Windows Next Computer Will Probably be Windows

[cluthz]

When you built your hacks, how much experience did you have and how hard was it? My anticipation would be that if I get the right stuff, I'd just plug it together and basically crank it up, at least for the pc side of things. I understand the Mac side is a little more involved. And I am worried about Mac updates and such and whatever glitches there are.

My three latest hacks have been picked parts (my first was a dell optiplex, a bit harder), updating have been no issues.
THat means i I download the combo updater from apple. Other updates i do from apple update. After I run the combo update, I reinstall audio drivers, and it works.
To make things as easy as possible Mac OS should be on a separate HD, that is 1TB or smaller, this will make mac os and windows totally independent.

As this is intended as a gaming box, first goal is to get the PC half going. Later I'll consider the steps to get the Mac side going. Over at tonymac, I looked at the recommended boards for Sept 2013 and they were not cheap, the cheapest being $180 U.S. Or is that cheap? Is there a budget board list over there?

You can pick from the budget boards there as well, like the Z87-HD3 ($125).
You can also use the H87 board, but that have little to none over clock potential.

 

[lunaoso]

I would go withis motherboard-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128601

H87 boards don't really support full overclocking, but Z87 does. This board also supports SLI if you wanted to eventually get another GTX 760 and run them in SLI for gaming. It's also in the motherboard list in the tonymac sept motherboard list. $124.99

 

[Huntn]

Everyone I appreciate the help!

your not going to go overclock crazy... but this is olny like $100
Gigabyte GA-H87-D3H

you can also get good cases for 50 - 80... no need to spend $165... or get really cheapy ones for like $20
like this one...

You can also get good power supplies for like $60-$70, no need to spend $100...
like this one

Maybe part of the problem is that I went to the "CustoMac Pro" category instead of the "CustoMac matx" category over at tonymac... Let me do some more adding with the new category.

My three latest hacks have been picked parts (my first was a dell optiplex, a bit harder), updating have been no issues.
THat means i I download the combo updater from apple. Other updates i do from apple update. After I run the combo update, I reinstall audio drivers, and it works.
To make things as easy as possible Mac OS should be on a separate HD, that is 1TB or smaller, this will make mac os and windows totally independent.



You can pick from the budget boards there as well, like the Z87-HD3 ($125).
You can also use the H87 board, but that have little to none over clock potential.

I'm hesitant about overclocking but want to keep that option open. Thanks for the updating reassurances.

----------

I would go withis motherboard-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128601

H87 boards don't really support full overclocking, but Z87 does. This board also supports SLI if you wanted to eventually get another GTX 760 and run them in SLI for gaming. It's also in the motherboard list in the tonymac sept motherboard list. $124.99

Yes, I think it will be a Z87 board.

 

[Huntn]

In this process, I might be losing my mind slightly. From a justification standpoint, there is something very attractive staying closer to $1000 than to $2000. Building my first computer seems to be a real leap of faith. My impression (fingers crossed) is that for the most part it is all plug and play...

Here is my latest build:
List generated at PCPartPicker

*CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($225.98 @ Outlet PC)

*Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Microcenter)

*Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($80.22 @ NCIX US)

*Storage: Sandisk Extreme 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($99.99 @ Microcenter)

*Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ Outlet PC)

*Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card ($274.99 @ Newegg)

*Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($34.99 @ Microcenter)

*Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ Microcenter)

*Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($57.99 @ Microcenter)

*Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer ($29.98 @ SuperBiiz)

*Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($87.98 @ Outlet PC)

Total: $1157.08

If I add an additional 1TB drive for Mac OS that's another $60, not a budget breaker.

Questions:
*Any real difference between the full vs OEM version of Windows7?

*Any issues with CPU coolers- are they basically compatible with whatever CPU I buy? If so recommendations appreciated.

*I decided to go with a full tower. Since the tonymac list included a Fractal Design mid tower, instead I picked the Fractal Design Define R4 ($90) Any other full tower concerns or recommendations? Should this tower come with fans included?

*PC Build Guide- As I said, I've replaced power supplies, added drives and memory, but have never built before. Looking for recommendations for the best online build a computer guides!

*When I replaced my power supply, it was pop out and pop in. When you buy a PC Case, how much in the way of instructions are included for example showing where the power supply should go?

