Hackintosh Build

[Timman_24]

I decided to stop waiting for Apple to release a new iMac. I did a lot of research over at tonymacx86 and learned that it has never been easier to get OSX running on PC gear. The guys over there just released a list of hardware that is completely compatible. I talked to several people that develop iOS apps about their experience developing on a hackintosh and they've said they havent had any issues. They said, "how do you think most foreign companies develop?"

I went to micro enter yesterday and picked up some gear:

I5 3570k
Gigabyte z77x ud5h
Pc power and cooling 600w modular psu
Western Digital RE4 500GB HDD
Diablotek Fly All Aluminum case

I already have:
Mushkin 2x4Gb ram

I ordered from Amazon:
Nvidia 640 GT
Coolermaster GeminII cooler

I wasn't expecting to buy a video card yet, but when I tried to fire it up, my catleap wasn't supported because the motherboard only had a single link dvi connector... So, I'll have more about the install on Friday.

Making an OSX bootable USB was as easy and downloading ML from the app store and running Tony's USB utility. The install consists of installing ML from the USB, restart, insert Multibeast USB, choose hardware, and done. If you stick to the approved hardware list, it supposedly takes 30 mins to fully install without issues.

I have some pics I'll post later. I'm planning to overclock it to around 4.2ghz. This thing is going to smoke my MBP all for only the cost of a Mac Mini.

Btw, the 660 ti, 670, and 680 are all natively supported in ML as well!

EDIT: Images:

I had some time to upload the images today. Some that I took last night are a little poor. The case looks okay in the images, but its really cool in person. It actually weighs less than the motherboard .

My goodies from a trip to microcenter. Total bill was 586.18 - 40 MIR

All aluminum case. I've always wanted to check an aluminum case out. I would have never ordered this "Diablotek" case from new egg due to the budget nature of it, but seeing it in person at Microcenter changed my mind. It is well constructed, easy to work with, very light weight, has a great brushed finish, has quick connect hardware for the drives, and was extremely cheap. $57 - 20MIR

It is hard to capture the brushed look of this case with a full size image of the case, so here is a close up of the inside. The entire case is brushed aluminum. It looks great in person.

My main PC with its Z68 Biostar motheboard is very jealous of this higher end Gigabyte board. There are tons of connections (4x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, eSATA, firewire, DP, HMDI, SPDIF, DVI, dual GB LAN, and 7.1 surroud out on the back.) There are also 2x USB 3.0 headers on the board for external connections. It came with the floppy USB 3.0 panel, which fit perfectly on the front of the case. The PC Power and Cooling PSU was a steal at 69.99 - 20MIR. I also scored an Open Box RE4 enterprise drive for $87.

Picture is a little blurry. I recently bought an 8 channel fan controller for my main computer, so I installed my old Lamptron FC-6. It has 4 fan controllers and 4 temperature probes. I hooked one knob to the front fan and one to the back. I installed a temperature probe to the front and rear as well, so I can see the temperature delta of the incoming and outgoing air.

Here is a good shot of the brushed aluminum on the outside. Unlike other poser cases, this case continues the brushed finish over the entire outside of the case, not just the front panel. The buttons are surprisingly firm and have good feel to them, they definitely do not feel like flimsy buttons that usually accompany a budget case.

All the components are installed and the cables are routed around the back. I was going to get a CoolerMaster 212 CPU cooler, but my measurements did not work out for the case. The 212 is 159mm tall, which is too much for this case.

Amazon shipped my CPU cooler and GPU today, so I should have this finished up on Friday.

[James]

Nice. definitely take some pics. What was your total install time? You said "it supposedly takes 30 minutes", what was your experience?

[Timman_24]

Nice. definitely take some pics. What was your total install time? You said "it supposedly takes 30 minutes", what was your experience?

I haven't installed the OS yet due to the video issue. I have a compatible monitor, but I don't want to install the OS without the videocard because I don't want to have to reinstall the OS again when the videocard comes. I'm not sure if I can add a videocard after the initial install without reinstalling.

I have already made the bootable USB. Downloading ML from the app store cost 19.99 and was ~4GB. Loading the USB using a USB3.0 drive and connector took around 5-6 minutes. Some people have said it can take upwards of an hour if using USB 2.0. The only issue someone may have is they have to have access to a Mac to make the bootable USB card legitimately.

