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Cindori Custom: Building an i7 Hackintosh

Update!!

Updates!

-Finalcut Studio 3 is working perfect on my hackintosh.i tested the finalcut and motion with a 1920*1080 mov file.made many effects on motion,tried to crash the timeline on fcp but no way:) its very stable,never crashed.but i need to put more ram of course.

-Adobe photoshop cs4 dedected my gpu as GT120,i mean dedected correctly.but system profiler still dedects it as 9500gt.i still cant fix it.:(
 
Updates 2!!

Updates again:)

i replaced the GT120 with a PC Asus GTX295 and followed ANARCHINTOSH Guide for installing the driver.now i have a fully working gtx295 single pcb,both gpus are correctly dedected by system profiler and Adobe Photoshop.my card has 2 dvi ports,i plugged a 24'' Asus display.i will try to plug 30'' apple cinema display on the other port and post results soon.again thanks to everyone for super hackintosh ideas and great guides.:apple:
 
@cagatayesentur: So you're using that machine for pro work with FCS etc.? Did you ever try very big files such as r3d? The reason I'm asking is, because I am thinking about building a nice Hackintosh, but I am unsure if such a machine really is capable for pro stuff as FCS, Maya etc.. I'd love to hear about your experiences!
 
pudrums said:
@cagatayesentur: So you're using that machine for pro work with FCS etc.? Did you ever try very big files such as r3d? The reason I'm asking is, because I am thinking about building a nice Hackintosh, but I am unsure if such a machine really is capable for pro stuff as FCS, Maya etc.. I'd love to hear about your experiences!
Click to expand...

yes for pro work,we also have a 2009Macpro and i cant see any difference on software side when using fcp motion color etc.i didnt try any 3d application,we are only working with video files for a tv show.i can give an example like this;we use JVC HM700 camera with settings 1920*1080 native HD,there is no compression:),so this means 50mbits mov files.this hackintosh easily handles a 500mb of mov footage with above specifications.but i advice you to put minimum 6gb of ram if you will make pro work.
 
wow wow wow!!

there are some really amazing results of the hackintosh in last 1 hour.i plugged a 30inch cinema display and an asus 24inch display together.main display is 30inch,i put fcp main window on it,and my gallery on asus,there were more than 100 native hd(uncompressed) mov files in gallery.refresh time of the thumbnails was about 1 and half seconds!!!all audio waves were open on the timeline,imported all files,working mode was unlimited RT of course:),this baby never crashed..while this project open,i opened a new one on motion,put some really hard effects on it and the preview again perfect with no crashes..this is unbelivable guys...:apple:

PS:i added 4 gb of ram on the baby before this,so total is 6gb of ram now.
 
Nice job with your computer!

I have a pretty 'Hackintoshable' motherboard, but I'm not the person who would do that.
Anyways, it's got an

Gigabyte P55A-UD3
4GB 1600mhz G.SKILL
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
i5 (stock for now - it's plenty fast as it is)
GTX 260 core 216.
Antec 900 two case
Diablotek 650w PSU

This is my first build also (well actually second - I build one more the week before I built this with different specs)

I have a question, is the H50 heatsink good?
Is it liquid cooled, or something else?

I'm thinking of buying it but the heatsink I have right keeps my processor at 24c idle, 27c-30c with normal usage, and 50c with 100% CPU usage. (all on stock 2.66ghz)
 
Well for Pro Audio. Solid State Logic have said in past forums i've read that they've had troubles with Hackingtosh builds not recognizing their cards properly.

So I think there are problems.

Maybe it will work towards 95% of the time
 
ekwipt said:
Well for Pro Audio. Solid State Logic have said in past forums i've read that they've had troubles with Hackingtosh builds not recognizing their cards properly.

So I think there are problems.

Maybe it will work towards 95% of the time
Click to expand...

depends on the hardware

i might build a hackintosh later this year and will use parts that are guaranteed to work since they pretty much what Apple uses. Most of the hacking is required when you use AMD CPU's and other parts Apple has never used in their computers
 
obviously that's the problem with it though

It might be guaranteed to work with osx (as in boot), but other than that you might be constantly tinkering.

I was thinking of making one for a PS3 server, but than again i might as well run linux for that
 
Cindori, I hope you don't mind me resurrecting this thread for a moment and I do realise you don't have the hackintosh any more. I'm speccing a similar hack build and will try to get it as silent as possible. What makes the most noise from the Corsair H50, is it the pump mechanism or the fan assembly and did you consider using an air cooler with a large silent fan instead?

