The Hackintosh Guide, Part 4. Building the Hackintosh.

Part 4 of my Hackintosh guide.

In this part I build my new Hackintosh from some
new parts, and some parts from my "old" PC.
Thats the real beauty of a Custom PC.
You can take your usable parts with you from
the old PC to the new PC.

Highspeed video.
The build took about an hour and a half.
One hour for the new components, and half an hour for the PSU, HDD and GPU which came from the "old" Hackintosh.

The parts I've put in my rig:

- Intel i7 920

- Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5

- OCZ DDR3 6 GB Platinum LV Triple Channel (2 kits)

- Sony AD-7240S-0B DVD-burner

- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB 3.5" SATA HDD.

- Asus Nvidia 9600GT 512MB, fanless.

- Lian Li PC6070BSCANDV2, Miditower, Black

- MIST 650W Power Supply, modular cabling.

I moved the GPU, HDD and PSU from my old rig.

The casing is a special Scandinavian version of PC6070.

And the MIST PSU is a "house brand" for a Norwegian webshop. It has been sold in Germany under the brand "Cooltek".

[snle]

@ashthegamer:
The Lian Li casing I used came with 3 fans.
One in the front, one in the back and one on the side.
They are all MISTKMF120H1VR.
120x120x25mm, 60 m³/hour (35 CFM), 15.5 dB(A).

I was very happy with that, because I've used alot of the 80mm and 92mm fans from MIST in previous builds.
Really quiet, and they are actually really cheap.

MIST is a housebrand for a Norwegian hardware vendor, so it might be hard to get them outside of Norway/Scandinavia.

[snle]

@blackooz
The Lian Li case I chose is the PC6070BSCANDV2.
It's a special model made for a Scandinavian webshop called Microplex.
It is based on the Lian Li PC6070B.

Microplex has made Lian Li use a 12cm rear fan, instead of a 8cm.
And the two 8cm front fans was changed to a single 12cm.
To keep the price down, they also removed the slideable motherboard tray.

It's a good casing. Looks nice, runs silent.
But if you're looking for LOW temperatures for your CPU, this may not be the case for you.

[snle]

@mrrcorn:
Well. This is the only time I've had any trouble with a I/O shield. It was extremely tight.
I was waiting for my 3rd party cooler, decided to build the rig anyways.
You can see it on my videos about the Fractal Design casing.

Putting the HS and fan on before mounting it in the case is what I prefer. If you have to use alot of force to get the HS fittings to snap into place you risk damaging the motherboard because it can flex too much.

The mat is grounded. ;)

[snle]

@SpikezHackz:
I'm using a 6GB kit (3x2GB) from OCZ.
It's their 1600MHz Platinum kit.
I was going to buy the gold kit, but since there was almost identical in price, I chose the Platinum kit.
:)

[snle]

@rain5317:
All the nesceserry links for Empire EFI, kexts and OSx86 Tools are in the description of part #5 and #6.
Some extra links are in part #8.

OSX can be picked up at Applestore or any Apple reseller in your hometown. :)

[snle]

@rain5317:
Same to you, and good luck with your build. :)

[snle]

@soccerbitch:
With the stock Intel cooler I reached 80C (176F) when running at 100% load on the CPU.
Idle temps were around 42C (107F).

But I changed to OCZ Gladiator Max cooler for the CPU.
And max temp for CPU now is around 69C (156F).

The i7 920 has a TDP of 135W, so it generates alot of heat. And my casing is small, and has only a few 12cm fans.
So I could get this to run cooler, but that would mean more noise.
I like my rig to be as quiet as possible.

[snle]

@R0CKET2MARS:
Good choice. It has the same specs as the one I used, plus that it has USB3.0 and SATA 6Gbps.
And it is cheaper.
Might be a bit different to install, in terms of kexts, but should be a good choice.

