Mac Pro vs. Hackintosh

RoelJuun said:

@SR2Mac

You were trying to show me something that you find extremely important and shoved it via all possible ways (PM's seriously?) in my face. And now you show up with Bible citations…It suddenly becomes clear to me.

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As I said before that was not my goal, so if that was what you got from it that's on you. What's even more apparent is I wasn't the only one who saw that, (thanks again derbothaus). If you're gonna talk smack, then you should learn to take it.

On a side note, (for what it's worth) you still can build slammin' system for about $850. Just go to tonymacx86.com or Kakewalk.com and look through both sites for system build set ups and what you can afford.

SR2Mac said:

On a side note, (for what it's worth) you still can build slammin' system for about $850. Just go to tonymacx86.com or Kakewalk.com and look through both sites for system build set ups and what you can afford.

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I've been at tonymacx86.com indeed, great website with lots of information. Money (the amount) isn't necessarily the main problem; it's what you get for that money. The current base-model Mac Pro sure isn't worth a whopping $2500 for me. Especially if I want to add a 240 gig SSD, 16 gigs of ram and about 10 TB of HDD's.

@ derbothaus

No offense of course, I don't mind it when people get angry at me actually. Please get angry at me if it keeps you from smoking!

RoelJuun said:

I've been at tonymacx86.com indeed, great website with lots of information. Money (the amount) isn't necessarily the main problem; it's what you get for that money. The current base-model Mac Pro sure isn't worth a whopping $2500 for me. Especially if I want to add a 240 gig SSD, 16 gigs of ram and about 10 TB of HDD's.

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That's the whole purpose to building a hack, plus you get quite a bit more for your money. I have another system that I paid $1,600 for and is right up there with an equivalent Mac Pro in it's performance that would have cost me $5,800. That's OVER 3 TIMES the amount. Total price gouging. So if you still can afford that, then you'd get. This is what I got for that:

- Silverstone Raven RV02
- Cooler Master SPH 1050W PSU
- XFX Radeon HD 6870
- Corsair H100
- Corsair 12GB 1600MHz RAM
- Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Mobo
- Xeon W3680 CPU (same as 980X) @ 4.2GHz
- OWC 120 SSD
- WD 2TB HD

That's pretty much it and over 18,500+ GB scores. Now when I learn to UNDERCLOCK it I'm sure I'll be able to get 23,000+. I'm grateful to have a system like this and the SR-2 setup. So they're both great fast systems... Hope that helps... Later...

SR2Mac said:

That's the whole purpose to building a hack, plus you get quite a bit more for your money. I have another system that I paid $1,600 for and is right up there with an equivalent Mac Pro in it's performance that would have cost me $5,800. That's OVER 3 TIMES the amount. Total price gouging. So if you still can afford that, then you'd get. This is what I got for that:

- Silverstone Raven RV02
- Cooler Master SPH 1050W PSU
- XFX Radeon HD 6870
- Corsair H100
- Corsair 12GB 1600MHz RAM
- Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Mobo
- Xeon W3680 CPU (same as 980X) @ 4.2GHz
- OWC 120 SSD
- WD 2TB HD

That's pretty much it and over 18,500+ GB scores. Now when I learn to UNDERCLOCK it I'm sure I'll be able to get 23,000+. I'm grateful to have a system like this and the SR-2 setup. So they're both great fast systems... Hope that helps... Later...

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This sounds like the perfect system for me! Is the RV02 nice to work with? Did you go with silver or black? If you had to build a system right now and were going to spend around $2000 would you chose similar specs?

SR2Mac said:

That's the whole purpose to building a hack, plus you get quite a bit more for your money. I have another system that I paid $1,600 for and is right up there with an equivalent Mac Pro in it's performance that would have cost me $5,800. That's OVER 3 TIMES the amount. Total price gouging. So if you still can afford that, then you'd get. This is what I got for that:

- Silverstone Raven RV02
- Cooler Master SPH 1050W PSU
- XFX Radeon HD 6870
- Corsair H100
- Corsair 12GB 1600MHz RAM
- Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Mobo
- Xeon W3680 CPU (same as 980X) @ 4.2GHz
- OWC 120 SSD
- WD 2TB HD

That's pretty much it and over 18,500+ GB scores. Now when I learn to UNDERCLOCK it I'm sure I'll be able to get 23,000+. I'm grateful to have a system like this and the SR-2 setup. So they're both great fast systems... Hope that helps... Later...

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I've looked at similar solutions. If I was going to do that, I'd just run Windows, and I would most likely choose an NVidia Quadro card (as they lock certain features on the others). I'd like to see what we actually get with the new Mac Pros rather than the theoretical hardware that could be used.

edit: I don't use any Mac only software.