Thanks for any input you may have.
 
Anybody tried the i7 980x yet?

I am considering to either build one or wait for the upcoming Mac Pro. Do you expect that it will be as easy as just replacing the CPU and update the BIOS?
 
Rankrotten said:
Cindori, I hope you don't mind me resurrecting this thread for a moment and I do realise you don't have the hackintosh any more. I'm speccing a similar hack build and will try to get it as silent as possible. What makes the most noise from the Corsair H50, is it the pump mechanism or the fan assembly and did you consider using an air cooler with a large silent fan instead?

Thanks for any input you may have.
Click to expand...

pump mechanism was inaudible until I put my ear to the module. My reason for choosing the h50 was simply because I heard it was silent, cool and easy to install. Definately silent and easy to install, but not as cool as I wanted it to be. I think you can get better results from high end air cooler.
 
If you pick the right motherboard and gpu there is really no hacking involved anymore. Installation is a piece of piss with Kakewalk and the system you end up with is basically a vanilla Snow Leopard installation. I can't see why everything would not work exactly like a "real" Mac Pro.

So if you want to keep things easy I suggest you go with a Gigabyte x58-based motherboard and an NVidia GPU. If you stick with a 8800GT(x) or 9800GT(x) you should not need any tinkering at all. I am sure you can get pretty much any current NVidia or ATI GPU to work eventually but if you are looking for a hassle-free setup then I recommend this approach.

I just built one myself with the Gigabyte EX58-UD5 and a Gainward 8800GT I had lying around. It literally only took creating a disk image from a retail Snow Leopard cd, running it through Kakewalk, creating a bootable USB-stick and running through the vanilla Snow Leopard installation. No hacking, no mystical configurations, everything updated the standard way through system update and everything working straight out of box (lan, audio, video, sleep).

I do appreciate the level of detail of the Mac Pro hardware and will probably buy the real deal in the future. Building this machine was a fun thing to try but it's still not the same as the real thing to my reality distorted brain :) Going the hackintosh route will probably make a lot of sense for anybody looking to save a few hundred if you are not that interested in the physical hardware and design. As far as day to day operations on the software side go, there really is nothing to distinguish a hackintosh with the right parts from the real thing.
 
I have a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 which seems to have been orphaned by Apple. It is a good machine but it has not and never will have 64 bit EFI, 64 bit kernel and fast memory architecture, hence the Hackintosh route for access to modern hardware and peripherals. Apple does not even officially support the Radeon 3870 Mac version I purchased for this machine and has no interest in adding OpenCL and GCD to an old(er) card.

Inspired by Cindori I have ordered up this lot which should be here tomorrow:

Intel i7 930 2.8 stepping D0
Gigabyte GA-X58A UD5
6GB Corsair Dominator DDR3
Corsair Hydro H50
Fractal Design Define R2 Black
Noctura NF-P14 fans x4
1TB Samsung F3
Corsair 850W modular PSU
16GB USB Stick


I was planning on using the Radeon 3870 from my Mac Pro but as I'm selling it as soon as the Hack is running thats perhaps not a good idea. I have a PC 3870x2 on my desk which was used as a crossfire card in the Mac's bootcamp for gaming. Would this card on its own work in the hack?

Just had a thought... Apple may announce a 5870 solution for their new machines tomorrow. Hmmmm....
 
Tired to waiting a new Mac Pro and thinking to save some money, so I ordered my own Hackintosh:

  • Intel QuadCore Xeon W3565 3.20GHz
  • Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
  • 2 x 6GB 1066MHz DDR3 ECC CL7 DIMM (Kit of 3) with Thermal Sensor (Kingston KVR1066D3E7SK3/6G)
  • SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 (11133-19-20R)
  • Sunix Firewire 400/800 PCIe
  • Noctua NH-U12P SE2
  • 4 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATAII
  • Fractal Design Define R2 Black Pearl
  • Corsair HX850W 850w ATX
  • Intel X25-M G2 80GB SATA SSD 2.5" (34nm)

I had to chose Xeon W3565 over Core i7 960, because Xeon supports ECC memory, which I prefer. d00d dude in InsanelyMac said that it will work.

The system disk will be those two X25-M's configured in RAID 0.

Hope that this configuration will work flawlessly. Please, let me know if there's something wrong..

