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Overclocking's not for the faint of heart although there are some good guides out there. 3.3-3.6Ghz should be doable on the stock Intel cooler although if you want to hit 4GHz then you'll want a decent third party cooler. Megahalems are the best, in my opinion. I looked into loads but ended up settling on them and I've been running at 4GHz+ for months now on a pretty poor overclocker of a 920.

As far as the hackintosh part goes, head over to insanelymac and do a lot of reading. You'll really want to get to know the ins and outs of kexts, bootloaders and the like. While it's possible to do it as a complete novice using certain install builds, you're far more likely to end up dissatisfied if things get messed up after an OS update and you don't have a deep enough understanding to fix it yourself.
 
Anyone has a Mac Pro case? I just can't find a PC case that looks good enough...

The G5 versions are the best from what I understand for building a PC into. Not sure why maybe less modding? Anyway you can find used gutted cases on eBay all the time.
 
I have never built a computer before either and am thinking about building this exact model except getting a cheaper video card (does any one have a compatible recommendation) and maybe only getting 6gb RAM. when I clicked on the link it looked like the memory kit came with the RAM. Is that not right?

I was also looking at a different case. Does anyone have experience with this case, especially with cooling? I also need to be able to use firewire and will eventually want to upgrade to lightpeak. http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7331/cst-709/Lian_Li_PC-A17_Silver_Mid-Tower_Case_PC-A17A.html

I am planning on overclocking it to around 4ghz so is there anything else that i need?

Sorry for being new to all this, but I assume that the cooler that Gmink recommends is the replacement heatsink he is suggesting?

Finally, how would you suggest going about hackintoshing it? I have heard mixed things about Kakewalk.

I used Kakewalk CD method and it worked perfectly.

I have the Cool Master ATCS 840 Black aluminum case and it is A+ in all regards. Very large case so not going to be putting on top of your desk unless your desk is the size of a kitchen table.

I'm running a Gigabyte X58A-UD5, G.Skill 6gb kit, Sapphire HD4870 1gb, 2x 1tb WD SATA3 drives in raid 0, 2x Hitachi 7K2000 2tb drives, Intel X25-M 160gb SSD, 2x LG BD SATA drives, 2x Dell 2407 monitors, Corsair 750TX PSU, and the Megahelums HS.

I'm sitting here typing this while my computer is running Prime95 at 4.305Ghz completely stable. Yes it is very very fast! lol
 
Anyone has a Mac Pro case? I just can't find a PC case that looks good enough...

The G5's are definitely *much* easier to work with. There are also a fair number of G5 cases or (even better) faulty G5s due to leaking liquid coolant floating around on eBay etc. You miss out on the Mac Pro's great hard drive sled system but there's enough space to fit in a hard drive rack at the front of the case anyway. A lot of people basically get a PC case and take half of the guts out and put it in a G5 case.

I did mod my old Mac Pro's case for a hackintosh but it's a pain in the backside and unless you want to lose two drive sleds you're limited to mATX motherboards (although my Asus Rampage Gene II is superb).

Have a look over at Aquamac's forums or InsanelyMac's modifications sub forum for inspiration. If I were starting from scratch, I'd probably go the G5 route. Since I've had this Mac Pro case since September 2006, I and my cat have grown attached to it and I liked the idea of keeping it.
 
What CPU do you have in there?

I have an i7 920, I'm running it at 4.2ghz 24/7 but have been trying to squeeze a tad bit more out of it. Not the best OCing cpu around so my temps are getting the best of me! lol

I can't get 4.3ghz 100% stable yet. I think I've hit my ceiling with voltage/temps.
 
Sorry if this has been asked but is there any benefit of going with an EFI-X module instead of the 'softmod' discussed here? I'm guessing it is just plug and go where this takes a little downloading/manipulating etc...
 
Don't! The Efi-X doesn't support Snow Leopard and has driver issues.

Your right...after I posted my question I did a little googling and seems like there is a lot of contention about that product... using open source with no references etc... not cool. Thanks for the reply... seems there are some pretty automated ways to do this now.
 
