
I'm thinking about building an i7 hackintosh, but have never built a computer before. Would these parts work to hackintosh?
- Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
- GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
- XFX HD-489X-ZSFC Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
- CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
- CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
- SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner
- COOLER MASTER Storm Scout SGC-2000-KKN1-GP Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
I'm not too sure about the case. Couldn't find the one Cindori used on Newegg.
Also, i'm interested in overclocking, but I think I'll save that for later. Is it possible to buy and install all the cooling stuff later if I decide to overclock?
I've been using a 2007 black macbook as my work computer for the last 3 years, so this should be a big jump! Thanks for the help!
Looks like a solid build, but you need a memory kit for triple channel with the X58 mb and i7 1366.
Also you should consider spending $30 on a better cpu heatsink, the stock Intel HS is really not very good. If you decide to OC a little the stock heat sink is going to get it the way pretty fast.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065 This is a very popular cooler that won't (shouldn't) interfere with the memory DIMMS
There wouldn't be an issue flashing the video card right? (or you wouldn't flash it at all?? Sorry a bit confused here)
I have never built a computer before either and am thinking about building this exact model except getting a cheaper video card (does any one have a compatible recommendation) and maybe only getting 6gb RAM. when I clicked on the link it looked like the memory kit came with the RAM. Is that not right?
I was also looking at a different case. Does anyone have experience with this case, especially with cooling? I also need to be able to use firewire and will eventually want to upgrade to lightpeak. http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7331/cst-709/Lian_Li_PC-A17_Silver_Mid-Tower_Case_PC-A17A.html
I am planning on overclocking it to around 4ghz so is there anything else that i need?
Sorry for being new to all this, but I assume that the cooler that Gmink recommends is the replacement heatsink he is suggesting?
Finally, how would you suggest going about hackintoshing it? I have heard mixed things about Kakewalk.