*When purchasing a motherboard, how much in the way of instructions are included such as setting up bios and where components are plugged in?

* This youtube build video mentions an "aftermarket heat sink"- required, something I overlooked?

Thanks!

 

[garnerx]

Questions:
*Any real difference between the full vs OEM version of Windows7?

They're the same thing.

*Any issues with CPU coolers- are they basically compatible with whatever CPU I buy? If so recommendations appreciated.

Most CPU coolers come with mounting brackets for several types of processor. Noctua is a really good brand, and the fans are very quiet. Anything is better than the stock Intel cooler.

*I decided to go with a full tower. Since the tonymac list included a Fractal Design mid tower, instead I picked the Fractal Design Define R4 ($90) Any other full tower concerns or recommendations? Should this tower come with fans included?

The case will have fans included. They plug into sockets on the motherboard, same as the CPU cooler fan. It's easy to add more if needed.

*When I replaced my power supply, it was pop out and pop in. When you buy a PC Case, how much in the way of instructions are included for example showing where the power supply should go?

The case has pre-drilled holes that match holes on the PSU. Maybe try getting a modular PSU - non-modular ones have loads of wires hanging out of them, and you only need a small fraction of those, so you have to tuck all the unused cables away somewhere in the case. Modular PSUs let you plug in only the cables you need.

*When purchasing a motherboard, how much in the way of instructions are included such as setting up bios and where components are plugged in?

You get an instruction book. It would be almost impossible to plug something in the wrong place - the various cables each fit one type of socket, one way round.

 

[Huntn]

They're the same thing.


Most CPU coolers come with mounting brackets for several types of processor. Noctua is a really good brand, and the fans are very quiet. Anything is better than the stock Intel cooler.


The case will have fans included. They plug into sockets on the motherboard, same as the CPU cooler fan. It's easy to add more if needed.


The case has pre-drilled holes that match holes on the PSU. Maybe try getting a modular PSU - non-modular ones have loads of wires hanging out of them, and you only need a small fraction of those, so you have to tuck all the unused cables away somewhere in the case. Modular PSUs let you plug in only the cables you need.


You get an instruction book. It would be almost impossible to plug something in the wrong place - the various cables each fit one type of socket, one way round.

Thank you!


-------More Questions-----

The last tower I rooted around in was just one big interior space. In the Easy PCBuild Video (a post or two before), The tower case had a separate compartment for running wires. Is this unique or something that is a standard for today's cases?

Regarding 3rd party CPU coolers, the heatsink cooler the guy installs in the EasyPCBuild video is quite massive, but I assume worthwhile. I've found several build videos on YouTube, those guides involve ASUS boards. One sponsored by ASUS is a Z87 build. Since most likely I'll be building a Gigabit board, I assume there are no significant differences between different manufacturer's boards Z87 boards, so that the following video would still be used as a comprehensive guide?

 

[garnerx]

That video guide would be fine - the location of sockets will be different on your board but it's the same basic thing. The instruction book will probably have photos (mine did).

The heat sinks are indeed massive. If you have a small board like the mini ATX one you were looking at, you may find that some heat sinks obstruct one of the RAM slots, which may or may not be a problem depending on whether you plan to populate all 4 slots.

You can get horizontal heat sinks that provide some clearance, or a bigger motherboard, or a water cooler which is tiny but has a big radiator that you attach to the case.

Edit:

Thanks you!
The last tower I rooted around in was just one big interior space. In the Easy PCBuild Video (a post or two before), The tower case had a separate compartment for running wires. Is this unique or something that is a standard for today's cases?

That's just a gap between the right-hand panel of the chassis and the motherboard tray, I think most decent cases have them. Don't consider one that doesn't - it's the only place to stuff the spaghetti of cables.

 

[Huntn]

That's just a gap between the right-hand panel of the chassis and the motherboard tray, I think most decent cases have them. Don't consider one that doesn't - it's the only place to stuff the spaghetti of cables.

If I am seeing it right, both the Rosewill Thor V2 and the Fractal Design Define R4 seem to have separate compartments for cable management.

BTW, if I go with a GA-Z87MX-D3H board (Gigabit), what do I need to look at to verify that a PC case is compatible? I see this mobo is listed as "mATX". I need to go back and look at cases to see if this is the key.