I'll know more on Friday.

[Timman_24]

The 640 GT came in the mail today, so I plugged it in and installed OSX. Wow, it really is as easy as creating the bootable USB, plugging it in, installing, and then running Multibeast on first boot up to install drivers.

It went like this for me:

Start computer
BIOS -> AHCI On
Restart
F12 -> Boot From USB
Type in GraphicsEnabler=NO (Nvidia 6xx series is natively supported)
Install OSX like normal (~15 minutes from USB 3.0)
Restart
F12 -> Boot from Disk
Run through OSX initial set up (location, date, etc)
Open Safari -> Download Multibeast
Run Multibeast
Choose drivers (AC898 audio, intel LAN, Nvidia 6xx drivers, bootloader, graphicsenabler=NO)
Reboot

Success! It took me around 45 mins due to having to look up the specs on the motherboard when installing the drivers. If I knew exactly what I was doing, it would have take right at 30 mins. Pretty damn slick. Everything is working great right now. I'll give some progress reports over time.

I am incredibly surprised at how easy it is to do. IMO Apple may move to simply publishing an "approved" hardware list to developers. Then they could kill the Mac Pro and not have to worry about that.

[James]

Very nice. I didn't know that Gigabyte was using Intel NIC's. That's a good thing to hear.

So what brought this on? The urge to run OSX without the hardware cost?

[Vindir]

Total cost? I've been putting off buying a new mac for work use.

[Timman_24]

I'm developing an iPad app. I purchased a MacBook Pro, but have been running into performance issues while simulating the app and trying to run CS5, XCode, iOS simulator, Safari, and a few other misc programs. Last thing to do is to order another 8 GB of RAM for a total of 16GB on this desktop. I'm downloading XCode right now. That will be the true test of this set up. So far it has been rock solid, but I haven't taxed it too much. I was able to migrate my files, settings, and user account over using the migration tool without any problems (only the slow speed.)

Total cost was $587 for CPU, MB, case, PSU, and HDD. GPU was another 99. Ram would have cost 45, but I already had it. I already had an extra 120mm fan and fan controller as well, but thats optional. OSX was 19.99. I'd put this at around $740 retail. You could do better by down grading the motherboard (-99), going with HD4000 graphics (-99, if you don't need resolutions over 1080p or if the MB supports DL-DVI), and not using an Enterprise level HDD (-20).

This setup smokes the current top of the line iMac except at gaming, but for an extra 100 dollars I could have gone with a 560TI which would smoke the 6970M (top end iMac GPU.) Figure around $700-800 compared to 2100 for the iMac. The good part is that I can upgrade as needed and OC the 3570k. With an OC, there is no comparison.

Vindir, it is hard to blow 2000 dollars on 1.5 year old equipment. If you can wait, the new iMacs may be coming out soon. However, I doubt they will be any faster than what I put together for a third of the price. I'll update you guys with stability reports. Supposedly, if it works well for the first day without any crashes then it is perfectly stable. Stability issues with OSX installs let you know real quick.

I'll run geekbench in a bit and compare it to my MBP.

[Timman_24]

The system completely stock hit 10200 in the 32bit test compared to 6909 of the MBP. So, ~45% faster without any adjustments. I've seen 3770k stock hackintoshes hit 13-14k. Overclocked mildly to around 4.1-4.2Ghz, my 3570k should be at around 12-13k, or double the performance of what I had. It is definitely noticeable already.

[Timman_24]

My cooler came in today, so I installed it and did a mild over clock. I set turbo to boost to 4.2Ghz and made sure my ram was set to 1600mhz. I ran geekbench again and hit 11600, so I'm pushing ~75% faster than my MBP. Temps are still good at high 60's under Prime95 load, so I may go for 4.5Ghz. That should put me at ~13000, or at the performance of a $5000 Mac Pro...

i3770k's hit 16-17k with a mild OC because Geekbench is sensitive to hyper threading.

[Timman_24]

I've been running stable all day without any issues. I ran Xcode and the iOS simulator without any issues. I installed Xcode, Garageband, and iPhoto from the app store and upgraded my OS to the latest version without any issues too. I installed CS6 easily. Temps are staying at ~40C idle and 60C light-load (normal load) with 70C Prime95 load.

