Any advices on my Mac PRO (and first) build?
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@ powerpcg5:
Damn dude, great review
Case: Weird, here in France the Sonata P183 is only 30€ more expensive than the Sonata Solo II :S But more of a reason to pick the P183!
PSU: Already on the budget so I will definitely check that one out
Coolers: Will probably get one, just to be in the safe side.
I will need to learn how to over clock too LOL, to justify the cooler
Thanks for the help guys
One last question, any reason to get the mono with the mSATA slot? I was planning on getting a mono without, and strap a normal SSD.... Your thoughts?
Damn dude, great review
Case: Weird, here in France the Sonata P183 is only 30€ more expensive than the Sonata Solo II :S But more of a reason to pick the P183!
PSU: Already on the budget so I will definitely check that one out
Coolers: Will probably get one, just to be in the safe side.
I will need to learn how to over clock too LOL, to justify the cooler
Thanks for the help guys
One last question, any reason to get the mono with the mSATA slot? I was planning on getting a mono without, and strap a normal SSD.... Your thoughts?
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Thank you so much for the support. I think my Bill of material is all set! I should be ablo to clock this under 1200€.
Then I was going to get an apple cinema display for around 700€.
In total, it should cost me around 2000€, which is what I paid for my 2010 27 inch i5 iMAc.
To be honest, I'm having second thoughts, I love the apple complete package, the sleek design, the "it just works" (specially the sleek design).
At the same time I want to game a bit and be able to upgrade a bit... Yes I know, can't have everything!
What do you guys think? How faster would my build be compared to the latest higher end iMac 27inch? Are there advantages to hackintosh I'm missing (besides price)?
Any advice on keeping the "apple sleekness" when doing a hackintosh?
Cheers
Then I was going to get an apple cinema display for around 700€.
In total, it should cost me around 2000€, which is what I paid for my 2010 27 inch i5 iMAc.
To be honest, I'm having second thoughts, I love the apple complete package, the sleek design, the "it just works" (specially the sleek design).
At the same time I want to game a bit and be able to upgrade a bit... Yes I know, can't have everything!
What do you guys think? How faster would my build be compared to the latest higher end iMac 27inch? Are there advantages to hackintosh I'm missing (besides price)?
Any advice on keeping the "apple sleekness" when doing a hackintosh?
Cheers
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main advantage is upgradability.
you mention you want to play games on it, with the hack youll be able to upgrade the graphics card, whereas on the imac of course you cant.
the cpu on your proposed hack is better, not by much as the 2600k is essentially the i5 with hyper threading.
youll be able to overclock the hack though, which you cant do on the imac.
essentially, the benefit to this hack vs the top end imac is that youre getting a bit more power out of the hack, with the option to do step upgrades, such as changing the cpu to the ivy bridge cpus coming out in 2012.
to get the apple 'look', its gonna cost.
you already have the monitor, but you can get a mac pro/g5 case (although this will require work), apple keyboard/mouse.
you can make it look like a real mac quite easily.
anyone who says the hack is better than the high end imac is lying to themselves.
each has its pros and cons, only you can decide which is better for you.
you mention you want to play games on it, with the hack youll be able to upgrade the graphics card, whereas on the imac of course you cant.
the cpu on your proposed hack is better, not by much as the 2600k is essentially the i5 with hyper threading.
youll be able to overclock the hack though, which you cant do on the imac.
essentially, the benefit to this hack vs the top end imac is that youre getting a bit more power out of the hack, with the option to do step upgrades, such as changing the cpu to the ivy bridge cpus coming out in 2012.
to get the apple 'look', its gonna cost.
you already have the monitor, but you can get a mac pro/g5 case (although this will require work), apple keyboard/mouse.
you can make it look like a real mac quite easily.
anyone who says the hack is better than the high end imac is lying to themselves.
each has its pros and cons, only you can decide which is better for you.
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If you want 99.99% problem free AND support, get a real Apple. It's a much nicer package.
No sugar-coating this.... You *will* get problems with your Hack, and a few irritations here and there. You can either live with the irritations (some people have no sleep, or like my hack#2, no wake-up functionality), or find fixes or workarounds for some bugs (in my case, I bought a firewire card so firewire will continue to work after wakeup). -- it may take a few weeks of chasing bugs and fixing them (or trying to find fixes for them).
But once it's up and running reliably, you even forget you're running a Hack.
I spent $6,000+ (6-7) years ago on a PowerMac dual 2.5 + apple cinema monitor. It's geekbench score is 2100+. Well, that PowerMac is now dead... leaky liquid coolant, overheating.... Apple refuses to fix it, even though leaking coolant is a widespread problem. --- this is what pushed me to investigate Hackintoshing.... plus money is tight.
But for about $1200, I have this new stupid-fast Hack that scores 15,000+ and works just like a real Mac. ... and when I'm staring at my Apple Cinema display, it's just like the "old times" for me.
If you want a *nice* user experience, buy an Apple Display.... you'll be staring at your display several hours while using your Hack, than staring at your PC box. -- that's why it was also important for me to keep my PC build as quiet as possible... to mimic my PowerMac's noise footprint.... quiet, and let it disappear into the background.