 

[lunaoso]

If I am seeing it right, both the Rosewill Thor V2 and the Fractal Design Define R4 seem to have separate compartments for cable management.

BTW, if I go with a GA-Z87MX-D3H board (Gigabit), what do I need to look at to verify that a PC case is compatible? I see this mobo is listed as "mATX". I need to go back and look at cases to see if this is the key.

A mATX motherboard will fit in a mATX, ATX, and I believe eATX cases. You just need to adjust the mounting points accordingly, which is basically screwing them in or out. As for videos to watch, my suggestion would be- "CareyHolzman" on YouTube. He goes really in depth with everything, and doesn't leave anything out.

EDIT: As for the CPU cooler, if you want to go water cooling, I suggest either the Corsair h80i (1 fan on the radiator) or the Corsair h100i (2 fans on the rad), depending what fits or price. They are closed loop, meaning you don't have to fill them up with water ever. You just plug it in and off it goes.

 

[cluthz]

The R4 is a nice case. I have one and is very happy with it.
If you get a air cooler, get low profile ram, high modules will sometimes be incompatible with big air coolers. With a closed water loop you can use whatever.

I have an Antec Cooler 620, which is a fairly cheap water cooler, but very much better than stock. At 4.3Ghz I max (rendering/prime95 or similar) at around 55-60C, with stock cooler I got 75-80C. Normal gaming and such maxes me at around 50C.

 

[alvindarkness]

If I am seeing it right, both the Rosewill Thor V2 and the Fractal Design Define R4 seem to have separate compartments for cable management.

BTW, if I go with a GA-Z87MX-D3H board (Gigabit), what do I need to look at to verify that a PC case is compatible? I see this mobo is listed as "mATX". I need to go back and look at cases to see if this is the key.

The Fractal Design Define R4 is a great case, and a friend chose it for a silent HTPC build the other week (with a GA-Z87-HD3 board) , that is also hackintoshed (and dual boot win7 for gaming). It has got room on the side (between mobo plate and side panel) for cable management. If you choose a relatively silent/quiet PSU (the new corsair RM series looks brilliant, dunno how widely available it is yet), a quiet CPU fan (Noctua NH-D14 isnt a bad choice - and fits in the R4 no problem, or something similar), and a relatively quiet video card. You'll have one hell of a nice and quiet rig. So many options out there

----------

You can get horizontal heat sinks that provide some clearance, or a bigger motherboard, or a water cooler which is tiny but has a big radiator that you attach to the case.

Or low profile RAM. If you go to most heatsink manufacturers sites, theyll have a list of compatible ram and motherboards.

 

[garnerx]

There are so many choices! The most disappointing part for me was when I finished the thing and there were no more bits to add. I liked messing around with it so much, I ended up getting pointless things - some metal mesh covers for the unused drive bays, a couple of extra fans for the case, a USB 3 PCI bracket adapter... Now there's nothing much I can add. The case is full.

The case I used was a Corsair 300R, which is reasonably small, cheap and very solid.

 

[rezenclowd3]

Just wanted to add, that theres no point getting a nvidia 6xx series card now that the 7xx's are out. They use the same chipset (except for the 780), are better priced, and have higher clocked parts (including memory). Consider the 760 (equivalent/better alternative to the 670) or 770 (equivalent/better alternative to the 680).

I'm going to be replacing a 680 in my desktop with a 770, and moving the 680 over to a htpc (which currently has an underpforming 6870). Both dual boot OS X and win7 without issues.

And to the person above who said forget the hackintosh nonsense. I too have a relatively maxed out MBP (512mb ssd, high res screen, increased ram etc). But I do all my "real" mac work on my desktop hackintosh, which literally slaughters the MBP in terms of performance. It is hassle free, and in every which way a smoother osx experience than the "real" mac. But like the OP, I can reboot and play the latest games without thinking twice. Its win win (excuse the pun).

Laptop chip set WILL be slower than a similarly spec`d desktop....

 

[blesscheese]

Have you thought of a used Mac Pro

Dude, for about $1000 you can get a used Mac Pro 2009 model, 8-core, with 2.26GHz processors. That will get you about 14000 on Geekbench.

For $99 bucks, you can then get the OEM Win 7.

