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Venturing into Hackintosh as a frustrated video editor.

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Nov 22, 2012
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Motherboard
OSX
CPU
2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
Graphics
AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
Classic Mac
  1. 0
Mobile Phone
  1. Android
I have been working off my Macbook Pro 2011 15" system for nearly a year now. It is the most practical machine for me due to the traveling I do with my editing work. However, I am working more and more out of my office and I believe it is time to get a heavy duty machine on the go. I was aiming for the new iMac, but now I have ventured into the idea of finally building a Hackintosh, for the added benefit of a much faster superior machine at the same price as the new iMac.

As I said most of my work is in Video Editing, Animation, Graphics (mostly after effects). I have read other posts around building for video editing, which helped a lot, but a lot of things went over my head. I was just looking for any advice or tips that anyone may have. I have $3187 (£2000) to spend on the whole build, that includes everything!

I am going to start assembling my list of components, so any suggestions tips or advice on the kind of build I may want to go for considering the job I want it to do would be fantastic.
 
Hi Steve,

I cant offer much help but am in the exact same position and just wanted to chime in, perhaps we can share any info we find here?

I suppose you ve seen the Video editing hackintosh guide on NoFilmSchool? http://nofilmschool.com/build-a-hackintosh/

Are you from the UK? Have you tried finding all of the parts on Amazon UK? As it seems we are unable to get many of the parts shipped from Amazon.com in the US to the UK.

Im basically looking for the same build as the one on that NoFilmSchool Hac Pro list. Although am not sure what screen I need.

Cheers
 
i7-3770K CPU
16GB 1600Mhz DDR3
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Small Case: BitFenix Prodigy
ITX Mobo: Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI

or

Large Case: Fractal Design Define R4 Tower
ATX Mobo: GA-Z77X-UP5-TH

OSX - 180 Intel SSD
http://www.dabs.com/products/intel-...a-6gb-s-9-5mm-ssd-80SJ.html?catid=15004&src=2

Scratch Disks
Seagate 2TB Barracuda Internal
http://www.ebuyer.com/319641-seagate-2tb-barracuda-internal-hard-drive-st2000dm001

Corsair 650TX Modular PSU

Corsair H60 Hydro Series Liquid Cooler or Noctua NH-D14

TP-Link PCI Express Wifi Adapter (TL-WDN4800)

This setup works out of the box with minimal chances of it going wrong.

Have your operating system and apps on the SSD and link your Adobe output files to the scratch disks so work is saved on one, cache files on another and archive on another. This should keep your system very nippy whilst you work.

You didn't specify if you wanted a small quiet system or a huge beast?

The GFX card mentioned will work fine with CUDA acceleration for your adobe apps.

Do you need a monitor? If so get this Dell UltraSharp U2412M which is on offer http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...itor+-+Black+?productId=45875&source=googleps

You should be able to build a system for a lot less than £2k!

Look at Amazon, Dabs, Scan, eBuyer, Aria :)
 
If you are into video editing, I would propose a GeForce GTX 570 or 580 rather than a GTX 6XX series GPU, as the older generation is MUCH faster at GPU computing tasks.
For 2000 pounds i guess you can already get a i7-3930K 6 core CPU which will drastically improve performance over a 4 core CPU. 16 GB of ram and a 256 GB SSD should also be taken into account for a snappy performance under any given load condition.
 
TP-Link PCI Express Wifi Adapter (TL-WDN4800)
If you're going with the Z77N you will need to find another WiFi card, you only have one PCIe slot. I suggest the Dell DW1515 mini-PCIe card, or any other Atheros 9280 based half-length mini-PCIe card (replaces the Intel Centrino one already on the board).
 
Thanks for this info.
I am looking for something that doesn't slow down my work flow. I need to be able to be exporting in After Effects whilst doing a full render in Premier and also have plenty of freedom to keep on editing in FCP. So big beast is my goal here. Time is what I want to get back with this machine.

Is it ok to mix and match different parts of the computer, as long as they are parts recommended here? Say if I wanted to take the specs from a pre built machine, but up the graphics card?
 
I would suggest not the [HZ]77N board for this application. Not only does it only have a single PCIe slot, but for a workhorse like this it would be silly to limit yourself to 16 GB RAM. Even if you don't install 32 GB straight away, you will be frustrated a year or two down the track when you can't put more in. With a reasonable CPU (be it an i7-3770K or a hexacore chip) the areas you'll want to be able to expand the machine in will be RAM and fast storage.

You didn't mention your storage requirements. Do you have sizeable external (Firewire?) disk storage already? To use that you'd want either a Thunderbolt-equipped machine (so you can use Apple's Thunderbolt->FW800 adapter) or enough PCIe slots that you can put a FW800 card in. I'm in this position and am considering the Thunderbolt solution for this.

It's bigger and uglier, but I would also suggest a case with enough room for more SATA drives (and a system with more than the 4x SATA ports of the H77N). If you need to add more storage this is a great way to go (unless you add something like a Promise R6 Thunderbolt array). The system I'm planning will have Thunderbolt (initially used for FW800, and giving me a growth path) but also hot-swap SATA bays (connected to Marvell and ASM1061 controllers to get hot-swap, not the motherboard Intel SATA ports).

For your video software you'll probably benefit from a GPU, so there goes another PCIe slot.
I'm building mine mainly for Photoshop + Lightroom, so my graphics requirements are simpler.
 
That is a good point about Ram. I will certainly go beyond 16gb at some point.

In terms of storage I dont see myself needing more than 2tb at any one time, I archive as soon as a project is complete, although it would be good to archive internally just to save on buying an external harddrive. All externals are FW800, Thunderbolt seems like a good way to go.

DPB, what do you use for a monitor?
 
DPB, what do you use for a monitor?
Currently I'm using a Dell U2410 (calibrated and profiled with an i1Display Pro). It's definitely not as good as an Eizo but it's definitely better than many cheaper devices.
This has been running on my 2010 15" MacBook Pro (with 1680x1050 screen) which acts as a second monitor. Am considering a 2nd 24" IPS panel for the new desktop build. More cost-effective (and more total real-estate) than a 27" monitor.
 
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