Getting Started on a Hackintosh Setup

• Intel 3770K i7 Processor
• 16GB of RAM (?)
• 1 TB Caviar Black HDD
• 128GB SSD

miramar said:

If you like something power and small, you can go for a mini-ITX build like the one in my sig.

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tardypooper said:

I apologize if do use any wrong terminologies in the course of this post because I'm genuinely a newbie .

I am a Photographer and do use quite a bit of power "hungry" apps on my computer to process photos, normally with apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, Nik Software and my Web Browser opened all at once.

I am looking for a good setup that can manage this and also do a fair bit of gaming, I'm a casual gamer, not hard-core so running on ultra graphics really does not mater to me, Medium to High will be good enough for games like BF3. I do have some requirements I wish to have on the components I'm familiar with though (but I'm not sure what brand to choose for some ):

• Intel 3770K i7 Processor
• 16GB of RAM (?)
• 1 TB Caviar Black HDD
• 128GB SSD

I was hoping I could get some advice on here and if any fellow Photographers can chip in some on personal experiences too. I really am looking forward to building this Tower to serve this need so if anyone can give me any tips on Motherboards, Power Supply, Fan and a generally good case.

Thanks in advance!

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Going Bald said:

For entry level build with your stated specs, the Ivy Bridge Customac Pro build list without the graphics cards will do just fine. See http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/search/label/CustoMac

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tardypooper said:

wow sure, thanks I'd take a look

I think I kind of have gone down to the local stores and asked around and came up with this setup, is there anything missing or can be corrected over here? Are all of these components compatible?

RAM: RIP-JAWS-X 1600MHz 8x2GB CL9

SSD: OCZ Vertex 4 256GB

MoBo: Gigabyte Z77X - UD3H

It'll be nice if I could get some suggestions on the brand of RAM, I'm contemplating between RIP-JAWS and Corsair, but I chose the RIP-JAWS first because it is cheaper.

Also for HDD, will the Seagate Barracuda be better in terms of reliability? Heard Western Digital has been failing for it's quality for HDDs nowadays. What kind of difference will I observe between them? (32MB Cache vs 64MB Cache)

And a quick question about Graphics Card is that I have realize that there are many manufacturers producing this NVidia GeForce 660TI. Which would you recommend? ASUS? MSI?

Thanks for all the help so far!

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Going Bald said:

The compatible items I removed from your list above. For the remaining:

I hope the 8x2Gb of ram is an error. You only have 4 ram slots on the board you picked out.

Which brings me to the board - the audio is not supported.

The SSD is OK, but I would prefer the Crucial M4 or the Samsung 830 or 840 - I don't like the Sandforce controller in the OCZ drives.

For the gfx card - the EVGA brand I know works - I just hackintoshed a friends ASUS Sabertoth/3770K/EVGA 660TI with a bluray build.

For the HDD, Seagate has failed just as often ad the WD. That said, I have never had a problem with a WD Velociraptor. A little on the expensive side, but well worth it IMHO. Especially if you use it as a boot drive.

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Going Bald said:

Caviar black will be fine. If you are wanting to dual boot with Win7, see http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leop...multibooting-novice-updated-3-12-see-log.html and scroll down to the Lion + Win7 - ML works same as Lion.

Don't forget you need to flash the BIOS with one patched to unlock the MSR on the Sabertooth or use NullCPU

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