Suggestions for CustoMac for FCPX

Hi, my name is Livio, I am writing from Italy.
Founding detailed suggetions in this site I decided to assemble my first CustoMac.
I need this computer for video editing, with two different configurations:

1. OS X 10.6.3 and Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 (I have many project s on this version)
2. OS X last version and Final Cut X last version

I think the simple way is to change the System disk with the different installations.


About the mother board I'm in doubt between :
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H with Core i7-4790K
or
ASUS SABERTOOTH X79 with Core Xeon-E5-1620 v2 or Core Xeon-E5-1650 v2


I think is better to follow the hardware suggested here, but I have many doubts on the video card, I found two list of video cards:

V1: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202239

V2: http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-may-2015.html#Graphics_Cards

but none of the cards suggested in V1 is also present in V2, only the GTX950, but in V1 is GTX950M and in V2 in many different versions: GTX950 SC, GTX950 FTW etc.
I search in forum

P1LGRIM says: “If you want it to just work then GTX 760 is the way to go.”
but GTX 760 it is neither in V1 ot V2

Going Bald says: “For FCPX your best bet is R9 280X.”
I think is: Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X 3GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon R9 280X 3072GB, but 280X it is neither in V1 ot V2

HD 7950 is suggested in: http://www.fcp.co/forum/hardware/18250-brucex-try-this-new-final-cut-pro-x-benchmark but HD 7950 it is neither in V1 ot V2.

In conclusion in the forum there are suggestions for cards that are not recommended by tonymacx86 and apple , apple recommends boards are not recommended by tonymacx86, I don't know which one to choose.

Please help me.
Thank you.

Livio

LivioR said:

Hi, my name is Livio, I am writing from Italy.
Founding detailed suggetions in this site I decided to assemble my first CustoMac.
I need this computer for video editing, with two different configurations:

1. OS X 10.6.3 and Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 (I have many project s on this version)
2. OS X last version and Final Cut X last version

I think the simple way is to change the System disk with the different installations.


About the mother board I'm in doubt between :
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H with Core i7-4790K
or
ASUS SABERTOOTH X79 with Core Xeon-E5-1620 v2 or Core Xeon-E5-1650 v2


I think is better to follow the hardware suggested here, but I have many doubts on the video card, I found two list of video cards:

V1: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202239

V2: http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-may-2015.html#Graphics_Cards

but none of the cards suggested in V1 is also present in V2, only the GTX950, but in V1 is GTX950M and in V2 in many different versions: GTX950 SC, GTX950 FTW etc.
I search in forum

P1LGRIM says: “If you want it to just work then GTX 760 is the way to go.”
but GTX 760 it is neither in V1 ot V2

Going Bald says: “For FCPX your best bet is R9 280X.”
I think is: Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X 3GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon R9 280X 3072GB, but 280X it is neither in V1 ot V2

HD 7950 is suggested in: http://www.fcp.co/forum/hardware/18250-brucex-try-this-new-final-cut-pro-x-benchmark but HD 7950 it is neither in V1 ot V2.

In conclusion in the forum there are suggestions for cards that are not recommended by tonymacx86 and apple , apple recommends boards are not recommended by tonymacx86, I don't know which one to choose.

Please help me.
Thank you.

Livio

Click to expand...

If you are serious about FCP X and want to use your machine for video editing, then the 280X is probably the best card for you. Going Bald may well chip in here as well. The 280X works out of the box (with the EFI mod) and is significantly faster than just about any nVidia card, the Titan X is faster per card but 4x the price. My dual 280X system is still faster than a single Titan, I suspect I would lose against a pair of them

Dual 280X cards also work very well, they work out of the box like the single card. You will get significantly faster performance with the AMD cards as opposed to the nVidia cards. An interesting benchmark is the Bruce X benchmark which hammers the GPU with rendering. Google for it and for the results.

I can personally state that the Vapor-X works in both single mode and in dual mode as I have two of them and run them all the time. The fact that the 280X is not in the buyers list is not an issue for me and should not be for you. It is a tried and tested card for both the Hack community and especially the FCP X community.

