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12core Mac Pro 5.1 vs i7-6700k Hackintosh

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May 8, 2017
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Motherboard
GA-Z170X-ULTRA GAMING
CPU
i7-6700K
Graphics
MSI GTX 980 ti 6GB
Mac
  1. iMac
  2. MacBook Pro
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
So, to make a very long story medium long.

I have been using my 2013 15" rMBP and a 2012 27" iMac for a long time, and they have started to feel slow, especially since I upped my game from FullHD-editing, for 4K editing last year.
But I couldn't really finance a new mac for 4000$. Considered Windows for a while, but that made me shiver.

Then I got offered to buy a cheap 2009 Mac Pro 4.1 with dual xeon processors earlier this year.
I bought it, and made a project out of maxing it out, for as little money as possible.
(Father of 2 kids under 2 years old, a house in big renovating needs, no time, no money, but a lot of inspiration!)

I didn't max it out all the way, mostly ended up with "the next best things", since the best was almost twice the money.
I started with upgrading firmware to 5.1, then installed new processors (2x X5680 @ 3.33 GHz 6 core each) and installed 64 gb of RAM 1333 MHz DDR3.
That was the obvious part. Then after some research I eventually got my hands on a cheap M.2 SM951 256gb drive (Really fast drive, ~ 1500mb/sec r/w speed) since the cMP only supports SATA2 (~500mb/s r/w), this really speed things up! I installed it with a M2 to PCIe adapter.
To be able to use all of my external drives that I keep my projects on, I also bought a USB3 card that was plug-and-play.

For graphics I started out with a GTX680 2GB which worked fine, but felt like a bottleneck in my 4K editing. So I eventually upgraded for a GTX980TI (And a few weeks later Nvidia announced the mac support for Pascal architecture.
UVCETxIGb707wtBhEOv1zm7YHAvoOZUp55S_WqLj5wvQHQ_4Q4tqV50cBe_71alvM2UrcU3Yu5-Wk-fEFT5saRzxIvfU1gg2SS9vonf186pnIcZAiVCvEs-o2r2f68M8W2WelL8m
).
I didn't buy a flashd card, since I had the original Apple GT120-card aswell, if I ever needed to see the bootscreen. (Happened once.).

So, this became a beast of a machine! Total buildcost around 1200$. Not that bad!
Worked perfectly well for my 4K editing, after effects rendering and playing the Original Starcraft that was re-released a few weeks back!

My Lacie 2.Big Thunderbolt 2-cabinett also supports USB 3, so the lack of thunderbolt didn't really bother me.

BUT after seeing some Youtube-videos of people making a clear statement that a CustoMac Pro Hackintosh would be "SO much better" than the cMP, I started to doubt that my build really was that good. And after seeing used Mac Pro 4.1/5.1 with lesser specs than mine for over 2000$, I got tempted to see if I could make a profit off selling a 8 years old used computer.

And I did!

I stripped my Mac Pro off the best hardware, that is the GTX980TI and the SM951 M.2 drive, and sold the Mac Pro 5,1 with a 1000$ profit! (There's crazy people out there.)

In the meantime I had started to research what my Hackintosh build would look like. I was tempted to go with a i7-6950X processor, but since I still was on a budget (and that 1000$ profit went into a black hole) I settled with the i7-6700k, and decided to go with 32GB of ram instead of 64GB, since the Mac Pro rarely used it all.

So my complete build is:

CPU: i7-6700K
CPU-Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3i
MOBO: Gigabyte GA Z170X Ultra Gaming rev 1.0
GPU: MSI GTX980TI 6GB
RAM: 32GB 2x16GB 2400MHz
CHASSI: Corsair Carbide 330R Blackout Edition
HARDDRIVE: M.2. SM951 256GB

OS: macOS Sierra

And I got all of that for what I had spent on the Mac Pro-system. (Note that I kept the graphics card and M.2. SSD)

It was a fun project to both plan and assemble everything. Both of these projects were my first computer builds, though I have been fiddeling around inside a lot of electronics in my days.