Overclocking's not for the faint of heart although there are some good guides out there. 3.3-3.6Ghz should be doable on the stock Intel cooler although if you want to hit 4GHz then you'll want a decent third party cooler. Megahalems are the best, in my opinion. I looked into loads but ended up settling on them and I've been running at 4GHz+ for months now on a pretty poor overclocker of a 920.

As far as the hackintosh part goes, head over to insanelymac and do a lot of reading. You'll really want to get to know the ins and outs of kexts, bootloaders and the like. While it's possible to do it as a complete novice using certain install builds, you're far more likely to end up dissatisfied if things get messed up after an OS update and you don't have a deep enough understanding to fix it yourself.

For overclocking, do i need a certain wattage for power supply? Obviously I could save money if I got a 750w or a 650w.

Unfortunately, I really do have no experience with kexts or anything. I have already spent a lot of time over at http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=195248 (which I still don't really get it, but I also can't truly understand anything without actually being confronted with the problem infront of me.) If I built the computer, would it be too difficult to figure out what was wrong with it? it seems like the communities both here and on insanelymac are very responsive and helpful.

Cindori - how much experience did you have with programming, kexts, bootloaders, and the like?

I am a mac enthusiast, but mostly this is a project for me building my own computer FOLLOWED by a crazy fast processing machine. If the hackintoshing failed, would it be worth dual booting with linux? I don't have much experience with linux and dont know the limit on applications.

Assuming that it is successful, how difficult (and in terms of time) would you say it takes to update the apple software?
 
I can't do a detailed reply because I'm using my iPhone in bed and typing loads is an arse. :)

PSU wise I'd always go for the best PSU you can afford. For one thing it gives you more options in the future if you want to upgrade to a hexacore (or maybe even octocore) and next gen graphics. Personally, I went straight for a 1kw unit since that's what Mac Pros have and I knew I'd be running dual graphics cards.

You don't need to do any programming to build a hackintosh at all. If you know your way around the terminal then that'll be a massive help though.

I highly advise you have a seperate machine to hand when building a hackintosh or updating it etc to google and look up things on insanelymac.

To be honest, updating can be relatively painless. The stuff that gives you grief when originally setting up is the stuff that will usually give issues when updating. If you use a pretty common board then just wait a
week before installing a system update and check that things were ok for others with the same board.

It's not usually too hard to diagnose problems. I.e. If you LAN doesn't work them you know it's your network drivers. No sound, sound drivers, clunky window movement and iffy resolution, video driver not loaded. The most daunting and scary thing to fix are bootloader issues. You'll want to have a bootable USB to hand with bootloaders on etc and chameleon on it so that you can easily reinstall it by hand. If you install OS X first and then Windows second then you'll probably have to do this and it can be a little scary at first when you suddenly can't even boot into OSX!

If you know how to use the terminal then you're halfway there, learning the rest can be done 'on the job'. :)
 
For overclocking, do i need a certain wattage for power supply? Obviously I could save money if I got a 750w or a 650w.

Unfortunately, I really do have no experience with kexts or anything. I have already spent a lot of time over at http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=195248 (which I still don't really get it, but I also can't truly understand anything without actually being confronted with the problem infront of me.) If I built the computer, would it be too difficult to figure out what was wrong with it? it seems like the communities both here and on insanelymac are very responsive and helpful.

Cindori - how much experience did you have with programming, kexts, bootloaders, and the like?

I am a mac enthusiast, but mostly this is a project for me building my own computer FOLLOWED by a crazy fast processing machine. If the hackintoshing failed, would it be worth dual booting with linux? I don't have much experience with linux and dont know the limit on applications.

Assuming that it is successful, how difficult (and in terms of time) would you say it takes to update the apple software?

i'd say go with the Corsair 750tx seems to be a good price/performance PSU and will offer some future expandability if you want to add more drive or multiple video cards.

Use Kakewalk, build the system around one of the Gigabyte motherboards that are listed and use a video card that was offered by Apple and you will have no issues.

I have NO experience with Kexts and still don't after setting up my Hack using kakewalk.

Read, read, and then read mo
 
Thanks for your help guys.

I have done a little work with terminal (I think) but just to change some stuff on my jailbroken iphone.

Spanky D: If I use Kakewalk, do I still need to use have chameleon?

