It's that time of year - New Build

[Phouchg]

You you are intending to install OSX you would be better off with GTX6xx series due to native support in OSX.. other than that nice config as well

Not likely to be a Hackintosh. Just a big huge frag machine.

Which, however, will take me all day to put together. See, I'm really bad at cable management, my main job being to build and take apart mainly cheap "typewriters" instead of such killer rigs. Thus far Fractal Design Define R4 has been my best accomplishment. Took some three hours (with some calls in between). This one, though, is a whole level above.

Congrats! It's uberawesome!

[Xoligy]

Looks good Boz!

I have the first Cosmos and think its a good case even though mine has been broke since the day i got it (one the sides wount latch on when closed meaning if its knocked it opens up coolmaster not too helpful) but id defiantly buy another of there cases if i liked it and the second Cosmos looks good too! Loving the buttons :D Also love how they have more wire holes too the first one only had a few and the plastic around the edges of them is kinda low grade!

[Ph1b3r0pt1c]

That case is amazing, and easy to build in, that board is amazing, the cpu cooler is amazing, that is one hell of a build.

[chrisj1968]

Got notified my order is shipping today. Since they are not working over the weekend I should probably get it by Tuesday and then the fun begins.

Excited every time I get new parts. That feeling of putting stuff together and maxing it out never gets old :)

Congrats. I hope it serves you well.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Whoa, you have me mad jealous right now. I decided to wait for Haswell before upgrading but man is it hard to wait. Nothing better than an awesome case and a pile of shiny new parts on the table.

I'm not a big fan of SLI and especially of using last-generation video cards though... what's the rationale behind the two 580s?

[tsupersonic]

Nice build! I just spoiled myself with a cheap ultraportable replacement for my previous ultraportable laptop. My desktop is now 3+ years old, but going to let it ride out for a few more years before I touch upgrades on that.

[Xoligy]

Whoa, you have me mad jealous right now. I decided to wait for Haswell before upgrading but man is it hard to wait. Nothing better than an awesome case and a pile of shiny new parts on the table.

I'm not a big fan of SLI and especially of using last-generation video cards though... what's the rationale behind the two 580s?

https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1131668-its-that-time-of-year-new-build/page__view__findpost__p__595463184

[Colin McGregor]

damn that case looks like a small heater lol

[Boz]

Stock install humming like a beast!

Some screenies, while I write the setup and optimization of the system to get everything rocking just right

Geekbench 32bit (Pure stock 3.2ghz / Turbo turned off)

OpenCL and OpenGL tests

Unigine Engine OpenGL tests

INSTALLING OSX procedure

Preparing installation:

Downloading Unibeast and Multibeast from TonyMacOSX86 http://www.tonymacx86.com/downloads.php?do=cat&id=3

Download KextUtility so I can update OSX kexts I change (if I need to cause I don't like KextBeast ) http://cvad-mac.narod2.ru/Kext_Utility

Unibeast Preparation of the OSX install USB drive - You'll need a mac for this

1. Download Mac OSX Mountain Lion from the app store on a Mac (best thing is to download the latest version)

2. When the install screen of Mountain Lion pops up, keep in the background (don't close it as it will delete the Mountain lion install file from Applications). Wouldn't be a bad idea to copy this file somewhere on another drive to just have it handy later.

3. Insert USB stick (at least 8gb) and Run Disk Utility on that Mac.

4. Select that USB on the left and go under Partition. Partition to 1 partition and select Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

5. Also under Options select Master Boot Record

6. Apply

7. When it's done, start Unibeast

8. Pick the target as your USB stick you just formatted and continue through the NEXT windows. You will wait here for about 10-15 mins until the thing finishes (it's ok if it looks like it's stuck, it's working)

9. BAM! You made the USB bootable OSX Mountain Lion stick

In the next post we are going through OSX Mountain Lion install process

[Boz]

So now when you have a USB drive prepared with the latest version of Mountain Lion you should be able to install OSX from it. A couple of things we need to do before that though.

