Hackintosh virgin - Advice on making Option 4 a bit cheaper

[CrackingTosh]

Hello great site here, I have been studying it for a while. I have come into some money and have decided to go for it. Im going to go with option 4 of the sandy bridge i7 build.

I wanted to see if anyone could advise me on reasons not to change the build, e.g. Will I be losing a big performance boast.

I could save some money on the board, I cant really work out whats the difference between these 2 boards, any good reason to go with the UD5 instead?

Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD5-B3 Intel Z68 Express Socket 1155 Motherboard
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...r3-sata-iii-6gb-s-raid-sata-pcie-20-(x16)-atx

Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 Intel Z68 Socket 1155 Motherboard
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/giga...r3-sata-iii-6gb-s-raid-sata-pcie-20-(x16)-atx


Also what i7 chip is best. unlocked retail 3.4GHz or the unlocked OEM 3.4Hz.

I was thinking of 12GB of ram instead of 16GB. What do you think? Thx!

 

[amancio87]

Hallo there,

I was busy looking around to make a good hackintosh and i was facing the same question as yours. I didn't really see a great different between the ud5 and the ud4 and thats why i choose the ud4. you can save some money there and belive me you can use the ud4 in the next 5 years without any problems.

As for 12 or 16 gb , i choose 16 since the price is not that much and because i will render video files.

Do you have any idea how you gonna install lion or leopard on your new system.

I just orderd mine and i will get my pc after 4 days..

 

[kaahl]

You can compare them exactly here: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/compari ... =3849,3848

looks like the ud5 has one extra pcie x16 slot running at 4x.

the ud4 has 2 extra sata 6gps connectors, an esata port on the back, 4 more USB slots and uses a different chipset to power those USBs.

then there are small differences with the number of fans, number of USB ports onboard (the kind that get connected to the front panel). The UD5 looks like it has some power buttons on the board (so you don't have to jump it by hand with a screwdriver when it's not hooked up to the case). UD4 has a Trusted Header Platform, which is used for hardware encryption that really doesn't seem to be supported by apple.

I would do the UD4, because it has more connectors and things like that--maybe more expandable?

As far as the chip, unless you are in to overclocking, save the money and go with the i7 2600. The only thing the K has is that it unlocked for overclocking and you can use hd3000 integrated graphics, that is supported in lion only.

Overclocking sounds good in theory, until you realize that hackintoshes are already sort of fragile and it is probably best not to introduce a new source of instability. If you want to overclock fine, but overclocking shortens the life of the processor.

If you want to make things cheaper, swap out the 6870 for a 6850--same family, but cheaper. Also, you can get away with slower RAM. I just finished a build and haven't figured out how to change the speed of my ram to 1600 mhz. Standard apple configurations only support what they have, and right now the fastest ram apple gives you is 1066 or 1333mhz, so that is what is enabled by default in your install. If you want to trim a few bucks, just buy 1066 ram. later when you have more money, upgrade to something way high like 1800 mhz, and you will feel like a boss doing a simple upgrade.

other tips--on amazon, you don't have to pay tax so you save 9% in tax (in california).

b/c ram is dual channel, i think i read that it works best if it is installed in pairs. 12GB will not be 75% as good as 16 GB, you have to adjust it down by some factor because it will be lopsided. i am pretty sure they don't sell 3 GB dimms so you can't get to 12 gb in a blanaced way.