Brand new Hackintosh user preparing to construct no-holds-barred top-of-the-line music computer.

[NoahNoah]

Hi all, yet another newbie here. I would like to ask what would be recommended for a cost-is-no-object Hackintosh. I do music for TV and movies professionally and need something extremely reliable -- right now I'm on the trashcan Mac Pro (bought in 2015), and am exhausted with the limitations of Mac hardware/processors. I'm running Cubase, Pro Tools, and Studio One with an Apollo 8 (Thunderbolt). My Mac Pro is extremely stable but the processing is far below what my Windows composer friends have with their PCs because it's Xeon, which is not as good as certain other processors for DAWs from what I've been learning. I'm on Sierra right now, but am open to older OS's if I need to. Sierra works great for everything, for me.

So! I want the most powerful Hackintosh I can get my hands on performance-wise.

1. Video is not a concern for me -- I don't need an amazing video card, just something decent that supports two monitors (I don't care about and have no used for 4k, Retina, etc).

2. 64gb RAM capability

3. The highest performance processors for DAW use -- again, cost is no object, I just want the highest plugin count I can possibly get. I do gigantic scoring and mixing projects that easily hit the wall on the 6-core Xeon 3.7gHz in my Mac Pro.

4. Thunderbolt: Yes, absolutely needed. TB2, hopefully with TB3 option for the future.

5. I'm all SSD these days (4 drives total - 1 for system, 1 for audio, 2 for sample libraries).

6. No DVD-R drive...I haven't needed one of those in about three years now.

So...no-holds-barred, what's the most powerful (while also being being very reliable) system I can put together? I would greatly appreciate your recommendations.

Thank you!

 

[boomish69]

I'd love to know if you got any further with your search Noah? I want to dot he same but I'm not sure if running apps like Logic Pro where channel strips operate on a single core would favour a Xeon multi core or it doesn't matter and an I7 would do just as well with less cores.

 

[KapnKrunch]

Hi all, yet another newbie here. I would like to ask what would be recommended for a cost-is-no-object Hackintosh. I do music for TV and movies professionally and need something extremely reliable -- right now I'm on the trashcan Mac Pro (bought in 2015), and am exhausted with the limitations of Mac hardware/processors. I'm running Cubase, Pro Tools, and Studio One with an Apollo 8 (Thunderbolt). My Mac Pro is extremely stable but the processing is far below what my Windows composer friends have with their PCs because it's Xeon, which is not as good as certain other processors for DAWs from what I've been learning. I'm on Sierra right now, but am open to older OS's if I need to. Sierra works great for everything, for me.

So! I want the most powerful Hackintosh I can get my hands on performance-wise.

1. Video is not a concern for me -- I don't need an amazing video card, just something decent that supports two monitors (I don't care about and have no used for 4k, Retina, etc).

2. 64gb RAM capability

3. The highest performance processors for DAW use -- again, cost is no object, I just want the highest plugin count I can possibly get. I do gigantic scoring and mixing projects that easily hit the wall on the 6-core Xeon 3.7gHz in my Mac Pro.

4. Thunderbolt: Yes, absolutely needed. TB2, hopefully with TB3 option for the future.

5. I'm all SSD these days (4 drives total - 1 for system, 1 for audio, 2 for sample libraries).

6. No DVD-R drive...I haven't needed one of those in about three years now.

So...no-holds-barred, what's the most powerful (while also being being very reliable) system I can put together? I would greatly appreciate your recommendations.

Thank you!

Howdy!

I'm in a very similar position, currently owning a MacPro 3,1 with 8-core Xeon's, running Pro Tools 12.6 with a Digi 002, UAD PCIe accelerator cards, and the system is clearly showing its age. I decided on a Hackintosh configuration (versus a new iMac, primarily due to the extra cost for PCIe expansion and Thunderbolt chassis) and placed an order for the following items, which will start arriving this week from Amazon:

• GIGABYTE AORUS GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 Gaming Motherboard LGA1151 Intel Z270 2-Way SLI ATX DDR4 Motherboard
  
• Corsair Carbide Series 330R Blackout Edition Ultra-Silent Mid-Tower Case Cases
  
• Corsair Hydro Series H100i v2 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler, Black
  
• Corsair RMi Series, RM650i, 650 Watt (650W), Fully Modular Power Supply, 80+ Gold Certified, 10 year warranty
  
• 3 of Crucial MX300 1TB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive - CT1050MX300SSD1 (for OS, recordings, samples)
  
• Fenvi Desktop Wireless Card 2.4/5GHz draft 802.11n 300Mbps Desktop WLAN PCI-E Card Windows Mac OS X Hackintosh System Also Supporting Windows 7 Windows 8 Windows 10
  
• Seagate 4TB BarraCuda SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive (ST4000DM005) (for backups)
  