1. Make sure that if you have dual cards like I do (preferably GTX5xx series or GTX6xx series) and multiple monitors you unplug all the monitors from the cards and just plug in one monitor to your primary video card (in PCI-E slot 1)

2. Go into BIOS and make sure you have your settings on Optimized Default (BIOS for Sabertooth X79 I'm using is the latest 3305 I think). Optimized defaults will make sure you didn't turn on some funky settings before installing OSX. If you have overclock it will be resetted to default which is what we want

3. Now, save the settings and your BIOS should restart the computer. But not before you insert the USB stick with the Mountain Lion you prepared.

4. When the computer restarts you will be able to hit F8 at the very beginning and pick a boot menu. You will pick the USB drive from there to boot from.

5. You should now get the boot screen with funky looking big icons where you can pick your USB Mountain Lion install.

6. Highlight that circle (disc) but instead of hitting enter you can start typing right away the following (you will see a command line pop up). Type in the following:

-v GraphicsEnabler=Yes npci=0x3000 PCIRootUID=0 cpus=1

Just so you know quickly what these mean:

>> -v means to run boot up installer in verbose mode so you can see what's going on

>> GraphicsEnabler is a hook that is only needed for non-native cards. Since Nvidia 6xx series are now supported on OSX out of the box you need to turn this hook off with No .. but in my case I have GTX 580s I still need it.

>> npci and PCIRootUID parameters are in charge of PCI enumeration so the installer can properly recognize PCI addresses.

>> cpus=1 means that you want to limit the install only to use one core in case there's a conflict with multicore (like in the case of hexacore i7s)

7. So when you typed that in, hit ENTER to start the install process.

8. If everything goes ok, you should see an install OSX window start screen

9. Before you continue to install make sure you go to Disk Utility up in the menu and prepare your drives by formatting them and making the drive you are installing on MacOS Extended Journaled and GUID Partition Table. Once you are done close DIsk Utility.

10. Continue to install and pick your drive you are installing on from the list and start the install.

11. Wait till it finishes

12. When it's done it will restart and make sure you again hit BOOT MENU so you can load USB drive selector again.

13. Select the newly installed OSX drive icon and type into the command line -v GraphicsEnabler=Yes npci=0x3000 PCIRootUID=0 cpus=1 (use GraphicsEnabler=No only if you have 6xx Nvidia card if not change it to YES) to boot in.

Voila. We are in.

In the next post we will be finishing up installation by enabling all the necessary hardware, enabling multicore and a few other things and we will be ready to rock.

[Craig Hopson]

I can wait for the next part of this i will have to drive 70miles to get access to a mac tho but could be worth it

Thanks Boz

[The Evil Overlord]

A question...

How much did all that cost you in the end Boz, Break it down pls?

An observation...

I never really like coolermasters, but OMG That one's amazing

[Boz]

Stock install humming like a beast!

Some screenies, while I write the setup and optimization of the system to get everything rocking just right

Geekbench 32bit (Pure stock 3.2ghz / Turbo turned off)

OpenCL and OpenGL tests

Unigine Engine OpenGL tests

[Boz]

OPTIMIZING YOUR OSX INSTALL AND NEXT STEPS.

So you have a fresh install running now after the boot as described in the last step of previous guide. You should not be resetting stuff until it's done.

In my case I like to install CUDA / NVidia drivers first before I run Multibeast.

You can find these downloads here:

NVIDIA Driver

Version: 304.00.05f02

Release Date: 2012.10.02

Operating System: Mac OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2

http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-304.00.05f02-driver.html

CUDA Driver:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda-mac-driver.html

So before you run Multibeast and further optimization you want to install these drivers first. Install Nvidia driver first and it will ask you to restart.

You can restart but don't forget to boot up again from the USB stick with the parameters given before and you should be back on your desktop with these drivers installed. At that point you can install CUDA driver (won't ask you to restart).

So now, when you got this part covered. You want to run Multibeast. Multibeast will basically install Chameleon boot loader and adjust a few kexts to get things operational.

On this setup I have you should pick the following:

You will notice that I picked eSATA support as well as TRIM enabler. That's because I have both eSATA ports and SSD drives. I also chose support for USB 3.0 and OpenCL patch for the retail driver you installed previously.