Then the video card...I mainly play Skyrim...so for $200, I got a GTX 660 that runs Skyrim really well (see AndandTech for a comparison...although the extra dough for a 670 does look well spent.

Anyway, for about the same price, you get a great Mac that runs the Mac OS and Windoze, and will play games really well. Without all the hassle of having to maintain a Hackintosh.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way, check out Thomas Pindelski's blog. BTW, he regularly posts in the Mac Pro section.

Cheers!

 

[cluthz]

Dude, for about $1000 you can get a used Mac Pro 2009 model, 8-core, with 2.26GHz processors. That will get you about 14000 on Geekbench.

For $99 bucks, you can then get the OEM Win 7.

Then the video card...I mainly play Skyrim...so for $200, I got a GTX 660 that runs Skyrim really well (see AndandTech for a comparison...although the extra dough for a 670 does look well spent.

Anyway, for about the same price, you get a great Mac that runs the Mac OS and Windoze, and will play games really well. Without all the hassle of having to maintain a Hackintosh.

I'm not the only one who thinks this way, check out Thomas Pindelski's blog. BTW, he regularly posts in the Mac Pro section.

Cheers!

8x 2.26GHz, with a total of 16 threads is less than 1000 pts per thread.
Seeing games use usually anywhere from 2-4 threads you'll end up with a total performance below i3s in games. A new i5 does more than 14k on 4.
I know my calculations are very simplified, but a 4670k will be much faster in that aspect.

 

[blesscheese]

8x 2.26GHz, with a total of 16 threads is less than 1000 pts per thread.
Seeing games use usually anywhere from 2-4 threads you'll end up with a total performance below i3s in games. A new i5 does more than 14k on 4.
I know my calculations are very simplified, but a 4670k will be much faster in that aspect.

Good points! It is a 4 year old piece of hardware...but, there are still advantages of going with a Mac Pro that I thought I would bring up.

Like everything, I guess the answer is, "It depends..." In this case, the dependencies are going to be issues such as:

a) which games, and how CPU intensive are they,
b) how much do you like mucking around with a Hackintosh, every time there is a system update,
etc.

For Skyrim, this is a very decent solution. I don't play all the latest and greatest games, however.

Significantly, if you like building things/taking things apart, you can also upgrade the processors in the Mac Pro. Check out these benchmarks.

Based on my experience with a Hackintosh (it was good, but I gave up upgrading the system after every release) and with the Mac Pro (OMG! opening it up and changing a hard drive/inserting RAM/everything is so darn easy!) I would not readily go the route of a Hackintosh.

As always, ymmv!

 

[Huntn]

After thousands of questions and almost just buying a PC, I have decided to build. Thanks for all the help! I'll probably start ordering parts today. Suprisingly Micro Center (a brick and mortar store) has the best price on about 4 of the items below. Looking for any suggestions regarding this list.

Still looking for a good build guide if you have any suggestions. The best would be building a Z87 case. I did find one, but it's an ASUS board vs my Gigabyte board, if that is a big deal...

Here is my list:
*Processor: i5 4670k $199
*Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H $114.99
*Video Card: Asus GTX670 $274 (the most I've ever spent on a video card)
*Ram: 8GB $82
*Case: Fractal Design Define XL R2 $90
*Power Supply: Corsair CX600M $68
*CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i $100
*Storage: 120GB SSD Sandisk SDSSDX-120G0G25 $100
*Storage: 2- 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DMoo3 $120 (one for Windows, one for Mac).
*Wifi Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 $35
*DVD Burner: Sony AD07280S-OB $28
*Windows 7: $88

Total: $1410

A little higher than I wanted. But the extra HD and the cooler jumped me up above the $1200 budget. I figure if I can get it going, MacOS on this box is worth an extra $100.

 

[N19h7m4r3]

That's a nice system Hunt, and at a good price. I would personally change to use at least a 250GB SSD, and change the HDD's from Seagate. The warranty speaks for itself, and if an HDD only comes with a 1 year warranty I be cautious.

Everything else looks great, although if you're not planning to overclock the CPU, and you don't live in a hot area you can drop the after market HSF and stick with the stock intel one.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

After thousands of questions and almost just buying a PC, I have decided to build. Thanks for all the help! I'll probably start ordering parts today. Suprisingly Micro Center (a brick and mortar store) has the best price on about 4 of the items below. Looking for any suggestions regarding this list.