Gmink: Awesome. So you have not had any kext issues at all? If I am describing you experience correctly, you installed kakewalk, it installed correctly, and you can update with no problems?
 
Thanks for your help guys.

I have done a little work with terminal (I think) but just to change some stuff on my jailbroken iphone.

Spanky D: If I use Kakewalk, do I still need to use have chameleon?

Gmink: Awesome. So you have not had any kext issues at all? If I am describing you experience correctly, you installed kakewalk, it installed correctly, and you can update with no problems?

To be honest, I never used Kakewalk. I'd guess that it uses Chameleon itself though since most things these days do. It's just useful to be able to fix it yourself since bootloader problems are pretty much the only thing that you can't fix from within OS X and require a second bootable partition and use of single user mode etc to fix.
 
Thanks for your help guys.
Gmink: Awesome. So you have not had any kext issues at all? If I am describing you experience correctly, you installed kakewalk, it installed correctly, and you can update with no problems?

My sound quit working when I updated to 10.6.3, but all I had to do was to insert the kakewalk Cd and run the installation again from within OSX and that fixed it.
 
Could someone here who has finished their G5 build, give me a picture, or explain how i go about getting the correct pinouts for the front panel?

Maybe I'm and idiot, but it just seems really confusing on what i need to do. I have looked a many diagrams on InsanelyMac but its still confusing.
 
My sound quit working when I updated to 10.6.3, but all I had to do was to insert the kakewalk Cd and run the installation again from within OSX and that fixed it.

So when you have to redo the installation, how long does that take? I assume that you don't lose any of your data?

Also, do you have a recommended "video card that was offered by Apple and you will have no issues." I see that you are using Sapphire HD4870 1gb, but couldn't find it on newegg and didnt know if you had any cheaper compatible recommendations.
 
So when you have to redo the installation, how long does that take? I assume that you don't lose any of your data?

Also, do you have a recommended "video card that was offered by Apple and you will have no issues." I see that you are using Sapphire HD4870 1gb, but couldn't find it on newegg and didnt know if you had any cheaper compatible recommendations.

I didn't mean that I had to reinstall OSX, only the Kext from the Kakewalk CD. It takes 3 minutes.

I've owned 3 of the sapphire HD4870 1gb, got them NEW on ebay for around $150. I flashed one and used it in my Mac pro 1,1 and sold it. Built the Hack and bought 2 more to use in it.
 
I've owned 3 of the sapphire HD4870 1gb, got them NEW on ebay for around $150. I flashed one and used it in my Mac pro 1,1 and sold it. Built the Hack and bought 2 more to use in it.

How did you get two 4870s working in OSX on your hackintosh? I've been struggling with this for months. The second card isn't properly recognised and most of the time sits with it's fans spinning at full pelt. I can usually get it quieter with a reboot but it's still not idle quiet and isn't detected at all.
 
Hey guys, this is my proposed final build. Could you give it a lookover. I wrote up a previous post but it logged out on me.

My biggest issue has been finding a case that I like, but I think I have settled on the CM690II Advanced However, I hate the blue light. Is there a way to turn it off? Does anyone know if the Regular version has the blue light?

If I can't get it without the blue light, I would go with the Antec Solo, but I worry about overclocking and space issues. Does anyone know if that will be a problem.

Otherwise, here is my proposed build. Any comments on the SSD would be really helpful.

CM690II Advanced Case

Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor

GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

XFX HD-489X-ZSFC Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Corsair 750W PSU

Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV125-S2/30GB 2.5" 30GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ

SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner

Megahalems

Finally, is there anything else that I need to make airport/wireless internet work as well as have firewire compatibility?
 
How did you get two 4870s working in OSX on your hackintosh? I've been struggling with this for months. The second card isn't properly recognised and most of the time sits with it's fans spinning at full pelt. I can usually get it quieter with a reboot but it's still not idle quiet and isn't detected at all.

LOL... Same here!

I bought 2x to use but never could get both working correctly in OSX so I droped the idea. I found several blogs and posts about running 2x cards but all were with Nvidia cards and aparently they can be made to work. But I've yet to come across anything to get the two ATI cards working.

I'm waiting until the next Apple video upgrade for the Mac Pro and live with the one faster card.
 
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