I did not pick Audio drivers because support in Multibeast for audio for this motherboard (including Rampage) is flakey so I decided to go with another driver.

So when you have these options picked. Hit Continue and wait until it finished.

OK..

so now, since Mountain Lion has a bit of an issue with support for multicore processors with the newest i7s (Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge) on Hackintoshes you will need to add the following KEXT file to your system.

So download this file VoodooTSCSync.kext to your desktop: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B38K6L6i3r5cTUJ0Q2xMOHRoMUk/edit

Since I already noted that you should have also downloaded a utility called KextUtility, you want to start this app now. Wait until it fixes permissions and does it's thing..

When it says it did that , you should drag the VoodooTSCSync.kext from your desktop into the app and you should see it being installed.

This file now enables you to have a 6-core CPU properly recognized and fully utilized.

Now, let's add the audio and make it working. The driver I'm using right now is VoodooHDA 2.82 version for Mountain Lion.

You can find it here VoodooHDA.kext - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B38K6L6i3r5cMkNuMV81eHVkZHM/edit

You will also need the preference pane file VoodooHDA.prefPane from here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B38K6L6i3r5cTUJ0Q2xMOHRoMUk/edit

Now, you will drag VoodooHDA.kext file you downloaded again to desktop to KextUtility and have that installed and you will also copy VoodooHDA.prefPane file to System/Library/PreferencePanes

Okay..that should do it.. we got Audio covered (my audio chip is ALC892 on Sabertooth but since this VoodooHDA is universal it should work on other ALC8xx chips as well) like Rampage ALC898 chip.

Now we have 2 small things to do. One is to add additional description for the CPU in one plist file and install a nice theme for the boot loader.

So let's do this minor adjustment in your OSXDrive / Extra folder. See image:

So you open this smbios.plist file and you will add these 2 things after the last set of keys in there.

<key>SMcputype</key>
<string>1281</string>

1281 is designation for 3930k 6-core

Save it and you are done there.

You should also use my org.chameleon.Boot.plist file to look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>EthernetBuiltIn</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>GraphicsEnabler</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Kernel</key>
<string>mach_kernel</string>
<key>Kernel Flags</key>
<string>darkwake=0 npci=0x3000</string>
<key>Legacy Logo</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Timeout</key>
<string>2</string>
<key>UseKernelCache</key>
<string>Yes</string>
<key>Graphics Mode</key>
<string>1600x1200x32@60</string>
</dict>
</plist>

GraphicsEnabler key should be No if you have 6xx series card. Graphics Mode is so your boot loader screen loads in a higher resolution. Maximum for me is 1600x1200x32 you shouldn't go higher as it is known to cause issues if you use unrecognized mode.

That's that..

and now, let's make that boot loader screen nicer.

Go here and download the theme:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B38K6L6i3r5cWEFJYXVmUm03WVk/edit

All you have to do is go here:

and you do what I did.. rename the Default folder to Default_old, create a new folder Default and put all the files from that zip you downloaded in it. That's it.

Close and run KextUtility one more time to repair all permissions and stuff and you can remove the USB stick and boot from the drive directly.

When you restart you should get a boot loader that looks like this:

[tim_s]

Thank you very much for sharing, I found it very interesting to see how you deployed the "Hackintosh". I have heard of people doing this but never had the need to head in this direction myself. Surprisingly I found out there was "more" involved that I originally thought - nice.

I would love to know - how you divide your time on the two O/S's, for me I literally have a Mac sitting next to my Windows 7 machine.

[Boz]

Overlocked it to 4.4Ghz.. Got it 4.6Ghz but couldn't pass Prime95 stress test for a few hours and didn't want to increase voltages more because it wouldn't be good for a long term 24/7 operation for the CPU.

So 4.4Ghz is the rock solid speed.. passed AIDA64 stabillity stress testing for all components for 9 hours and couple of hours of Prime95 for all 3, Small FFT, Large FFT (termal test) and Blend test (stressing CPU and RAM).

Quite a bit of a bump in speed. Awesome! Quite a bit faster than their fastest Mac Pro 12 core :)