Long time PC guy here that a while back was going to, but ultimately abandoned building a hackintosh. I did ultimately buy all the parts for a PC that was totally compatible but never bothered after reading the amount of effort put into ensuring compatibility and upgrades.
After purchasing a MBP(late13) Retina I've begun to appreciate the high level of support for Apple hardware (as far as software). On my laptop I run a dual boot setup where I log into Windows 7 Pro for gaming & heavy business use and OSX for general use. When in OSX I have access to and use Windows applications through Parallels as well as linux images in Parallels VM. Being able to effortlessly use OSX, Windows & Linux in one sweeping motion is somewhat of a geek fantasy I've had for a while. The trouble was always OSX compatibility for hackintoshes.
I've decided to try to convert my PC setup with a hotrodded 4.1 (w/ 5.1 FW) dual processor setup with 32gb of ram, flashed graphics cards and non-apple drives. And with that I have a pretty beastly workstation I'm "replacing." A lot of the stuff I can carry over.
Machine gets a lot of varied use, but the stuff that I'm concerned about would be compatibility with FCP, Logic, Adobe etc. When I am in OSX, I'm either tooling around with linux distros or doing creative work. The creative work requires high levels of compatibility and I really don't have time to play geek anymore. So hackintosh type setups are totally out of the running. It just has to work. My MBP "just works" with all the operating systems and software playing perfectly.
So I have to be careful to walk the line with what hardware is "sanctioned."
Right now I have
Storage concerns
4x 512gb SSD sata 6bps
2x 2tb SATA drives (raid)
The 4x SSD drives backup daily to the raid array. The two drives are mirrored for eachother. So the entire setup is triple redundant.
Graphics concerns
I have a TON of monitors that I need supported.
4x VGA connections (only 2 running at any one time)
2x dual link DVI
2x HDMI (1 1080p, 1 4K 30hz) (only 1 running at any one time)
1 thunderbolt\displayport diplay
Will possibly be adding 2 more displays (720p60, 480p60).
I have a GTX660 that I can carry over that is supported by Nvidia's mac drivers. It has
On a PC this is actually pretty easy to deal with, unfortunately I really don't know how to solve this issue with a Mac. With my PC I can effortlessly run 2 video cards and also use built in video on my motherboard. This will be far more complex I can assume here.
Questions
Thanks for the help hotrodders!
After purchasing a MBP(late13) Retina I've begun to appreciate the high level of support for Apple hardware (as far as software). On my laptop I run a dual boot setup where I log into Windows 7 Pro for gaming & heavy business use and OSX for general use. When in OSX I have access to and use Windows applications through Parallels as well as linux images in Parallels VM. Being able to effortlessly use OSX, Windows & Linux in one sweeping motion is somewhat of a geek fantasy I've had for a while. The trouble was always OSX compatibility for hackintoshes.
I've decided to try to convert my PC setup with a hotrodded 4.1 (w/ 5.1 FW) dual processor setup with 32gb of ram, flashed graphics cards and non-apple drives. And with that I have a pretty beastly workstation I'm "replacing." A lot of the stuff I can carry over.
Machine gets a lot of varied use, but the stuff that I'm concerned about would be compatibility with FCP, Logic, Adobe etc. When I am in OSX, I'm either tooling around with linux distros or doing creative work. The creative work requires high levels of compatibility and I really don't have time to play geek anymore. So hackintosh type setups are totally out of the running. It just has to work. My MBP "just works" with all the operating systems and software playing perfectly.
So I have to be careful to walk the line with what hardware is "sanctioned."
Right now I have
Storage concerns
4x 512gb SSD sata 6bps
2x 2tb SATA drives (raid)
The 4x SSD drives backup daily to the raid array. The two drives are mirrored for eachother. So the entire setup is triple redundant.
Graphics concerns
I have a TON of monitors that I need supported.
4x VGA connections (only 2 running at any one time)
2x dual link DVI
2x HDMI (1 1080p, 1 4K 30hz) (only 1 running at any one time)
1 thunderbolt\displayport diplay
Will possibly be adding 2 more displays (720p60, 480p60).
I have a GTX660 that I can carry over that is supported by Nvidia's mac drivers. It has
On a PC this is actually pretty easy to deal with, unfortunately I really don't know how to solve this issue with a Mac. With my PC I can effortlessly run 2 video cards and also use built in video on my motherboard. This will be far more complex I can assume here.
Questions
- What's the best way I can handle the raid from a hardware pespective? Since I'll be dual booting, software is a poor solution IMO. Ideally I'd like it handled by a controller. Of course the choice of drives complicates this. I'm open to other solutions with for instance external drives.
- How to handle tons of displays? None of which are apple displays.
- I heard some quiet clammering that 4.1 with a firmware upgrade might handle videocards differently than 5.1? Is that true, and why? Are they not the same mobo?
- What concerns or worries do I have running non-apple, flashed graphics cards. Are they really future proof? Ideally I want to run Nvidia graphics hardware. It appears that the 600 series has official nvidia support, so I can only assume this is really the best way to ensure "native" level performance and compatibility.
- Does OSX play nice with more than 1 video card?
- Best way to handle 6gbps SATA?
Thanks for the help hotrodders!