It is easy to install and easy to run, no drivers are needed. I would recommend you do the Clover install over the Multibeast version as I find Clover far more stable.

The 290X is not well supported out the box, I understand the M290 and M295 are not as good as the 280X but you will need to validate that yourself.

Dual DVI monitors work on the Vapor-X out the box but I have not got triple monitors to work.

Some 280X's are more compatible than others, they also have different monitor ports, e.g. some have dual DVI or dual HDMI or dual display port. You will need to work out which ones you need. I can only attest for the Vapor-X cards and there have been reports of other frame buffer issues with other cards. I have no knowledge of these so cannot comment.

Hope that helps,

Rob

Thank you very much Rob, I will follow your suggestions and the instructions on this site and I hope to be able to build my first Hackintosh.
Thank you again.
Livio

LivioR said:

Thank you very much Rob, I will follow your suggestions and the instructions on this site and I hope to be able to build my first Hackintosh.
Thank you again.
Livio

Click to expand...

No problems.

I forgot to add a couple of points.

If you are serious about FCP X, then think about two 280X cards now. This means a slightly larger PSU, 850W is fine. Get a fully modular PSU. Don't skimp.

Think about the board you want to buy and does it have enough slots in it and are these slots wide enough for 2 x dual width graphics cards.

Think about the case you will need. Forget small, tight cases with restricted air flows, this sort of kit needs a decent case with lots of air flow. I do not have lots of fans on my case but have a high quality CPU cooler (Noctura) which is quite tall but effectively silent. The Vapor-X 280X cards are also very quiet. A decent case allows you to move air around easily and quietly. Don't skimp.

Buy lots of cable ties, you use these to tie the power cables down and keep the air flow disruption to a minimum.

Buy straight end SATA cables rather than ones at 90 degrees. The graphics cards are long and its almost impossible to get 90 degree SATA cables in if the card overhangs. Buy decent SATA cables. Label them.

Label your disks as to which is which. Its dead easy to overwrite the wrong one. I did that myself not eight weeks ago.

Check, check and check again on memory. Decent memory just works. Crap memory doesn't.

Hope that helps,

Rob

1) OS X 10.6.3 and Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 (I have many project s on this version)
2) OS X last version and Final Cut X last version

Click to expand...

1. You will have some problems trying to run OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard with the hardware you
plan on building with. It simply won't be compatible with that CPU, motherboard and gfx card.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-ad...older-versions-os-x-using-older-chipsets.html
To run your older software it would probably be best to buy a refurb 2009 or 2010 Mac Pro.
You could build an X58 Gigabyte Customac but the parts would be hard to find at a reasonable
price and most of them would have to be used.

2. Running these should be no problem with your selected hardware.

Ohh thank you trs96.

I read in the link you suggested: "Haswell support starts with 10.8.5 Mountain Lion", but Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 will run on 10.8.5 Mountain Lion? I look on forums: someone say yes, someone say no.
I have many projects on the old Final Cut.


Thank you again Rob, I choose a hardware as you to avoid problems.

My shopping list is:
Power supply: Corsair HX1200i
MB: GA-Z97X-UD5H
i7-4790K - 4x Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT2CP8G3D1608DT1TX0CEU - Noctua NH-D14
Video: 2x Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X 3GB
SSD Crucial BX100 250 GB
and 2 HD (RAID mirror is supported?)
I have a big tower in aluminium, so I think the space isn't a problem.

Thanks again to all people can help me.

Livio

LivioR said:

Ohh thank you trs96.

I read in the link you suggested: "Haswell support starts with 10.8.5 Mountain Lion", but Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 will run on 10.8.5 Mountain Lion? I look on forums: someone say yes, someone say no.
I have many projects on the old Final Cut.


Thank you again Rob, I choose a hardware as you to avoid problems.

My shopping list is:
Power supply: Corsair HX1200i
MB: GA-Z97X-UD5H
i7-4790K - 4x Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT2CP8G3D1608DT1TX0CEU - Noctua NH-D14
Video: 2x Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X 3GB
SSD Crucial BX100 250 GB
and 2 HD (RAID mirror is supported?)
I have a big tower in aluminium, so I think the space isn't a problem.