Now I'm waiting the shipping...
 
DiZeX said:
Tired to waiting a new Mac Pro and thinking to save some money, so I ordered my own Hackintosh:

  • Intel QuadCore Xeon W3565 3.20GHz
  • Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5
  • 2 x 6GB 1066MHz DDR3 ECC CL7 DIMM (Kit of 3) with Thermal Sensor (Kingston KVR1066D3E7SK3/6G)
  • SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 (11133-19-20R)
  • Sunix Firewire 400/800 PCIe
  • Noctua NH-U12P SE2
  • 4 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATAII
  • Fractal Design Define R2 Black Pearl
  • Corsair HX850W 850w ATX
  • Intel X25-M G2 80GB SATA SSD 2.5" (34nm)

I had to chose Xeon W3565 over Core i7 960, because Xeon supports ECC memory, which I prefer. d00d dude in InsanelyMac said that it will work.

The system disk will be those two X25-M's configured in RAID 0.

Hope that this configuration will work flawlessly. Please, let me know if there's something wrong..

Now I'm waiting the shipping...
Click to expand...

Beautiful choice of parts, very very similar to what i'd pick
 
Hey guys, I too just took the plunge and orderd a nice fast pc system to replace my 2006 mac pro ver 1.1 dual 2.66. It was time.

Has anyone fiddled around with the kakewalk install and having a dual boot system with mac os/x on one drive or partition and windows 7 on the other drive or partition?

I know the chameleon boot loader can do all this magic but most of the posts I see either someone has made their pc and full time mac system.

So how hard is it to dual boot a pc with os/x and windows.

Thanks for any info.

Oh and has anyone even tried out using vmware's workstation product to run mac os/x in a vmware virtual machine? I plan on trying this once I get my new pc setup. Im a big vmware esx guy at my day job and I can help but want to try this.

Thanks. Doug
 
ddorbuck said:
Hey guys, I too just took the plunge and orderd a nice fast pc system to replace my 2006 mac pro ver 1.1 dual 2.66. It was time.

Has anyone fiddled around with the kakewalk install and having a dual boot system with mac os/x on one drive or partition and windows 7 on the other drive or partition?

I know the chameleon boot loader can do all this magic but most of the posts I see either someone has made their pc and full time mac system.

So how hard is it to dual boot a pc with os/x and windows.

Thanks for any info.

Oh and has anyone even tried out using vmware's workstation product to run mac os/x in a vmware virtual machine? I plan on trying this once I get my new pc setup. Im a big vmware esx guy at my day job and I can help but want to try this.

Thanks. Doug
Click to expand...

Dual booting's easy. When you install your first OS just be sure to leave enough free space or a dumby partition ready to format for your second OS. Installing Windows first may well be easier but I did it the other way around, OS X then Windows. After Windows installed I had to use my OSX Install drive to manually install Chameleon again and make the OSX partition the primary drive.

I haven't tried OS X in VMWare VM since the development transition kit but there's no reason why it shouldn't work.
 
Thanks Spanky. I plan on doing windows 7 first then os/x after but being a hacker at heart I may do it the other way around just for fun !

This weekend will be fun once all the parts arrive.

Thanks again. Doug
 
ddorbuck said:
Thanks Spanky. I plan on doing windows 7 first then os/x after but being a hacker at heart I may do it the other way around just for fun !

This weekend will be fun once all the parts arrive.

Thanks again. Doug
Click to expand...

Cool, good luck! I couldn't bring myself to install Windows 7 first and besides which, learning how to recover from active partition issues by reinstalling Chameleon manually can be useful. Good luck with your build! It'll likely take a while with a lot of head scratching etc but it's worth it. Of course, it should be much easier for you since you'll probably be using a standard PC case rather than try to fit it into a Mac one!
 
Struggling a bit now..

Tried a Kakewalk install but it sat with a grey apple and spinner for ages, perhaps a combination of a 1TB boot drive and the newer GA-X58A UD5 board (tried the installer for X58A UD7 version).

Next up Cindori's method with the script and PC EFI 10.5. All goes well until the buildcache command but I can't register a keyboard press to drop into single user mode.

Much head scratching and cursing...
 
u need usb keyboard m8.


also spinning wheel, did you set Hard Disk Mode to AHCI in BIOS?


read my hackthread @ insanelymac, link in a post at page1 of thread. it covers some problems ppl had.
 
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