$1500 Hackintosh

[Mechanized]

Hello, everyone. I plan on ordering parts this weekend for my first build. My budget is around $1500. I suppose I could go a bit over budget but I'd prefer not to since it's always good to save money. I plan on dual booting with Windows. I'll be using Windows strictly for gaming and OS X for everything else. I'm think everything I've selected is compatible, but if not please let me know. Let me know what you think.

Update: I placed my order yesterday. I posted my final order below for anyone who is curious.

i7 3770k - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116501

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545

Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125423

Corair Vengeance 16 GB (2x8GB) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233246

Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 RPM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697

NZXT Switch 810 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146088

Corsair H100 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181017

Antec TruePower 750w - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371022

Sony Optiarc 24X DVD Burner - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118067

Total with promo codes and shipping - $1477

 

[Mechanized]

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[sonicseamus]

I'd say that even while allowing for "future upgrades," an 850W PSU is too much (unless you're planning to SLI or something, which isn't supported in OSX anyway).

Also, make sure you have a separate HDD for windows. I would save the money from the liquid cooler or the PSU and buy an SSD.

 

[Mechanized]

Thanks for the advice. I'm probably going to go with a 750W instead. I did a little searching and I found out that 750W would be more than enough. I'd even be able to do SLI with only 750W. How necessary is a second hard drive? Can't I just create a second partition inside of Windows for OS X?

This is the new PSU I'm planning on getting - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371025

 

[Thunderpants]

One of the reasons I'm building a Hackintosh is to get around the limitation of the single hard drive inside my iMac.

No matter how I partition it, it's never enough. Any games purchased on Steam have to stay on your Windows boot volume - you can't just chuck them onto an external (someone correct me if I am wrong...) so you have to give a decent partition to windows... meaning you suddenly find yourself running low on the Mac side.

A long way of saying -- yeah, two hard drives would be a better move than going overboard on the power supply!

Even on my tight(er) budget I am planning on an SSD for Mac startup -- even if it's tiny, like 64 or 128 gigs, it'll be a big help. And those tiny SSD's are incredibly cheap. 128 gigs are less than 100 bucks (euro or american.)

Good luck building your dream machine!