There are three real macs in this house hold. Me and the misses both have the latest Macbook Pro's (15" & 13"). The HTPC under the TV is a sandy bridge mac mini. Not to mention the other apple bits and bobs we have.

BUT.. when it comes to the desktop, it has been a Hackintosh since Tiger. The last hardware upgrade (very similar to SR2Mac's below), was approx toward the end-of-SnowLeopard/start-of-Lion time frame. And honestly with how far Hackintoshing has come I have no reason to consider a MP or iMac - for my needs.

I think it depends entirely on ones needs and preferences. I *only* want to run OSX. I don't want to reboot into windows unless it is absolutely essential (even then I prefer to run it in parallels). The desktop shares a lot of hdd space with the real macs in the house, runs a bunch of services like UPnP via XBMC etc. I do run some performance needy programs like Logic Pro and Aperture. But the main thing I do that stresses out my the desktop hardware is well, gaming.. So obviously the two main preferences (1/ only wanting to run OSX and 2/ to play games) somewhat clash.

I've made it a simple point to only buy games that work on OSX - almost all on steam. The last time I broke that cardinal rule was when I couldn't wait for a mac port of Assassins Creed Revelations. So the last time I booted into Windows was literally 4 months ago to finish the game - and thats it.

With all that being said, I realise how stupid it all may seem. But its the situation Im in. The option to run a real 6870 (or better in ML) versus some laptop part in the iMac is enough to seal the deal. The option of also having 12TB+ of hot swappable hard drive space in a silverstone case seals the deal. Then of course the little extra bits like a vertex 3 max iops SSD are just icing on the cake. In this case a MP would give me no advantage at all, and even less flexibility.

The desktop has not crashed in years, or had a single issue with any software upgrade from apple since Snow Leopard. It is as stable as a rock. Honestly it wastes no more of my time running a Hackintosh (with parts chosen for compatibility), than it does to run my MBP. If anything, everything happens so quickly, it saves time. And I can spend that saved time time killing zombies with mates on L4D2 at the highest settings on a 2560x1140 27inch screen. No complaints here.

SR2Mac said:

That's the whole purpose to building a hack, plus you get quite a bit more for your money. I have another system that I paid $1,600 for and is right up there with an equivalent Mac Pro in it's performance that would have cost me $5,800. That's OVER 3 TIMES the amount. Total price gouging. So if you still can afford that, then you'd get. This is what I got for that:

- Silverstone Raven RV02
- Cooler Master SPH 1050W PSU
- XFX Radeon HD 6870
- Corsair H100
- Corsair 12GB 1600MHz RAM
- Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Mobo
- Xeon W3680 CPU (same as 980X) @ 4.2GHz
- OWC 120 SSD
- WD 2TB HD

That's pretty much it and over 18,500+ GB scores. Now when I learn to UNDERCLOCK it I'm sure I'll be able to get 23,000+. I'm grateful to have a system like this and the SR-2 setup. So they're both great fast systems... Hope that helps... Later...

Click to expand...

superpalmtree said:

This sounds like the perfect system for me! Is the RV02 nice to work with? Did you go with silver or black? If you had to build a system right now and were going to spend around $2000 would you chose similar specs?

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Yes, I'd even go with the Silverstone FT02 like what's seen here:

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?high=&m=1227850&mpage=1#1227850

It's the top few pics (with the Dual Bay Res) and not the one that uses the SR-2 Mobo & TJ11 Case. I went with Black, but you can choose the Silver one if you really like the Mac Pro Tower look. Actually it looks very similar but the Silverstone cases are far better when it comes to cooling ability...

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thekev said:

...I would most likely choose an NVidia Quadro card (as they lock certain features on the others).

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In my opinion a Quadro 4000 vs GTX 480 is a waste of $350+. In fact the GTX 295 is better performer even over the Q 4000. So I went with the GTX 480 (water blocked it) and I only spent (09/10) $340 total (that's including the Koolance 480 water block) as it's even better for rendering power. I did a few weeks research into this to know what I'm saying. If you have a hard time with this as I did in the beginning then do some research on it and you'll eventually come to the same conclusion I did and save yourself $350+... Please don't buy into the hype of the Quadro series of GPUs... That's just my thoughts...

superpalmtree said:

This sounds like the perfect system for me! Is the RV02 nice to work with? Did you go with silver or black? If you had to build a system right now and were going to spend around $2000 would you chose similar specs?

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I agree with SR2. I've got the FT02 in my build and its fantastic to work with. My only complaint is that I wish the 3 bottom fans at their lowest idle speed were absolutely silent (as they are the noisiest thing in my build) - but you can't have everything. And its the kind of noise level most people wouldn't notice anyway, just being anal.