A little sneak peak of what I am work on:

[Vindir]

Sounds pretty awesome all around man. I'll be pairing it with one or two of the korean ips panels so it would need to stay away from the HD4K graphics, but overall it makes for a way better plan than what I've been dreading purchasing.

Definitely look forward to hearing any field reports you update with.

I'm wondering how you'll fare with updates. Have you looked into how hard they fight against hackintosh setups?

[Timman_24]

Sounds pretty awesome all around man. I'll be pairing it with one or two of the korean ips panels so it would need to stay away from the HD4K graphics, but overall it makes for a way better plan than what I've been dreading purchasing.

Definitely look forward to hearing any field reports you update with.

I'm wondering how you'll fare with updates. Have you looked into how hard they fight against hackintosh setups?

From what I've heard, apple has actually made it easier recently. My research has led me to believe that the boot loader and installer configures the os to read the hardware as being a 3rd generation Mac Pro. That's what it shows up as under the About This Mac tab. Since the processor, audio, gpu, USB, Ethernet, etc are all used in other macs or are fully supported under the os for future macs, there is really no way to disable functionality without disabling it for real macs. That's the great part about apple going with conventional hardware. Gigabyte has cashed in on the hackintosh community by designing their motherboards with all apple used hardware.

A quick update: sleep is fully working. The CPU can go through all it's power steps without any problems.
Let me know if you have any questions when you decide to purchase.

Also while disassembling the G5 that I had laying around, I found a 500GB Seagate enterprise HDD in it. Quite a score. It's comparable to a 100 dollar RE4 drive.

[Timman_24]

I've made some great progress on the G5 case mod. I applied 9 ATX motherboard stand offs using JB weld to hold the motherboard in place. It lines up perfectly with the stock PCI card slots. I was able to modify the top DVD/HDD shelf to accept the motherboard. I modified a SATA DVD drive to mount on the shelf using the stock hardware (the original drive is IDE) and am working on fitting the stock HDD holder back into place. I gutted the stock PSU and am going to fit my ATX PSU internals into it so I can use the stock bottom tray. I found a pinout for the fans and the front USB/Power switch/Firewire/audio panel. I wired up the fans to accept a 3 pin Molex connector and will tackle the front panel later.

The major work will be cutting the back to accept a standard ATX I/O panel. I popped the rivets on an old case that I have and will use the I/O shield holder from it. I've never seen anyone keep the original rear fan panel. Most of them buy an all-in-one motherboard tray/IO shield holder from case modification websites. I don't want to ruin the back of the case though and cut out the entire rear, so I'm going to try to patch in the rear IO holder and re-locate the stock dual fan opening to the left about one inch. I'm going to try to re-align the small perforations in the aluminum and reattach the stock opening with epoxy. Hopefully it works out.

I have a ton of images that I will process either later in the week or this weekend to show you guys what I've done so far. Its looking like I may actually finish it.

Also, I was able to sell the original logic board for 25 + shipping and the CPU unit for 40 + shipping. With the SATA enterprise HDD (dated 2009) I found in the case, I've already broken even on the purchase price. I still have the RAM, GPU, and misc items that are up for sale on ebay.

[LordVampyre]

Very nice indeed.. thanks for sharing all of this....

[Timman_24]

All right guys, tons of pictures.

Behold, the G5 case.

The interior of the case all stripped out. It takes quite some time to disassemble a G5 without destroying parts. Luckily, the parts are still worth quite a bit. Notice that the back panel has motherboard stand offs, but they are placed for the huge G5 motherboard and do not line up for ATX use.

There is a plastic panel that holds the fans to the rear mesh. Unfortunately, Apple mounted them using a strange mounting system so that they line up with the CPU shroud. I did not need all the extra bits, so I decided to directly mount them to the panel. This required marking a drilling a few holes.

The fans use a single six pin connector that doesn't seem to be ATX standard. I found a pin out on the net and was able to solder a 3 pin Molex connector into place. I lost the RPM function of the fans. Heat shrink finishes off the connector.

The front panel uses a non-standard connector, but pin out diagrams are available online. I plan to disassemble this connector and will connect standard connectors for the USB, firewire, power button, and audio.