Still looking for a good build guide if you have any suggestions. The best would be building a Z87 case. I did find one, but it's an ASUS board vs my Gigabyte board, if that is a big deal...

Here is my list:
*Processor: i5 4670k $199
*Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H $114.99
*Video Card: Asus GTX670 $274 (the most I've ever spent on a video card)
*Ram: 8GB $82
*Case: Fractal Design Define XL R2 $90
*Power Supply: Corsair CX600M $68
*CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i $100
*Storage: 120GB SSD Sandisk SDSSDX-120G0G25 $100
*Storage: 2- 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DMoo3 $120 (one for Windows, one for Mac).
*Wifi Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 $35
*DVD Burner: Sony AD07280S-OB $28
*Windows 7: $88

Total: $1410

A little higher than I wanted. But the extra HD and the cooler jumped me up above the $1200 budget. I figure if I can get it going, MacOS on this box is worth an extra $100.

I've been lurking and following this thread all along. Now I'll toss out my opinion too for what it is worth to you.

You seem set on building a hackintosh which isn't something I'd personally want to do but to each their own so I won't try to persuade you otherwise. Instead, I will just advise that if the CPU without the k suffix is cheaper and the only reason to spend more is to overclock (which I am also not a fan of - tolerances are specified for good reason and yes I know a lot of people get away with it anyway, etc.) go with the less expensive CPU. The slight difference in speed is not going to be perceptible playing your games regardless of what those who love to min/max might tell you. This also means you do not need to blow one hundred dollars on cooling for the CPU. If you leave the thing alone and let it run at the speed it is designed to run at, you don't need special cooling - stock is just fine. I have never bought an aftermarket cooler in about two decades of building my own PCs prior to going with an iMac and I have never had a heat related component failure. But then, I don't mess around overclocking for a speed increase I could not tell if I was blind tested on a few machines with the same game at the same settings. For most games the GPU is going to deliver the most perceptible performance differences given how powerful current quad core CPUs are anyway.

That's just my little dose of reality for this discussion which I'm sure some will disagree with but I would love to conduct real world tests with those same folks, blind, on hardware they don't know which is overclocked and which ain't and see if they could even tell reliably. I bet most could not. The difference in OVERALL system performance for gaming purposes is just not significant enough to be reliably perceived.

I suppose I may get flamed for all that but as the old saying goes, the emperor has no clothes. Doing this stuff is a waste of money and as far as i know it often voids your warranty. Doesn't seem very worthwhile to me but that's just my take.

You said you thought it was a little more expensive than you wanted to spend so there is a way to cut back the price with no pain.

Lastly, I've noted your trepidation about building a PC but also your experience in working with them. Don't sweat this. It's easy and even fun building your own gaming rig. Believe me, if you have the smarts to do whatever it is you do for a living, you certainly have the smarts to assemble some computer components into a case. Like somebody else said, you can't even plug the stuff into the wrong places. It won't fit in them. It's very easy to do and you should not need to mess with the BIOS either except if you want to change the default order in which drives are checked for an operating system at boot time. Everything else is automatic anyway.

I'm glad I don't need to bother with this stuff anymore myself but then I am quite content with my 27" iMac. I could see myself looking into a used Mac Pro for my next computer though although first time around doing that I'd need to spend for a display. It's years off though so I'll worry about it then.

 

[Huntn]

I've been lurking and following this thread all along. Now I'll toss out my opinion too for what it is worth to you.

You seem set on building a hackintosh which isn't something I'd personally want to do but to each their own so I won't try to persuade you otherwise. Instead, I will just advise that if the CPU without the k suffix is cheaper and the only reason to spend more is to overclock (which I am also not a fan of - tolerances are specified for good reason and yes I know a lot of people get away with it anyway, etc.) go with the less expensive CPU. The slight difference in speed is not going to be perceptible playing your games regardless of what those who love to min/max might tell you. This also means you do not need to blow one hundred dollars on cooling for the CPU. If you leave the thing alone and let it run at the speed it is designed to run at, you don't need special cooling - stock is just fine. I have never bought an aftermarket cooler in about two decades of building my own PCs prior to going with an iMac and I have never had a heat related component failure. But then, I don't mess around overclocking for a speed increase I could not tell if I was blind tested on a few machines with the same game at the same settings. For most games the GPU is going to deliver the most perceptible performance differences given how powerful current quad core CPUs are anyway.