In post-install, I used iMac 17,1 as system definition, got a hold of a kext to fix the black screen after searching this forum for a while (Can’t remember what thread anymore! Sorry! My kids make me forget things! But it’s here somewhere!)

And from there It just worked.

I actually even got Thunderbolt working! I just followed this guide:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...ni-guide-to-get-thunderbolt-3-working.214799/
The bios settings had a bit different names, but I managed to figure it out anyway.
And I also bought the Startech Thunderbolt 3(USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter.
As long as my thunderbolt-drives are powered and connected on startup, they’re recognized by the system. Even Daisy-Chain works!

There’s an issue with my Samsung T3 512GB external drive, which is USB 3.1, won’t work in USB 2 or USB 3 ports, but since I have a USB 3.1 port I don’t really bother looking into it right now. And the front USB-ports won’t work either.

Is this a better computer than the cMP?

I'm sorry, but I honestly don’t think so.

According to the Geekbench 4-trial results, this machine is a lot better. But I don’t feel it when I’m using it.
(https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/2162589?baseline=2967896 Comparison between the machines.)

I have to tell myself that I made a frickin 1000$ profit off the Mac Pro to see that this was worth it.

The hackintosh is a lot quieter, got better connections, and uses more modern components, but my Premiere and After Effects performance does not really catch up with the performance I had on my Mac Pro.
But that is a hard statement to make, since I’m not currently working on the exact same projects, and techniques as I did on the Mac Pro.

Sometimes I miss my Mac Pro, but I think this machine is good enough. And it was a fun project to complete! And the main reason I could do such a good deal on my Mac Pro is the fact that i got it at a really good price to begin with.

In my opinion, this machine is a really good budget(in comparison to a 4k$ Mac) placeholder before either Apple announces something worth buying, or if they don’t, when I’m able to afford an i7 EXTREME-system!

NOTE: I roughly translated the currencies in this post from 10 SEK to 1 USD.
 
Upgrading graphics to even a 1070 Ti or 1080 would make a difference in your Premiere and after effects performance. Maybe look into selling the 980 Ti and getting one of the Pascal based cards.
 
Thanks for the post, I am thinking of an upgrade to my 2010 2.4 8 core Mac Pro & undecided on a new Coffee lake Hackintosh 8700k build or upgrading my existing to 12 Xeon, my main interest is Logic Pro, so I doubt I need a big gpu updrade & if I look at the geekbench scores they are about the same but the Xeon has more cores..as much as I’d love to do build (I would get a mega gaming pc too) maybe it’s better to keep the old Mac Pro, I already did an ssd & USB 3 upgrade..
 
The hackintosh is a lot quieter, got better connections, and uses more modern components, but my Premiere and After Effects performance does not really catch up with the performance I had on my Mac Pro.
But that is a hard statement to make, since I’m not currently working on the exact same projects, and techniques as I did on the Mac Pro.

Here's why the i7-6700K seems faster, but isn't as much when using Premiere and After Effects, you went from a 12-core machine to a 4-core machine.

I stumbled upon your post as I myself am planning on going from a X99 Hackintosh with i6800 - 6-Core/12-thread cpu with 64GB ram to a Mac Pro that can have up to 12-cores/24-threads.

The one thing I did notice is the speed gains you got with a PCIe to SSD/M2 card going to 500MB/s to 1500MB/s that by itself shows me a lot of promise in getting a faster system drive for my Windows/VR Machine.

Hope it helps! And I'm certainly glad you made $1K off on your Mac Pro machine.. But I've realized that the time I spend on keeping the machine running rather than just having a machine that'll work no matter what is worth more my time since I too am a father of 3-kids with 1 of them just 6 months old.
 
The 12 core Mac Pro is like a dump truck. It can do massive amounts of work, but does NOT handle like a Ferrari! I just upgraded mine to Mojave. GOT to love a 9 year old Mac that can still run the latest OS! That video card is a W7000 FirePro running a 4k BenQ PD3200U monitor. shweet!

Screen Shot 2018-11-22 at 3.05.05 PM.png
 
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