DAW Audio Hackintosh (First time build). Will it work?

[Audiogeek92]

First time build. Currently shortlisting my choices for my new Music production Hackintosh. I'm going to be running my audio interface which is a Universal Audio Apollo 8p and my Satellite OCTO DSP via the Gigabyte thunderbolt card. I'm planning to overclock the CPU from 3.7GHz to 5.0GHz also. Running High Sierra, using primarily Logic X.

Please could someone give me some advice on whether all of this will work. Do I need to revise some of my choices?

Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor
NZXT Kraken X62 Rev 2 98.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste

Asus ROG MAXIMUS X HERO (WI-FI AC) ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
G.Skill TridentZ RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory
Crucial MX300 1.1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB G1 Gaming Video Card

NZXT S340 Elite (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case
EVGA B3 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
IOGEAR GBU521 Bluetooth 4.0 USB Micro Adapter

AzureWave Broadcom BCM94352HMB/BCM94352 802.11/ac/867Mbps WLAN + BT4.0 Half Mini PCI-E Card

Gigabyte (Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Card) Components Other GC-ALPINE RIDGE


Any advice is much appreciated.

 

[trs96]

Here's all you need to know about a Maximus X Hero build.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...ximus-z370-hero-x-i7-8700k-amd-rx-580.245074/

 

[c0c0p0ps]

There is no thunderbolt header on the Hero X motherboard so as far as I understand it the PCI card won't work. I have read reports of some thunderbolt cards actually working without being connected to a header (only when the computer is booted with devices ready attached though) but when you definitely need it to work for your audio interface using the Hero X might be a bit of a gamble that fails.

Otherwise I am using the Hero X, i7 8700k for a Pro Tools DAW build and I have not managed to crash it yet! The stability has been pretty phenomenal and as for plugin count compared to my old i7 860 which was also overclocked, mix sessions that were hitting 90% CPU usage now load at about 20%!

One thing you may want to research a bit and consider for your build is how loud all the parts are under load that you have selected. Everything I chose for my system was chosen for being the quietest available at the time so I actually went for a Noctua nh-d15 CPU air cooler so I have no pumps running, a BeQuiet Dark Power Pro power supply, a windforce GPU which never switches its fans on unless there is a serious load for graphics rendering all in a Fractal Define R5 sound insulated case. I have 3 fractal intake fans (2 front and 1 base) and 1 PWM exhaust on the rear, and this rig runs so quiet even with 4 high speed hard drives inside for audio / sample libraries / time machine / backup system (I boot off an SSD for main system) and I can hardly hear any noise with the tower right next to me in my studio. In fact my MacBook Air is way louder when running Pro Tools!

 

[Audiogeek92]

There is no thunderbolt header on the Hero X motherboard so as far as I understand it the PCI card won't work. I have read reports of some thunderbolt cards actually working without being connected to a header (only when the computer is booted with devices ready attached though) but when you definitely need it to work for your audio interface using the Hero X might be a bit of a gamble that fails.

Otherwise I am using the Hero X, i7 8700k for a Pro Tools DAW build and I have not managed to crash it yet! The stability has been pretty phenomenal and as for plugin count compared to my old i7 860 which was also overclocked, mix sessions that were hitting 90% CPU usage now load at about 20%!

One thing you may want to research a bit and consider for your build is how loud all the parts are under load that you have selected. Everything I chose for my system was chosen for being the quietest available at the time so I actually went for a Noctua nh-d15 CPU air cooler so I have no pumps running, a BeQuiet Dark Power Pro power supply, a windforce GPU which never switches its fans on unless there is a serious load for graphics rendering all in a Fractal Define R5 sound insulated case. I have 3 fractal intake fans (2 front and 1 base) and 1 PWM exhaust on the rear, and this rig runs so quiet even with 4 high speed hard drives inside for audio / sample libraries / time machine / backup system (I boot off an SSD for main system) and I can hardly hear any noise with the tower right next to me in my studio. In fact my MacBook Air is way louder when running Pro Tools!

Thanks for the information. I'm excited to see what happens with this build. The stats sound ridiculous. Could you lead me to some successful examples of integrated Thunderbolt 2 into a hackintosh build. Also are there any motherboards that come with it supported already onboard if the PCI option can't be done.