SR2Mac said:

In my opinion a Quadro 4000 vs GTX 480 is a waste of $350+. In fact the GTX 295 is better performer even over the Q 4000. So I went with the GTX 480 (water blocked it) and I only spent (09/10) $340 total (that's including the Koolance 480 water block) as it's even better for rendering power. I did a few weeks research into this to know what I'm saying. If you have a hard time with this as I did in the beginning then do some research on it and you'll eventually come to the same conclusion I did and save yourself $350+... Please don't buy into the hype of the Quadro series of GPUs... That's just my thoughts...

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Thanks for the advice. While I could do more research, one of my concerns was 10 bit displayport. Regarding OpenGL performance, opinions always seem to be quite mixed. I'm aware that the difference is basically in the drivers. The water blocking was to ensure it would run stable under that kind of workload? That wouldn't surprise me given the claims that those things can run scary hot when used to supplement rendering times, although OpenGL performance and 10 bit displayport drivers were my primary concerns. I'd have to look up if that's available outside of a Quadro version. Given that I already use bootcamp for some stuff, it wouldn't be that big a stretch. I'm waiting to see how the next mac pro update looks before I consider alternatives. I wouldn't personally pay the full price of something like the 6 core machine this late in a cycle given the potential for it to turn to legacy hardware given that the logic board design it uses started with the 2009 model. Apple is a bit unpredictable at times.

Do a youtube search Quadro 4000 vs GTX 480. Now the 4000 is a hair better for live 3D apps, but for those using the apps that I mentioned before the 480 is better all around. When it comes to games that is not what I use the card for as I use Mac OS X for that purpose only. If I wanted to play a high end game I would obviously use a different GPU and use Windows 7 to play my video games. But I don't have time for games anymore. Would be nice if I did have the time though... Later..

Don't worry about 10 bit displayport....

thekev said:

Thanks for the advice. While I could do more research, one of my concerns was 10 bit displayport. Regarding OpenGL performance, opinions always seem to be quite mixed. I'm aware that the difference is basically in the drivers. The water blocking was to ensure it would run stable under that kind of workload? That wouldn't surprise me given the claims that those things can run scary hot when used to supplement rendering times, although OpenGL performance and 10 bit displayport drivers were my primary concerns. I'd have to look up if that's available outside of a Quadro version. Given that I already use bootcamp for some stuff, it wouldn't be that big a stretch. I'm waiting to see how the next mac pro update looks before I consider alternatives. I wouldn't personally pay the full price of something like the 6 core machine this late in a cycle given the potential for it to turn to legacy hardware given that the logic board design it uses started with the 2009 model. Apple is a bit unpredictable at times.

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I hate to break it to you, but dig deeper and you'll learn that OS X doesn't yet have actual support in drivers for 10 bit/channel framebuffers. When I want to see 10 bit/channel on my EIZO display I have to use Windoze....IMHO it doesn't make that much difference.

braindeadfool said:

I hate to break it to you, but dig deeper and you'll learn that OS X doesn't yet have actual support in drivers for 10 bit/channel framebuffers. When I want to see 10 bit/channel on my EIZO display I have to use Windoze....IMHO it doesn't make that much difference.

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I know that. My shadows get a little crunched at the very end, which was the reason I wanted this to work. I was hoping that would show up with Mountain Lion considering it's not exactly new technology at this point.

Having hackintoshed together 4 different self built computers I feel like I know OSX in a way I never knew when I was just the typical mindless consumer buying what was spoon fed to me.

Support is over-rated outside of the US, 2 weeks for a faulty superdrive? I just lost that editing gig to someone else.

For the price of low end mac pro I have two MUCH fast hacks with nvidia cuda enabled cards, so if one goes down I can just plug in the other and carry on editing like nothing happened. Meanwhile the off the shelf user will be crying in the Apple store stuck behind kids with broken itoys.

If you don't need support, or ECC ram, go for it.


However, to compare like for like, you need to be building a Xeon based system with ECC memory (which isn't compatibile with the core I series). If you aren't speccing the comparison box with ECC, no matter how fast it is, it is not providing "equivalent performance" as it has no error tolerance in the RAM.

Memory errors can lead to crashes, or (far more likely due to the size of code vs size of data) - silent data corruption.

If you're running games or general home user stuff - fine.
If you're processing video - also probably fine.

If you are running any sort of scientific application (or other application where you need to be 100% sure your processing is done CORRECTLY, rather than just fast), then memory bit errors can potentially invalidate your data.

throAU said:

If you don't need support, or ECC ram, go for it.


