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What describes you?

  • No way would I build a hackintosh

    Votes: 349 23.0%
  • I'd consider it if Apple doesn't provide a new Mini or headless iMac in the next three months

    Votes: 185 12.2%
  • I'm considering it right now

    Votes: 578 38.2%
  • I already built one

    Votes: 403 26.6%

  • Total voters
    1,515

fhall1

macrumors 68040
Dec 18, 2007
3,816
1,237
(Central) NY State of mind
I'm about to order all the components for my first hackintosh build and I wanted to list them here first to get any comments, advise, reactions, etc. before I commit:

Rosewill Xtreme Series RX950-D-B 950W

I'd appreciate any comments/suggestions/corrections since they would probably save me a lot time in trial and error.

Wow...a 950W power supply? I know it'll power all your stuff with ease, but it's like running a microwave oven for hours on end...the power company will thank you.
 

MacUser2525

Suspended
Mar 17, 2007
2,097
377
Canada
I'm about to order all the components for my first hackintosh build and I wanted to list them here first to get any comments, advise, reactions, etc. before I commit:

Rosewill Xtreme Series RX950-D-B 950W

Seems like overkill my main machine has a Q6600, 8gb of ram, 8800gt, 5x hard drive and my Kill-A-Watt meter says it uses ~300w at full load on all cores re/encoding to h.264 video. Plus I would go with a solid name brand like Corsair, Enermax, Seasonic, Thermaltake, OCZ ... something in the 650w to maybe 750w with Active PFC and high amps on a single 12v rail, it should be more than you will ever need.

ZALMAN VF700-CU 2 Ball VGA COOLER
I have one of them on my 7900GS in my spare machine works well but are you sure it will work on a 4870? It is not listed here on this page I found during a quick search.

http://www.zalman.co.kr/product/cooler/VF700_compatiblelist_eng.html

TRENDnet TEG-PCITXR Ethernet Adapter

The nic on the motherboard should work fine.

Samsung SH-S222L/BEBS Internal Half Height Supermulti PATA 22X Lightscribe DVD-Writable Drive

Nothing but trouble with PATA drives as you need to use the POS jmicron driver in OS X to access it which causes kernel panics with over ~3.3gb of ram in the machine, SATA is the way I like Pioneer drives FWIW.
 

akhamish

macrumors newbie
Sep 17, 2009
11
0
nice setup! i would be so happy to have that.
just a few small issues
1. are you planning to OC? if yes, of course get the cooler, if not then there is no need for it really.
2. are you a heavy gamer? the GPU is a tiny bit outdated now and a 5**0 series by ATi would be better/last that bit longer. personally i am a nvidia man, havent had any problems with my 8500 card.
3. will the WD green be your primary startup drive? its just a tiny bit slow but wont really be noticed unless your like a crazy video processing guy or something haha.

I'm planning to OC sometime in the future, probably once I get the whole thing up a running. I do game, but I'm more into RTS games rather than graphics intensive FPS so I was looking for a decent card that would be pretty cheap to Crossfire in the future but would give me pretty good performance on what I have right now. I'll be using the SSD to boot the OS from, not the WD green

Wow...a 950W power supply? I know it'll power all your stuff with ease, but it's like running a microwave oven for hours on end...the power company will thank you.
hmmm i included that power supply on recommendations from a friend to go for a minimum of 850W, but I wanted room for changes in the future in case I want to add more to the build. I guess I need to do a little more research into power supplies

I have one of them on my 7900GS in my spare machine works well but are you sure it will work on a 4870? It is not listed here on this page I found during a quick search.
http://www.zalman.co.kr/product/cooler/VF700_compatiblelist_eng.html
Thanks, I thought I had found it was compatible but I'm obviously mistaken.



The nic on the motherboard should work fine.

I included this because I read that this particular mobo has had problems with its onboard Ethernet when used in a Hackintosh
http://lifehacker.com/5351485/how-to-build-a-hackintosh-with-snow-leopard-start-to-finish
Nothing but trouble with PATA drives as you need to use the POS jmicron driver in OS X to access it which causes kernel panics with over ~3.3gb of ram in the machine, SATA is the way I like Pioneer drives FWIW.
thanks, I'll sub that out
 

MacUser2525

Suspended
Mar 17, 2007
2,097
377
Canada
hmmm i included that power supply on recommendations from a friend to go for a minimum of 850W, but I wanted room for changes in the future in case I want to add more to the build. I guess I need to do a little more research into power supplies.

