Video Card Recommendations

Hey Tony and all members of the forum!

I was contemplating building a hybrid Hackintosh/Win7 machine for weeks last month. During my search, I found this website and it solidified my decision to move forward with it. I mean, what could be better than having a reliable source to help your through all of Apple's attempts at breaking a Hackintosh build? This was always what kept me from doing it before. I'm a 4-year Mac convert and I'll never go completely back - obviously we need to keep Windows for SOME things (like a "bag of hurt" for example) but I'll be a Mac-head for life. I have 2 Mac Minis, a first-gen MacBook Pro and a Dell Mini 9 all running Snow Leopard. All of these are great computers, but simply don't pack enough punch for some of the things I want to do. And we all know that a MacPro is too expensive for the average wallet.

So with all that being said, I've decided to mostly mirror Tony's build to help ensure future compatibility with his updates. But I can't decide on a video card. I really don't want to spend more than $100 on a video card, in fact I'd like to keep it closer to $75. Here's what the rest of my build will consist of:

. 1 Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80605I7860 - Retail

. 2 Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

. 1 GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 LGA 1156 Intel P55 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

. 1 COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS-500-PCAR-A3 500W ATX12V V2.3 Power Supply

. G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL8D-4GBHK - Retail

. SUPER TALENT INTAIN1MCR All-in-one Card Reader - Retail

. LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner - Retail

. ASUS USB-BT21 USB 2.0 Mini Bluetooth Dongle - Retail

The video card I was considering:

EVGA 01G-P3-N959-TR GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 128-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - Retail

I'm going to use this mostly as a generic desktop computer - web browsing, e-mail, iTunes and iPhoto - but I also do a lot of video encoding. I have an HD camcorder that I occasionally like to edit movies from in iMovie, and my poor MBP barely gets along doing that now. I also encode a lot of DVDs and HD streams with Handbrake. I rarely play games, so tons of graphics power isn't a concern - I don't think. However, I am going to do a dual-monitor setup - they gave me two at work and now I'm hooked on having all that extra "space." haha.

So basically, if you guys could recommend a video card, that'd be great. I read in another post that I should be concerned about DDR2 vs. DDR3 memory on the video card, but I'm wondering if my lack of gameplay will make this a real issue. Also, if you see any other components that should be changed, please feel free! I have purchased some of this hardware already (mobo, CPU, hard drives, PSU) because there was special pricing on them, and I'm going to buy the rest in my next order.

Looking forward to hearing back from you experts!! Thanks in advance.

What resolution are the 2 monitors? 1GB of DDR2 should be fine for video editing, but for 2 monitors I'm not sure if it'll be the best solution. Depending on this, you might want a card with 896-1GB of DDR3.

I haven't purchased them yet, but it's either gonna be two 20" at 1600 x 900 or two 21.5" at 1920 x 1080. Depends how much funds are leftover!

You can wait for some more opinions, but with those resolutions I'd go for a card (even a 9500 gt or 9600 GSO) with 512MB DDR3. The card you suggested might be fine, but for a few more dollars you could get DDR3.

Thanks for the advice, Jocelyn. I've looked into some other options too, namely:

EVGA 512-P3-N973-TR GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130435

Anybody else care to chime in as well??

Actually if you're familiar with Bing cashback, you can get 15% off @ Tiger direct by searching for Motherboard on Bing (2nd link). If you have questions about Bing feel free to ask, but the same card could be had from Tiger Direct for $101.99 after Bing CB + FS.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=3670

Or there's a GTS 250 for $110.59 after Bing CB and rebate + FS

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=3670

Just have a look after going through Bing and you should see how much you'll save via Bing under the price.

Scratch the above post as I've found the same card cheaper over @ Ewiz.com. This deal's only better if you don't live in Cali (tax).
$114.99 - $15 coupon (Cupid14) = $99.99 +FS
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=EV- ... Video-Card

or even better there's the superclocked version for the same price 512-P3-N977-TR
$114.99 - $15 coupon (Cupid14) = $99.99 +FS
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=EV- ... Video-Card

They're a good vendor, I've used them before and you can actually get 3-5% Bing cashback on these as well making either $94.24 after coupon (Cupid14) after Bing cb + FS

The $94.24 is assuming you get 5% and not 3% but in order to get this 3-5% you need to first add the card and apply the coupon on Ewiz's site. Next open another tab and go to http://www.bing.com/shopping/pages/stor ... FORM=R5FD1 after signing into your bing/hotmail account. Click S stores, look for Superbiiz and click the link, go to your cart and checkout. I realize the 3-5% isn't much in savings, but you do get the % off the $114.99 price.

Feel free to ask any other questions you might have.

Hey patchrick,

The system I built last month is pretty similar to the one you are thinking about building, the only difference being:

Corsair XMS3 4 GB DDR3-1600 (PC-12800) CL9 Memory Kit $79.99 after rebate
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LE ... ss_product

OCZ 600MXSP 600 Watts ModXStream Pro Power Supply $54.99 after rebate
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001EY ... ss_product

Samsung DVD-W SH-S223L/BEBS (already owned this)

As for the video card, I went with:

PNY XLR8 9800 GT EE 1024 MB PCI-Express 2.0 $99.74 after rebate and tax (CA)
http://www.frys.com/product/6112639?sit ... IN_RSLT_PG

I bought these components just before Christmas, so the rebate offers may have changed/expired, but hopefully this info will be helpful.

As for the performance of the card itself, I have had no problems with it all. I upgraded from Intel Mac Mini early 2009 and this machine is considerably faster. I followed tonymacx86's directions here:

http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2009/12/ ... -from.html

and everything worked flawlessly. Good luck!

Bruno

Okay. I am currently using an ASUS GTS 25O.
This card revs like it's going to take off prior to reaching either desktop.

After a bit of searching I've come to the conclusion that some cards can be tweaked to not to do this during boot. This card is not one of them.

Researched RivaTuner and GPU-z to extract and edit BIOS of card while in Win7 x64 and to be honest I don't trust myself. Would probably fry the card.

So. My question is this.

Does anyone know of or is using a OSX Compatible NVIDIA card that doesn't sound like it's going to take off into the upper atmosphere during boot?

Once I'm inside an OS it revs down and idles normally. So it's become quite annoying that it spins up so much during boot.

My XFX 9500GT and all of my eVGA cards (Two GTX 260's a GTX 285) do not do that.