a stable hackintosh?

[earlhackintosh]

Hello!

I have a few questions regarding hackintosh stability and would appreciate any feedback you all can offer.

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

If I am looking for a rock solid/mostly rock solid computing experience close to an actual mac should I go with a hackintosh or buy a full mac? I hear that there are constant adjustments that must be made as osx is updated is this true?
I am thinking of hackintosh because I want to build a decent gaming pc but I also want to use protools for audio recording.
Will a hackintosh and dual boot work well allowing me to play games like Crysis 2 on windows 7 but record music with decent stability in osx?
Or will I end up with neither, a gaming pc or decent audio recording platform because the computer is two in one?
Hackintosh or one pc and one mac?

Will the build listed below run any of the mac operating systems with a decent amount of stability? Which of the osx would work best?

CPU: i5 3570k ivy compatible
Mobo: ga-z77x-ud5h compatible
GPU: EVGA nvidia GTX670 FTW 2gb compatible
RAM: g skill ripjaw x series 4X4gb ??????????
HD: western digital caviar black 7200rpm 1Terabyte compatible
optical drive: Pioneer-DVR-219LBK-Internal-Writer-LabelFlash compatible is there anything cheaper that is compatible?
PSU: Corsair HX series HX750 watt
Case: Antec gaming case 302 series

Would this hackintosh use third party drivers or could I use mac's original more stable drivers?

Thanks again.

 

[Solidww]

Welcome to the community at tonymacx86.com.
Those are a lot of questions, and I completely understand your concern.

1. As much as I would like to say get a custom mac the stability issue can be there. To avoid it get a real Mac Pro or iMac. The last option, is to follow the guides and buy the parts that are recommend, a stable build can definitely be achieved. Also, a lot of people use the recommended parts thus assistance is only a question away.

2. Audio recording and gaming are better on a custom mac. The iMac is crippled with GPUs that are good for video editors but not for gaming. The Mac Pro, will need after market cards to achieve the performance your looking for. For Audio, decide if USB2 or Firewire are your recording device choices.

3. Hardware.
CPU is awesome!
Motherboard, is recommended board but check www.custommac.com for more info.
GPU, check above site.
RAM, always leave room for expansion. Get 2X8GB kit instead of 4X4 and leave room to add RAM later.
HDDrive is fine. Most will be fine.
Optical, maybe an issue. Try getting a Sony Opti if you can find it.
PSU and Case are fine.

Good luck and enjoy the new computer.

 

[earlhackintosh]

Thank you very much! I appreciate your help.

 

[pookiegus21]

I've been running a similar set up since early September and I've set it up to dual boot into windows 7 for gaming and os 10.8.2 for editing and motion graphics - I'm also a noob to this scene. I hacked a netbook which was alot more work than this gigabyte mother board build.

I've also been using macs since the mid 90's to edit video and create graphics.

The bottom line is you will have the equivalent to an entry level mac pro for half the cost if you don't mind reading this forum and figuring out how to get your hackintosh working. It took me about a month to iron out all the bugs and get everything on mine working. . . pretty rock solid.

The gigabyte motherboard and graphics card you picked work natively without much patching or hacking.
It's work building and maintaining a hackintosh. Once you get it working reliably wait until upgrading anything. . . Read the forums here and see what luck others are having with driver updates and os updates before installing them yourself.

My biggest probelm is my graphics card wont' wake from sleep - I have a 660ti- yours probably will with 670. I'm hoping by 10.8.3 or 10.8.5 it gets worked out.

Not sure how yours will work with pro tools if you're running it with PCI hardware cards. What kind of audio interface will you be using?
Try looking on this forum and see if anyone else with a similar setup has had good luck with pro tools.

Mine has been pretty reliable until the sound stopped working after upgrading and I had to read the forums and re-apply multi-beast.

But then again - all my real macs were the same way. . . usually they were pretty buggy with each new os major os upgrade. But by version .5 most of the bugs were worked out and it would start all over again when I upgraded to the next os.

 

[earlhackintosh]

Thank you so much for the information and help! An intro mac pro for half the cost sounds pretty sweet. As far as the recording set up, I have protools m powered 8.0.0 with an m audio fast track ultra usb 2.0 audio interface. I'll definitely have a look around the forum to see what others are doing. Thanks again!

 

[Solidww]

I've been running a similar set up since early September and I've set it up to dual boot into windows 7 for gaming and os 10.8.2 for editing and motion graphics - I'm also a noob to this scene. I hacked a netbook which was alot more work than this gigabyte mother board build.

I've also been using macs since the mid 90's to edit video and create graphics.

The bottom line is you will have the equivalent to an entry level mac pro for half the cost if you don't mind reading this forum and figuring out how to get your hackintosh working. It took me about a month to iron out all the bugs and get everything on mine working. . . pretty rock solid.

The gigabyte motherboard and graphics card you picked work natively without much patching or hacking.
It's work building and maintaining a hackintosh. Once you get it working reliably wait until upgrading anything. . . Read the forums here and see what luck others are having with driver updates and os updates before installing them yourself.

My biggest probelm is my graphics card wont' wake from sleep - I have a 660ti- yours probably will with 670. I'm hoping by 10.8.3 or 10.8.5 it gets worked out.

Not sure how yours will work with pro tools if you're running it with PCI hardware cards. What kind of audio interface will you be using?
Try looking on this forum and see if anyone else with a similar setup has had good luck with pro tools.

Mine has been pretty reliable until the sound stopped working after upgrading and I had to read the forums and re-apply multi-beast.

But then again - all my real macs were the same way. . . usually they were pretty buggy with each new os major os upgrade. But by version .5 most of the bugs were worked out and it would start all over again when I upgraded to the next os.

This statement is so true. Even real Mac computers have issues as they are updated. Let us know what you decide.

 

[earlhackintosh]

Well I ordered most of the build I listed. However, I went with an Asus optical drive because it seemed like a good deal lol; if it isn't compatible I will buy the Sony(thanks for the suggestion). And I haven't gotten any ram because I don't know which voltage, latency and frequency I should get for the i5 3570k.

I am starting to lean more towards the hackintosh. However, usb drivers are a concern for my usb 2.0 audio interface.
I currently record with my 2008 macbook (which probably isn't in its best interest) but its usb 2.0 drivers have failed very few times. It's great, just plug in and go. I tried to use pro tools in windows vista(a mistake in itself lol) and the drivers constantly failed it was unusable.

Downloading drivers in general with a hackintosh:
Will I be able to download regular osx drivers or will I have to download them for a third party and will they be stable?

The pci hardware card issue shouldn't be a problem since my audio interface is usb 2.0 right? Sorry, I'm not familiar running pro tools via pci.

 

[Solidww]

On that last question, the internet will be your best friend. I worked with ProTools10 for a little bit but not long enough to be of any help.

RAM, just get anything that is 1.5V and is 1600 or higher clock speed. It should work fine for your build.

 

[earlhackintosh]

Thank you much!