I just went to the Extreme PS calculator it gives me 464w recommendation for a 50% capacitor aging, 90% load, 85% TDP with your processor, high end desktop motherboard, 2 x DDR3, 1 7200rpm hd, 1 flash ssd, SATA DVD/RW and 4x 120mm LED fans. You may want to give it a few tries yourself with different configurations depending on what you think you may upgrade too in the future. And remember a quality efficient power supply is the key to stable long lasting build it is the most important part you will buy.

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

Thanks, I thought I had found it was compatible but I'm obviously mistaken.

Your welcome.

I included this because I read that this particular mobo has had problems with its onboard Ethernet when used in a Hackintosh
http://lifehacker.com/5351485/how-to-build-a-hackintosh-with-snow-leopard-start-to-finish

My board the EP45-DS3R has the same dual 8111C nic's both work fine out of the box if wanting Time Machine then you need a patched IONetworkingFamily or DSDT.aml to tell the system the they are built-in and for Bonjour you need either the R1000 driver from Pystar or Donald Becker's modified ifconfig to put the card into promiscuous mode. When I used to use the Apple 8169 driver not bothering with the TM and Bonjour I transferred TB's of data on my home Gigabit network (70-80mb/s) without problems now that I have switched it around to use them many more TB's have been transferred again without problem.

thanks, I'll sub that out

SATA is the way to go so good now as I remember it from a year and a half ago the Intel SATA ports will not let me boot from it with the OS X install disk I needed to put it on the Jmicron connector to do the install as the board I had at that time had them on it. Just something for you to look for if you need to use them depending on how you plan to get OS X on the machine.
 

DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
98
London, United Kingdom
I'm planning to OC sometime in the future, probably once I get the whole thing up a running. I do game, but I'm more into RTS games rather than graphics intensive FPS so I was looking for a decent card that would be pretty cheap to Crossfire in the future but would give me pretty good performance on what I have right now.
makes sense then, the GPU seems like a nice, solid, cost effective choice.

I'll be using the SSD to boot the OS from, not the WD green
excellent ;)

as a side note, the PSU is a tad on the high side, you would be using probably 500W max with that setup. but as you said, plenty of room for expansion, also a nice increase in the energy bill haha!
 

Mac7

macrumors 6502a
Jun 14, 2009
831
86
AFAIK, no there isnt. What are you using OSX86Tools for anyway?! I mean seriously, PCWiz is a moron for releasing that. You were trying to get a Leopard Disk image on usb right? You need the disk util in Utilities, not PC Wiz' crappy attempt of an app.

really? I only used it cause every single tutorial that i found said to use it. Can you show or direct me to a tutorial on how to do it?

Can I use this method? Or is this only for the dell mini 9
 

nullx86

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2009
884
1
Wilmington/Jacksonville, NC
really? I only used it cause every single tutorial that i found said to use it. Can you show or direct me to a tutorial on how to do it?

Can I use this method? Or is this only for the dell mini 9

That will work fully, not just on a Mini 9. The part you want is the "On Mac" where it talks about using Disk Utility. PM me and I will give you a (literally) full rundown and offer IM support ;) Gotta help out when you can :D
 

Lava Lamp Freak

macrumors 68000
Jun 1, 2006
1,564
617
Well, in light of today's news I've decided to use my new i5 build as a Hackintosh. I just hope that my Asus P7P55 will work.
 

NoSmokingBandit

macrumors 68000
Apr 13, 2008
1,579
3
Let me know what the shopping list is like for your i5 build if you dont mind. Im going to hate myself for building a core2quad a month or so ago if our price lists are relatively close.
 

Mac7

macrumors 6502a
Jun 14, 2009
831
86
That will work fully, not just on a Mini 9. The part you want is the "On Mac" where it talks about using Disk Utility. PM me and I will give you a (literally) full rundown and offer IM support ;) Gotta help out when you can :D

Ok, thanks. PM sent
 

akhamish

macrumors newbie
Sep 17, 2009
11
0
I was wondering if there is a big difference in difficulty between building an i7 hackintosh versus an C2Q in terms of stability and ease of OSX installation?
 

nullx86

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2009
884
1
Wilmington/Jacksonville, NC
I was wondering if there is a big difference in difficulty between building an i7 hackintosh versus an C2Q in terms of stability and ease of OSX installation?

i7/i5 hasnt been out all that long, but either one would be easy to maintain, so long as you're doing retail. Do a distribution and you will eventually have problems, be it C2D/C2Q or i7/i5. As long as you have fully compatible hardware, get an i7 for the better speeds, etc.
 

Lava Lamp Freak

macrumors 68000
Jun 1, 2006
1,564
617
Let me know what the shopping list is like for your i5 build if you dont mind. Im going to hate myself for building a core2quad a month or so ago if our price lists are relatively close.

