First time hackintosh for After Effects + PS

[kimoni]

Hi all,
I'm a newbie to the world of hackintosh, and I could do with a little encouragement that I'm doing the right thing.

I'm a graphic designer and motion graphics guy. My work involves heavy use of Photoshop, After Effects and Cinema 4D. I hate PCs, but don't want to spend £5K+ on a 12-core mac pro with outdated architecture. So I've reluctantly ordered a PC!

But then I heard about hackintosh… aha!

This is the system I ordered. How does this stack up? (linked to actual products)

Intel Core i7 3930K, 3.2GHz, Hex Core + Hyperthreading (OC'd to 4.2GHz)
Asus P9X79 Motherboard
32GB (8x4GB) Corsair Vengeance LP, DDR3, 1600MHz
256GB Samsung 830 Series, SSD
3TB Seagate Barracuda, SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm
1GB EVGA GTX 550 Ti, 981MHz GPU

The system is coming pre-built from scan.co.uk. I've seen some similar specced machines on this site, but being a newbie to this I've got a few questions:

1. The system is coming Overclocked to 4.2GHz. Is there any risk to the processor by running a hackintosh? The guys there know their stuff about over clocking so I've got no worries about Windows, but would it still be as stable on a hackintosh?
2. Performance wise how does a hackintosh benchmark compared to the same system running the default windows 7 OS?
3. What's the worst that could go wrong running a hackintosh? I need a system that's stable enough for professional animation work and so it needs to be stable. (on a separate note Windows 7 costs over £100 so if I don't have to buy it then I won't!)
4. Browsing the threads here… What's the fuss about compatible graphics cards? Is it a component that is temperamental with hackintoshes?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
K

 

[alans17]

If you intend to use Mountain Lion, avoid the 550 Ti. At least for now, it has major issues.

 

[kimoni]

Ah, OK.

From what I can see the GTX 560Ti is supported for hackintosh. However for this price I can afford to buy a GTX 570, which is more powerful.

However I have not seen anything on this site to suggest the 570 is supported, is it incompatible?

I need to select one from this website, so from either of these links (560Ti and 570) Can you advise?

http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/gpu-nvidia/nvidia-geforce-gtx570-pci-e-(480-cores)
http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/gpu-nvidia/geforce-gtx-560s-pci-e

Is the rest of my setup compatible then?

 

[kimoni]

I've just changed my order to include the EVGA 560Ti card recommended in the Customac recommendations page

Can anyone tell me how compatible the rest of my setup is?

With the exception of the 550, replaced as I mentioned this is the entire list of parts:

 

[Going Bald]

I've just changed my order to include the EVGA 560Ti card recommended in the Customac recommendations page

Can anyone tell me how compatible the rest of my setup is?

With the exception of the 550, replaced as I mentioned this is the entire list of parts:

The socket 2011 CPUs/boards are not supported by any Apple OS release, so you might have a bit of trouble there. Then again, you might not, as others have gotten the X79 boards to work.

That said, ASUS BIOS has locked MSR and you will need either a modded BIOS or run NullAICPUPM kext or a speed stepper kext. You might get sleep to work with a DSDT edit and/or a kext.

 

[kimoni]

The socket 2011 CPUs/boards are not supported by any Apple OS release, so you might have a bit of trouble there. Then again, you might not, as others have gotten the X79 boards to work.

The customac 2012 buyer's guide has a section on socket 2011, I thought that I might be able to get it work but not use sleep? Or is it only for the Gigabyte motherboard featured there?

That said, ASUS BIOS has locked MSR and you will need either a modded BIOS or run NullAICPUPM kext or a speed stepper kext. You might get sleep to work with a DSDT edit and/or a kext.

I'm a newbie to all this, is there a thread or resource that has some kind of instructions for doing what you said?

Thanks for the advice

 

[Going Bald]

There are several builds in User Builds using the X79 boards, also there is a whole thread on modded BIOSes.
Use the forum search engine - the links I have are all outdated.