Build: 2x Xeon E5 2680 - Asus Z9PE-D8 WS - XFX Radeon 6870



Components

2x Xeon E5 2680
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117262

Asus Z9PE-D8 WS Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131817

Case Labs STH10 Case
http://www.caselabs-store.com/magnum-sth10/

2x Corsair H100
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051U7HMS/

Vertex 4 128GB SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227791

Corsair AX1200 Power Supply
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003PJ6QVU/

XFX Radeon 6870 2GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150563

Corsair Vengeance 32GB RAM (4x 8GB)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233232

ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

SILVERSTONE SST-FP32-B Front I/O Panel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813999356

8x 120mm Case Fans
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00552Q8IG/

Apple OS X Lion @ Mac Apps Store
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-...44303913?mt=12


Already Owned

4x 3TB HDD (Seagate and Western Digital)
(Already owned) (Purchased from Costco as external drives and stripped to bear drive) $130 ea.!!!!


Comments

My build was slightly different than the conventional Hackintosh for a few reasons… Please keep this in mind when attempting this yourself (in other words don't follow these first few steps unless you own another Apple computer - not another Hackintosh)

After the "updated" Mac Pros were released in early June, I began to think about alternatives to handle my film and graphic intensive work load.
I did some research and found that my Mac Pro's config could be sold and fully if not almost fully offset the cost for my hackintosh build!
I spent about 2 weeks looking for all of the right parts, as I will not be needing to buy a new computer for a very long time as Apple's Mac pros will still not surpass my new builds power for at least another year and a half.

Thoughts on the build:
After I had received all the parts from Newegg and Amazon (check both because I got some really good deals on Amazon that were not on Newegg - ex. saved $60 on my Power supply!) I attached my vertex 4 SSD to a Seagate Go-flex portable hard drive adaptor cable (I use this for my Macbook Air time machine and bought from Costco - 1.5TB for 150 bucks!). I then copied the base OS from my Macbook air and everything required to boot. I then booted off of the SSD (still on my Macbook air) and installed the EASYBEAST tool from Multibeast. I then proceeded with the actual Hackintosh build.


I had used the Case labs STH10 case for the build (I wrote a review on the case -its by John)
http://www.caselabs-store.com/magnum-sth10/

- note my Mobo was SSI-EEB form factor (not officially supported by the STH10 however it is, and was confirmed when it fit =D). The case needed to be assembled which I enjoyed it took about 2 hours to complete (pay attention to the pictures if you build this case!) I then tested everything OUTSIDE THE CASE to make sure there were no problems with any of the components before I installed them in the case.



OSX Booted without a problem, and after some fine tweaking, ethernet, onboard audio Realtek 898, USB 2.0 etc works fine. Still haven't found a working USB 3.0 driver but haven't given it much time yet, as all my storage is internal =D.

Here are the kexts I used get get my system working:


Geekbench 64BIT scored at approx. 28,000 which is still great compared to my 8 Core 2.4Ghz 5,1 Mac Pro. http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/796405

I have the 4, 3TB HDDs in 2 Raid configs, both in Raid 0 with one as a backup. I chose not to use raid 10 because I still like the archive feature of a normal backup.


Cinebench Comes in at just under 20 PTS! Idle temps for the system are approx. 30 degrees C, and 39 degrees C UNDER FULL LOAD!!!! The system is not super loud, but it is still noisy… the is due to the cheap 120mm fans I bought for the case. As time goes by i'll upgrade the fans one at a time, so I'm not spending 150 bucks on case fans. In the future I think I will also get another set of RAM to utilize quad-channel supported by the XEON E5's.





A VERY GOOD thing to keep in mind is:
After your system is bootable, before you install extra kexts to get everything working (unless you use a DSDT) is to enable a screen sharing application. Either Logmein or the Mac version (both work fine). I had accidentally disabled by USB ports by improperly installing the next. Luckily I had screen sharing enabled for this very reason!

If anyone is thinking about building a super computer similar to this one, and has any questions, please feel free to ask!

As time goes on I will continue to post updates etc regarding this build.

Post a Comment

5 Comments

  1. Need some help with my own hackintosh build using this mobo. Your blogspot link above as a sentence that says "here's the kexts i used:" and then nothing was posted. Would love to hear from you or possibly screenshare to get my build up and running. My email is brock2621[at]gmail.com. Thanks a ton!

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  2. How did you get it to boot mate? got the same mobo I am straggling , almost giving up

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  3. Wondering if you can install vsphere on your system and load the base osx on to a image. is this possible?

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    Replies
    1. ya may be work but not stable.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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