That's just my little dose of reality for this discussion which I'm sure some will disagree with but I would love to conduct real world tests with those same folks, blind, on hardware they don't know which is overclocked and which ain't and see if they could even tell reliably. I bet most could not. The difference in OVERALL system performance for gaming purposes is just not significant enough to be reliably perceived.

I suppose I may get flamed for all that but as the old saying goes, the emperor has no clothes. Doing this stuff is a waste of money and as far as i know it often voids your warranty. Doesn't seem very worthwhile to me but that's just my take.

You said you thought it was a little more expensive than you wanted to spend so there is a way to cut back the price with no pain.

Lastly, I've noted your trepidation about building a PC but also your experience in working with them. Don't sweat this. It's easy and even fun building your own gaming rig. Believe me, if you have the smarts to do whatever it is you do for a living, you certainly have the smarts to assemble some computer components into a case. Like somebody else said, you can't even plug the stuff into the wrong places. It won't fit in them. It's very easy to do and you should not need to mess with the BIOS either except if you want to change the default order in which drives are checked for an operating system at boot time. Everything else is automatic anyway.

I'm glad I don't need to bother with this stuff anymore myself but then I am quite content with my 27" iMac. I could see myself looking into a used Mac Pro for my next computer though although first time around doing that I'd need to spend for a display. It's years off though so I'll worry about it then.

I appreciate your opinion. The reason I was going with the "k" i5 was the last time I checked it was only $20 more and possibly offered a speed option for the future. But if it's true that it really makes no significant difference, than I could save $100 on the cpu cooler although the idea of a cooler cpu is attractive no matter what. Let me think about this...

 

[lunaoso]

I appreciate your opinion. The reason I was going with the "k" i5 was the last time I checked it was only $20 more and possibly offered a speed option for the future. But if it's true that it really makes no significant difference, than I could save $100 on the cpu cooler although the idea of a cooler cpu is attractive no matter what. Let me think about this...

I think where the overclocked may help is down the road when games begin to take advantage of these insane CPUs, especially with next-gen right around the corner. Is it worth the hassle/extra $? Maybe, maybe not. If you plan on upgrading the CPU and MB in 3-5 years anyway, maybe not. As for water cooling, keeping the CPU cool is always great, plus it'll cut down on noise. But that might not be worth the extra $100 to you, that's something that's up to you.

 

[cluthz]

I appreciate your opinion. The reason I was going with the "k" i5 was the last time I checked it was only $20 more and possibly offered a speed option for the future. But if it's true that it really makes no significant difference, than I could save $100 on the cpu cooler although the idea of a cooler cpu is attractive no matter what. Let me think about this...

You could always just go with stock cooler and then upgrade the cooler later on, if you want more power.

The only instances I notice the over clock is when I run emulators or render videos.

Third party coolers are also quieter than stock cooler by a lot.

It's also a damn cheap upgrade, only $20 for the "k" cpu and then as much as you like for the cooler, you don't need a h100i, a h60 or similar is a lot better than stock if money is an issue.

The R2 XL is a damn nice case, but I'd go for the R4, it's the same case, but smaller. You can fit 8 drives and 2 SSDs in the R4

 

[alvindarkness]

After thousands of questions and almost just buying a PC, I have decided to build. Thanks for all the help! I'll probably start ordering parts today. Suprisingly Micro Center (a brick and mortar store) has the best price on about 4 of the items below. Looking for any suggestions regarding this list.

Still looking for a good build guide if you have any suggestions. The best would be building a Z87 case. I did find one, but it's an ASUS board vs my Gigabyte board, if that is a big deal...

Here is my list:
*Processor: i5 4670k $199
*Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H $114.99
*Video Card: Asus GTX670 $274 (the most I've ever spent on a video card)
*Ram: 8GB $82
*Case: Fractal Design Define XL R2 $90
*Power Supply: Corsair CX600M $68
*CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i $100
*Storage: 120GB SSD Sandisk SDSSDX-120G0G25 $100
*Storage: 2- 1TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000DMoo3 $120 (one for Windows, one for Mac).
*Wifi Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 $35
*DVD Burner: Sony AD07280S-OB $28
*Windows 7: $88

Total: $1410

A little higher than I wanted. But the extra HD and the cooler jumped me up above the $1200 budget. I figure if I can get it going, MacOS on this box is worth an extra $100.