Thanks again to all people can help me.

Livio

Click to expand...

i have the 1200w psi but that's because I got it cheap. You don't actually need one that big

It might be worth thinking about a 512gb SSD rather than 256gb if you can afford it.

You can Raid the hard disks if you want but I'd treat them more as near line storage. Even as a raid 0 pair they will not be as fast as SSDs. Also how will you back up your HDD if things go wrong?

no idea about earlier versions of FCP X on ML. I have to say I'd be nervous about upgrading the projects.

So so long as your memory is listed as compatible on the Crucial site you should be fine. Check check and check again though

if if you doing dual boot then having two disks is easier. No idea about Clover on ML.

Rob

LivioR said:

Ohh thank you trs96.

I read in the link you suggested: "Haswell support starts with 10.8.5 Mountain Lion", but Final Cut Pro 7.0.2 will run on 10.8.5 Mountain Lion? I look on forums: someone say yes, someone say no.
I have many projects on the old Final Cut.


Thank you again Rob, I choose a hardware as you to avoid problems.

My shopping list is:
Power supply: Corsair HX1200i
MB: GA-Z97X-UD5H
i7-4790K - 4x Crucial Ballistix Tactical BLT2CP8G3D1608DT1TX0CEU - Noctua NH-D14
Video: 2x Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X 3GB
SSD Crucial BX100 250 GB
and 2 HD (RAID mirror is supported?)
I have a big tower in aluminium, so I think the space isn't a problem.

Thanks again to all people can help me.

Livio

Click to expand...

One option you have that hasn't been mentioned is to build a Sandy Bridge, Z68 system that
can run both FCP X and FCP 7 You would of course need to install Lion on one SSD to run FCP 7.
Then install Yosemite / FCP X on another 250GB SSD. This way you can get all the latest updates
to FCP X installed on Yosemite that aren't available when FCP X is run on Lion.

May not be the ideal setup but you could still use all your other components minus the CPU and motherboard. Finding an I7-2700K shouldn't be that difficult if you search Ebay in your country.
Here's one I found on the US site for 350 USD.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-...691?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item541ee6e2d3

Then find a Gigabyte Z68 board with UEFI to go with it. Here's a good example:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00518M74I/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tonymacx86com-20

click on graphic to enlarge

Apple.com states that both FCP X and FCP 7 will work with the Lion version of OS X.

rwillett said:

i have the 1200w psi but that's because I got it cheap. You don't actually need one that big

Click to expand...

According to specification it must work fanless untill 480W and only 12 dba untill 700W, this is the reason of this choice.

rwillett said:

It might be worth thinking about a 512gb SSD rather than 256gb if you can afford it.

Click to expand...

I will check availability and price.

rwillett said:

You can Raid the hard disks if you want but I'd treat them more as near line storage. Even as a raid 0 pair they will not be as fast as SSDs. Also how will you back up your HDD if things go wrong?

Click to expand...

My idea is to use RAID inside and also one or more drive bay, Enermax EMK5101 or similar.
Actually I have many HD with video shooting in a safe place, with the drive bay I can put online what I need.

rwillett said:

no idea about earlier versions of FCP X on ML. I have to say I'd be nervous about upgrading the projects.

Click to expand...

I think it's impossible to upgrading projects, I prefer to have two different configurations (if possible) on two different SSD, installation simpler than a dual boot, using one or the other with a drive bay (Enermax EMK3102), but it seems impossible as says trs96.

trs96 said:

1. You will have some problems trying to run OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard with the hardware you
plan on building with. It simply won't be compatible with that CPU, motherboard and gfx card.

Click to expand...

trs96 said:

One option you have that hasn't been mentioned is to build a Sandy Bridge, Z68 system that
can run both FCP X and FCP 7 You would of course need to install Lion on one SSD to run FCP 7.
Then install Yosemite / FCP X on another 250GB SSD. This way you can get all the latest updates
to FCP X installed on Yosemite that aren't available when FCP X is run on Lion.

Click to expand...

Thank you, I'll think of this possibility.


Thank you again to both.

Livio