No sugar-coating this.... You *will* get problems with your Hack, and a few irritations here and there. You can either live with the irritations (some people have no sleep, or like my hack#2, no wake-up functionality), or find fixes or workarounds for some bugs (in my case, I bought a firewire card so firewire will continue to work after wakeup). -- it may take a few weeks of chasing bugs and fixing them (or trying to find fixes for them).
But once it's up and running reliably, you even forget you're running a Hack.
I spent $6,000+ (6-7) years ago on a PowerMac dual 2.5 + apple cinema monitor. It's geekbench score is 2100+. Well, that PowerMac is now dead... leaky liquid coolant, overheating.... Apple refuses to fix it, even though leaking coolant is a widespread problem. --- this is what pushed me to investigate Hackintoshing.... plus money is tight.
But for about $1200, I have this new stupid-fast Hack that scores 15,000+ and works just like a real Mac. ... and when I'm staring at my Apple Cinema display, it's just like the "old times" for me.
If you want a *nice* user experience, buy an Apple Display.... you'll be staring at your display several hours while using your Hack, than staring at your PC box. -- that's why it was also important for me to keep my PC build as quiet as possible... to mimic my PowerMac's noise footprint.... quiet, and let it disappear into the background.
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I guess I have the feeling that once I go that route, there's no going back as reselling value of components must be pretty bad here in france...
Unless do you know if I can build a hackintosh and use my iMac's display??
Cheers
Unless do you know if I can build a hackintosh and use my iMac's display??
Cheers
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Wouldn't it be a waste to use your iMac just as a monitor? (plus I don't know if that's possible anyway).
I also have a 27" iMac here... personally speaking, I like my 23" Cinema display. It's non-glare, non-glossy, very wide angle view... wide as in 180-degree angle viewing. These can be bought "Cheap" now at eBay... brand new, it was $3K when it first came out.
I also have a 27" iMac here... personally speaking, I like my 23" Cinema display. It's non-glare, non-glossy, very wide angle view... wide as in 180-degree angle viewing. These can be bought "Cheap" now at eBay... brand new, it was $3K when it first came out.
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powerpcg5 said:
I meant to use the iMac screen to see if the whole hackintosh route would work for me, if not I could still keep my imac, if yes I could sell it. The problem is the resale value of the hackintosh components. I have the impression that If it doesn't work, never mind trying to sell it to get a mac lol
Otherwise, once the setup and troubleshooting is done, is the hackintosh as stable as a mac?
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For me, I think so. A simple "yes" answer will probably be not enough so here's my long answer.
You see, I "test drove" a hackintosh (my build#2 in sig) for 6 months, to see if it was going to be a lot of headaches and problems. My PowerPC was dying and I need to do something soon. Either buy a PowerMac or try this Hackintosh first. (I use my computer for serious business/work... I not only work at home, I am my own boss... so a usable computer is very very very VERY high priority for me. No computer = No work, no income.)
Before I buy a PowerMac, let me try this Hackintosh first. I had old PC parts laying around, and I only need a SATA DVD-RW (bought for $29). So I go for it. Since I have an Intel mobo, (which isn't supported on this site), I was on my own trying to get it to work. But I got it to work, and compared to other posts on this board, I would say even better than other's setup in terms of stability and upgradability using simple Software Updates.)
To cut a long story short... my workhorse PowerPC was breathing it's last breath (temps in the 90C, thermal shutdown, fans running full blast) a few days into my testing of my Build#2 hackintosh. I had no choice but to start copying data/mail/documents to my Hack, also started re-installing all programs I use (Photoshop/DW/Xcode/Parallels PC, etc...) into the Hack.
I used this old Intel mobo Hack for approx. 6 mos. (mid May - mid Nov) for serious production work. It was running so *stable* that I forgot that this is just a "test" and that my planned "Hackintosh" build is still unassembled. This test hack, made from spare parts laying around, was scoring geekbench=5600, almost 3X AS FAST as my old PowerMac dual 2.5! It's also 99% problem-free. I'm hooked!
Mind you, I already have all brand new, modern parts (except the cpu) just sitting on my shelf. I was just too lazy to finish building my real system because this hack was running stable. Finally, I said "either I re-sell all these brand new parts, or start building my new PC" and I devoted one weekend to this project.
I cloned my existing (and very stable) Hack setup to this new PC build... removed kexts I do not need, and started adding kexts I need for my particular hardware. Had some firewire issues after waking up, but fixed that. (on my test hack, wake up didn't even work so I didnt go to sleep.)
And now I'm kicking myself for not doing this new build sooner! This new 2600K machine screams fast! About 3x faster than my "test hack" and 7x faster than my PowerMac Dual 2.5! And yes, running very stable too -- even better than my first build... wake up from sleep works! hahaha.
My tip to you is: Once you have a working system, CLONE it to another hard drive. Keep cloned copies of your working system. *When* things go bad, (example: while testing a new fix, trying out something new, before a new Software Update upgrade, etc), it's a simple few minutes of restoration from your cloned drive. -- not several hours or days of re-installation. . - "work smarter" not harder
** of course this is just my personal experience. Your mileage may vary. But if you pick good, compatible parts, you should have a good stable, working system.
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