Solid looking setup. People will have their little preferences in terms of manufacturers and parts (I'm also not a big fan of seagate like the other poster, after having a few die, but thats neither here or there), but I think youve done well overall.

Good choice on the cooler as well, especially if you want to overclock in the future, and go with a push/pull fan setup for extremely low temps. But in terms of just noise and simplicity, a big heatsink with a single slow 140cm fan will probably be more quiet than the two fans and a pump. All up to priorities.

Out of interest how are you going to connect the audio outputs? Just via the 3.5mm ports, hdmi, digital out, something else? One option you might look at is a cheap usb to audio adapter, a few bucks off ebay or newegg. Simply cause if you use any type of HDA Enabler and modified AppleHDA.kext, its the one thing you will have to fuss with every osx update. I used to use a little usb audio adapter and cant remember the last time I had to do anything after a delta/combo update. Just the odd chimera update to support facetime and what not.

 

[cluthz]

Out of interest how are you going to connect the audio outputs? Just via the 3.5mm ports, hdmi, digital out, something else? One option you might look at is a cheap usb to audio adapter, a few bucks off ebay or newegg. Simply cause if you use any type of HDA Enabler and modified AppleHDA.kext, its the one thing you will have to fuss with every osx update. I used to use a little usb audio adapter and cant remember the last time I had to do anything after a delta/combo update. Just the odd chimera update to support facetime and what not.

Atleast on the Gigabyte z77 boards the audio driver is a one click update after system updates.
Seeing we already are on 10.8.5 i doubt you'll have to redo that more than a maybe 2-3 times before 10.9 is out

I do however have two additional sound interfaces They always works after updates.

There is one little issue with hacks no one have mentioned, there are sometimes updates that breaks stuff.
I have a Sandy Bridge CPU on a z77 board, and apple never had 2xxx series on z77 (doubt this will be an issues with 4xxx on z87 tho), but after 10.7.2 i needed to do a little tweaking to get over clocking work, with an SSDT.

A good rule is to wait a week after system updates are out, to see if there are any issues. When there is, tonymac usually have a patch up within a week or two.

 

[alvindarkness]

Atleast on the Gigabyte z77 boards the audio driver is a one click update after system updates.
Seeing we already are on 10.8.5 i doubt you'll have to redo that more than a maybe 2-3 times before 10.9 is out

I do however have two additional sound interfaces They always works after updates.

There is one little issue with hacks no one have mentioned, there are sometimes updates that breaks stuff.

Yep, sounds like our setups are similar. On the desktop I've used an apogee duet and then duet 2 since forever. On the HTPC I've moved over to toleda's SSDT HDMI mod for AMI motherboards (which is brilliant). Theres something nice about applying osx point updates and not thinking twice, despite the fact that audio can be a two click process in multibeast!

I have a Sandy Bridge CPU on a z77 board, and apple never had 2xxx series on z77 (doubt this will be an issues with 4xxx on z87 tho), but after 10.7.2 i needed to do a little tweaking to get over clocking work, with an SSDT.

I had to do the same with a P67 board and Sandy, although that was one of the boards (P67A-UD7) gigabyte never updated to with their newer proper uefi bios series, and still requires a DSDT as well or else its unstable. All good though, with the DSDT/SSDT combo its worked flawlessly since, even on Mavericks DP8.

A good rule is to wait a week after system updates are out, to see if there are any issues. When there is, tonymac usually have a patch up within a week or two.

Yep, another good thing to do is clone the drive before an upgrade. Although since the 10.7 days things have been so smooth I usually just update without thinking twice.

The OP has a MBP so it opens up so many more possibilties in terms of installing, updating and potentially fixing issues. In a PM I suggested he get a little usb to sata adapter in the event he has to do any repairs in the future, and cause it makes installing osx + multibeast brainless, if he does it all from his MBP.

In the past this all couldve been a hassle, but in 2013, and with a MBP handy, the whole hackintosh process can be made ridiculously smooth and painless.