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waloshin

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 9, 2008
3,556
384
With an

Intel i7 7700 with HAD 630
16 Gigabytes of ram
Asus R9 280X 4 GBs of ram video card
250 GB Samsung 850 Evo as boot drive.

I am assuming this would compare to a 27" iMac?
 
Depends what monitor you use. The 27" iMac uses a high quality monitor. If you are trying to compare costs, then you need to include the cost of the monitor. The monitor the 27" iMac uses is pretty expensive. And if I recall correctly the 850Evo drive is a SATA interface SSD. That would be quite a bit slower than the SSD in an iMac. The 7700 CPU is probably faster than what's in any Mac at the current time.
 
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Well you only have 3 desktop selections from apple to choose from.
Mac Pro - uses a xenon processor, but it hasn't been updated in 3+ years so I'd say that's not a good match
Mac Mini - uses a dual core processor that hasn't been updated in 2+ years so I'd say that's not a good match
iMac - 27" uses Skylake processors, so I'd say that is closes fit to the i7 7700

Aside from the comparison, what are you looking to do?
 
I am trying to build the best Hackintosh for my money and trying to figure out how it will compare.
 
Hmm judging from the hardware you're considering, you're not aware of the compatibility issues when building a hackintosh. I suggest you take a look at the recommended hardware list on tonymac. For example, they don't recommend AMD video cards *at all* in spite of all apple hardware coming with them. Pain to set up the ports and sleep/wake not working. Also, you should be very careful with the motherboard, there are some that work out of the box and some that will need tinkering with for ages.

Personally I've been using a hackintosh as my desktop for years - built from the hassle free tonymac list. Apple has no desktops for the enthusiast market right now.
 
You are closest in Specs to the 27" iMac Retina 5k in terms of performance.

I would also recommend taking a look a tonymac's current build guide for guidance, but happy to share a few notes:

7700 (Kabylake) vs. 6700 (Skylake) : No production Mac is yet using Kabylake. Your best bet is to use a Skylake cpu and motherboard. The good news is that the performance between the current and last generation CPUs is very small and you will likely be able to save some money if you have not purchased yet.

The R9 280X you have is significantly more powerful than the M390/395 in the iMac primarily because it is a desktop chip and the iMac uses discrete gfx made for laptops. As nottorp mentioned, generally nVidia is a better choice for building a Hackintosh, but, if you're trying to get the best performance from Open CL capable apps like Final Cut Pro X or other Apple pro apps, an AMD card will give you an edge. More good news for you, the R9 270X and 280X generally work out of the box. My Hackintosh runs a 270X and works flawlessly with Sierra, in El Cap and Yosemite there were some tweaks i had to do to get dual displays working on boot. If you do some searching you should find a lot of information about these cards too. A lot of people building hacks for Final Cut Pro X like these cards because they perform well and are relatively cheap. You can get a pair of 280Xs dirt cheap and out perform a 2013 MacPro in OpenCL and Final Cut.

That said, if you are Adobe focused and don't use Apple's Apps, get a compatible nVidia card and don't look back.
 
Hmm judging from the hardware you're considering, you're not aware of the compatibility issues when building a hackintosh. I suggest you take a look at the recommended hardware list on tonymac. For example, they don't recommend AMD video cards *at all* in spite of all apple hardware coming with them. Pain to set up the ports and sleep/wake not working. Also, you should be very careful with the motherboard, there are some that work out of the box and some that will need tinkering with for ages.

Personally I've been using a hackintosh as my desktop for years - built from the hassle free tonymac list. Apple has no desktops for the enthusiast market right now.

No problem with a H270, I7 7700 Kaby Lake, and Asus R9 280X.

Screen Shot 2017-04-15 at 8.59.51 PM.png
 
I am trying to build the best Hackintosh for my money and trying to figure out how it will compare.
I can give you a little information on a fairly current hackintosh build if you'd want.
Mine is a :
7700K running at 5.0GHz
Asus Maximus IX Apex board
GSkill TridentZ DDR4 16GB 3600MHz RAM
nVidia (not 3rd party) 1080 Ti Founders Edition
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 nVME 500GB Drive
All EKWB Watercooled
LG 34UC98 34" 21:9 3440X1440 Monitor
Logitech 930e Webcam

Geekbench 6695 Single 23466 Multi
2889250
Cinebench 1100

everything works. iMessage, FaceTime, Handoff, Continuity, NightShift

for comparison:
at least in Geekbench scores

I have the newest iMac 5K 6700K, 512GB, 32GB 2133Hz RAM, M395X and it scored 5237 single and 16309 multi
 
I can give you a little information on a fairly current hackintosh build if you'd want.
Mine is a :
7700K running at 5.0GHz
Asus Maximus IX Apex board
GSkill TridentZ DDR4 16GB 3600MHz RAM
nVidia (not 3rd party) 1080 Ti Founders Edition
Samsung 960 EVO M.2 nVME 500GB Drive
All EKWB Watercooled
LG 34UC98 34" 21:9 3440X1440 Monitor
Logitech 930e Webcam

Geekbench 6695 Single 23466 Multi
2889250
Cinebench 1100

everything works. iMessage, FaceTime, Handoff, Continuity, NightShift

for comparison:
at least in Geekbench scores

I have the newest iMac 5K 6700K, 512GB, 32GB 2133Hz RAM, M395X and it scored 5237 single and 16309 multi

I didn't think Kaby Lake was a viable hackintosh option yet.
 
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