However, to compare like for like, you need to be building a Xeon based system with ECC memory (which isn't compatibile with the core I series). If you aren't speccing the comparison box with ECC, no matter how fast it is, it is not providing "equivalent performance" as it has no error tolerance in the RAM.

Memory errors can lead to crashes, or (far more likely due to the size of code vs size of data) - silent data corruption.

If you're running games or general home user stuff - fine.
If you're processing video - also probably fine.

If you are running any sort of scientific application (or other application where you need to be 100% sure your processing is done CORRECTLY, rather than just fast), then memory bit errors can potentially invalidate your data.

Click to expand...

You can build a hackintosh with ECC memory, no problem. Just more limits on the motherboards you can use.

throAU said:

If you don't need support, or ECC ram, go for it.


However, to compare like for like, you need to be building a Xeon based system with ECC memory (which isn't compatibile with the core I series). If you aren't speccing the comparison box with ECC, no matter how fast it is, it is not providing "equivalent performance" as it has no error tolerance in the RAM.

Memory errors can lead to crashes, or (far more likely due to the size of code vs size of data) - silent data corruption.

If you're running games or general home user stuff - fine.
If you're processing video - also probably fine.

If you are running any sort of scientific application (or other application where you need to be 100% sure your processing is done CORRECTLY, rather than just fast), then memory bit errors can potentially invalidate your data.

Click to expand...

So you can't build a hackintosh with ECC RAM?

Since when?

I didn't say that. I said you need to build a xeon, as the core I doesn't support ECC.

Everyone Build a hackintosh

Send a message to Apple..they obviously don't care about desktop users anymore..

Go to this site and buy your hardware: http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/search/label/CustoMac and you can have a hackintosh with all the latest features up and running with the quickness. Hackintosh's are a blast, so fast, and fun to tinker with.

itsamacthing said:

Send a message to Apple..they obviously don't care about desktop users anymore..

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Give Apple a chance. For some reason, the Intel E5 rollout was very strange. If Apple is silent until May 1st, I would be forced to agree with you.

I've been rocking a Core i7-860 Hackintosh since before the Core i5/i7 iMacs came out. I looked at the rumored specs of the systems, made my best guess about chipset, etc., and guessed correctly.

The system was cheap to build and works flawlessly. I've never had to reload it once after getting everything configured properly.

I'm interested in seeing what the next-gen Mac Minis and Mac Pros will be like. Not that I want to get rid of my Hackintosh, it's more that I want to see if Apple will ever service geeks on a budget.

aarond12 said:

... it's more that I want to see if Apple will ever service geeks on a budget.

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Not for the last 30 years. Their entire business model is 90º this. You get to service yourself. It just get's lonely

derbothaus said:

Not for the last 30 years. Their entire business model is 90º this. You get to service yourself. It just get's lonely

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Servicing yourself for 30 years would indeed get quite lonely.

throAU said:

If you don't need support, or ECC ram, go for it.


However, to compare like for like, you need to be building a Xeon based system with ECC memory (which isn't compatibile with the core I series). If you aren't speccing the comparison box with ECC, no matter how fast it is, it is not providing "equivalent performance" as it has no error tolerance in the RAM.

Click to expand...

And Xeons still have the dual CPU advantage.

Doesn't matter how fast your single CPU is. Two of that CPU is faster.

If you don't need the speed of dual CPUs, the Mac Pro isn't a great deal. But if you need as much speed as you can get? Hackintoshes are meh.

jnpy!$4g3cwk said:

Give Apple a chance. For some reason, the Intel E5 rollout was very strange. If Apple is silent until May 1st, I would be forced to agree with you.

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Agree with you, but 2 years to upgrade a computer is weak sauce. They should have had 2 refreshes in between adding things like USB3. Waiting 2 years just for a new CPU is pathetic. Intel has an obvious roadmap and Apple should build hardware to take advantage of it. If they keep to their own schedule, then it's like trying to fit a square peg in a circular hole. i.e.: 2 years between Mac Pro refreshes.

Apple should release something between a Mac Pro and Mac Mini. Use all desktop grade parts, no mobile parts like in the iMac. That mac, shall we call it the "Mac" could be refreshed every 8 to 10 months. It should contain all the latest and greatest features found in motherboards we can buy like USB3, over clocking, and more.

This will give them a larger desktop market. It will be the fastest mac on the planet (extreme i7 for example), and the Mac Pro will be the most powerful (cores for pros).

itsamacthing said:

Agree with you, but 2 years to upgrade a computer is weak sauce. They should have had 2 refreshes in between adding things like USB3. .

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List of peripherals pro users are missing out on due to lack of USB3 please? Oh wow i can get a fast hard drive, that is slower than ESATA or fibre channel anyway...