DVD-RW $34
4GB G.SKILL DDR3 $86
Coolermaster RC-690 Case $70
Sapphire Radeon 4890 $190
WD 1TB HD $99
Intel i5 750 $200
Corsair 650w PSU $100
Asus P7P55 motherboard $156

Total build cost: $935

I think after tax and shipping it was around $1k.
 

Bossone

macrumors member
Jul 26, 2008
98
0
Is there any off the shelf system (gaming)you can buy that you can turn into a Hackintosh? I've been a PC guy sfor ever but the Mac seem fairly high given the fact their graphics are still behind the industry.

I know I could go to Quo or Psystar, but would rather do my own install yet not build another computer.

Thanks
 

brendu

Cancelled
Apr 23, 2009
2,472
2,703
hey wondering if anyone knows what the best motherboard and procesor are to build a home theater hackintosh.. nothing unnecessary, just what id need to run hulu, netflix, movies and browse the web from my couch.. id guess core2duo... doubt id need quad for thiss but would there actualy be a visible difference from quad/i5/i7?
 

Donar

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2008
382
70
Germany
hey wondering if anyone knows what the best motherboard and procesor are to build a home theater hackintosh.. nothing unnecessary, just what id need to run hulu, netflix, movies and browse the web from my couch.. id guess core2duo... doubt id need quad for thiss but would there actualy be a visible difference from quad/i5/i7?
Cave Man has built one. A Core 2 Duo should fit a HTPC better, less cooling required and most apps won't use more cores anyway. Better go for max clock speed.
 

NoSmokingBandit

macrumors 68000
Apr 13, 2008
1,579
3
DVD-RW $34
4GB G.SKILL DDR3 $86
Coolermaster RC-690 Case $70
Sapphire Radeon 4890 $190
WD 1TB HD $99
Intel i5 750 $200
Corsair 650w PSU $100
Asus P7P55 motherboard $156

Total build cost: $935

I think after tax and shipping it was around $1k.
Cool beans. I just built a core2quad (Q8400) with 4gb ddr3, and a gtx260 for about $700, then it went down to about $625 after i got rebates and sold some of the extra stuff they sent for free.


Is there any off the shelf system (gaming)you can buy that you can turn into a Hackintosh? I've been a PC guy sfor ever but the Mac seem fairly high given the fact their graphics are still behind the industry.

I know I could go to Quo or Psystar, but would rather do my own install yet not build another computer.

Thanks
Its really hard to find on that works off the shelf. You may find some info at InsanelyMac, but most people just build there own because the main goal is to save $$.
 

thunderclap

macrumors 6502a
Nov 8, 2003
641
1
I installed a new videocard in my system to take advantage of nVidia's PhysX technology. The original card I had was the nVidia 9800 GT and it worked fine in both Windows and OS X. The new card I installed is the nVidia GTX 260. Now in Windows the computer boots fine, but in OS X the system crashes on boot if both cards are installed. OS X boots fine though if only one card is installed.

Does anyone have a recommendation on how to boot OS X with both the nVidia GTX 260 and the 9800 GT installed?
 

Cave Man

macrumors 604
Can someone enlighten me about power supplies? I have an Antec 500 case with a power supply that connects to my p5k mobo. I would like to move up to an i7 system and would like to know if that ps/connecters will work with the Asus p6t SE mobo. If so, then all I'd need to buy is the mobo, cup and ram.

TIA.
 

MacUser2525

Suspended
Mar 17, 2007
2,097
377
Canada
Can someone enlighten me about power supplies? I have an Antec 500 case with a power supply that connects to my p5k mobo. I would like to move up to an i7 system and would like to know if that ps/connecters will work with the Asus p6t SE mobo. If so, then all I'd need to buy is the mobo, cup and ram.

TIA.

Googling on "Antec 500 case with a power supply" leads to the Sonata III with Earth Watts 500 for the power supply and the Newegg page for that only shows a 24pin plus 4 pin 12v whereas a quick search on the motherboard comes up with the second link which shows you need 8pin 12v connector so you need new power supply as well. I have the EA650 in my spare machine which has the 8 pin connector you may want to consider this if wanting to stick to Antec it works well.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/motherboards/1887_3.html
 

MacUser2525

Suspended
Mar 17, 2007
2,097
377
Canada
OK, that's what I thought. I will get a new case and PS for the new build. Gotta get rid of my q6600 system first.

Kinda sucks but I usually go for new PS on a new build anyways especially if the old has been in use for any amount of time they do degrade over time and there is no sense in taking a chance on it failing.
 

madwolf

macrumors member
Oct 11, 2009
73
0
you don't need a psu with 8-pin cpu power connector, 4 pins will be fine. All motherboards I've seen can be powered by 4-pin connector, even when they have 8-pin connector, no problems there, it fits and works.
 
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