[snle]

@soccerbitch:
No problem. :)

Newegg didn't have the Gladiator Max.
But Amazon have it. Beware that you need a bracket to mount it to a LGA 1366 Motherboard.
The bracket part number is: OCZTFORC2GM

A better cooler might be this:
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 120mm SSO CPU Cooler.
It cost about $75 on Newegg.
I've heard alot of good words anout Noctua. :D

The stock cooler comes with cooling paste already applied.

The Gladiator comes with a little bag of cooling paste.
But I use Arctic Silver 5. (Newegg)

[snle]

@SpikezHackz:
I only overclocked it for a short time, to test out performance vs heat/noise.
You overclock it through BIOS, like you do on most computers.
There is no difference between a Hackintosh and a PC running Windows, it is the same hardware.

[snle]

@rain5317:
My monitor only supports 1920x1200, so that is the highest resolution I can set it to.
In Windows it should support up to 2560x1600 according to Asus.
But so does most of the 9600GT's.

[snle]

@rain5317:
There are many of the newer cards that work.
One of my subscribers got a Nvidia GTS250 working (I think it was at least).
And one of my Hackintosh-acquaintances has a Nvidia GTX260.

The best place to find out what works, and how easy it is to get working, is to check the HCL on the OSx86 Wiki.
And on insanelymac.

[snle]

@MrVladTech:
It's a Lian Li PC6070BSCANDV2 Midi case, and it is ATX.

[snle]

@rain5317:
My 9600GT is made by Asus.
I have alot of good experience with Asus, and I've had several motherboards from them.
My last hackintosh had an Asus motherboard.
But I chose the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 for this one, since I've heard that Gigabyte motherboards are amongst the most OSX-compatible.

When it comes to videocards, it doesn't seem to matter much who makes them.

[snle]

@studio9011:
I've never experienced that the rear bracket didn't fit.
On this casing it was a bit tight, but thats good.

If it for some reason doesn't fit you can probably glue it on.
Have you experienced this?

[snle]

@soccerbitch:
It's probably because it's a Scandinavian Edition.

I like the cases to have a clean style, no fancy LED's, no plexi in the door etc etc.

I'd recommend:
LIAN LI PC-E8B (If you're on a tight budget)
LIAN LI PC-A70F (If you need the extra space)
LIAN LI PC-7F

But thats just my personal recommendation,
I haven't tested everything thats on the market, so there may be alot of cases that are better.
It's all up to the users needs.
:)

[snle]

@SpikezHackz:
Well. The trick is to find a compatible motherboard.
The GA-EX58-UD5 is a tested solution.
The new GA-X58A-UD5 also has USB3.0 (2 ports) and 2 SATA 6.0Gbps ports.
However, I am not sure these ports are available in OSX.
It's all about the kexts.

If I had enough money, I'd go with the GA-EX58-UD5, ramp it up to 24GB RAM, go for the new 6-core i7 (i7 980X) and find the most powerful GPU that works with OSX.
That would be a killer rig. :)

[snle]

@Zorthaify:
Hehe, me too. This one was really problematic. I've built a few computers since I started with PCs in 1997.
And usually it takes me under a minute to do so.
But this was was really giving me a hard time. Hehe.

[snle]

@rain5317:
Nope. I've used this 9600GT for over 2 years now. Still works like a charm.
But I have considered going for a Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD4850, since thats pretty much the most powerful fanless card out there.

I prefer to have a computer that runs as quietly as possible, so thats why I want fanless. And I don't wanna do watercooling.
So far I have no need to upgrade the videocard.

[snle]

@rain5317:
They should both work.
You might need other kexts, it depends on what LAN-chip and Audio-chip that is built in to the motherboard.
USB3.0 might not work. It depends if there are kexts, or if OSX supports it natively.
And SATA6.0Gbps is as far as I know on a separate SATA-controller, and may not work unless there are kexts for the controller.

The 9600GT should work just fine. Thats what I use. Only difference is that I have 512MB RAM on mine.