• LG Electronics 14x SATA Blu-ray Internal Rewriter without Software, Black (WH14NS40)
  
• Intel 7th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)
  
• Syba SY-PEX30016 3 Port Firewire 1394B & 1394A PCIe 1.1 x1 Card TI XIO2213B Chipset (for Digi 002 connection)
  
• Kingwin Two Port USB 3.0 Bracket Cable with Built-In 20-Pin Header (KW-PCI2USB3)
  
• Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1050Ti G1Gaming 4GB Graphic Card Black, Boost Clock 1506 MHz , GV-N105TG1GAMING-4GD
  
• C&E 4 Pack 18-Inch SATA III 6.0 Gbps Cable with Locking Latch and 1 x 90-Degree Plug
  
• Dell U3417W FR3PK 34-Inch Screen Led-Lit Monitor
• Logitech K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard for Mac — Solar Recharging, Mac-Friendly Keyboard, 2.4GHz Wireless - Silver
  
• USB 2.0 4 Port Rear Panel Bracket to Dual 9-Pin Motherboard Header Cable
  
• Ballistix Sport LT 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) DIMM 288-Pin - BLS2K16G4D240FSE (Red)

Total damage was a bit over $3K, which provides a sweet monitor, and all the expandability I'll ever need. I settled on the GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 MB since it has Thunderbolt 3 built-in, and can accommodate add-on Thunderbolt cards if necessary. Compare this to a new iMac with similar specs, and add the external drives, PCIe expansion chassis, etc. and I was well north of $4K.

I'm confident the better MB architecture (with wider lanes and better throughput) plus 4.2GHz i7 CPU will blow away my current Xeon 8-core configuration.

Good luck!

 

[AJ-Afterparty]

Howdy!

I'm in a very similar position, currently owning a MacPro 3,1 with 8-core Xeon's, running Pro Tools 12.6 with a Digi 002, UAD PCIe accelerator cards, and the system is clearly showing its age. I decided on a Hackintosh configuration (versus a new iMac, primarily due to the extra cost for PCIe expansion and Thunderbolt chassis) and placed an order for the following items, which will start arriving this week from Amazon:

• GIGABYTE AORUS GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 Gaming Motherboard LGA1151 Intel Z270 2-Way SLI ATX DDR4 Motherboard
  
• Corsair Carbide Series 330R Blackout Edition Ultra-Silent Mid-Tower Case Cases
  
• Corsair Hydro Series H100i v2 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler, Black
  
• Corsair RMi Series, RM650i, 650 Watt (650W), Fully Modular Power Supply, 80+ Gold Certified, 10 year warranty
  
• 3 of Crucial MX300 1TB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive - CT1050MX300SSD1 (for OS, recordings, samples)
  
• Fenvi Desktop Wireless Card 2.4/5GHz draft 802.11n 300Mbps Desktop WLAN PCI-E Card Windows Mac OS X Hackintosh System Also Supporting Windows 7 Windows 8 Windows 10
  
• Seagate 4TB BarraCuda SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive (ST4000DM005) (for backups)
  
• LG Electronics 14x SATA Blu-ray Internal Rewriter without Software, Black (WH14NS40)
  
• Intel 7th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)
  
• Syba SY-PEX30016 3 Port Firewire 1394B & 1394A PCIe 1.1 x1 Card TI XIO2213B Chipset (for Digi 002 connection)
  
• Kingwin Two Port USB 3.0 Bracket Cable with Built-In 20-Pin Header (KW-PCI2USB3)
  
• Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1050Ti G1Gaming 4GB Graphic Card Black, Boost Clock 1506 MHz , GV-N105TG1GAMING-4GD
  
• C&E 4 Pack 18-Inch SATA III 6.0 Gbps Cable with Locking Latch and 1 x 90-Degree Plug
  
• Dell U3417W FR3PK 34-Inch Screen Led-Lit Monitor
• Logitech K750 Wireless Solar Keyboard for Mac — Solar Recharging, Mac-Friendly Keyboard, 2.4GHz Wireless - Silver
  
• USB 2.0 4 Port Rear Panel Bracket to Dual 9-Pin Motherboard Header Cable
  
• Ballistix Sport LT 32GB Kit (16GBx2) DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) DIMM 288-Pin - BLS2K16G4D240FSE (Red)

Total damage was a bit over $3K, which provides a sweet monitor, and all the expandability I'll ever need. I settled on the GA-Z270X-Gaming 7 MB since it has Thunderbolt 3 built-in, and can accommodate add-on Thunderbolt cards if necessary. Compare this to a new iMac with similar specs, and add the external drives, PCIe expansion chassis, etc. and I was well north of $4K.

I'm confident the better MB architecture (with wider lanes and better throughput) plus 4.2GHz i7 CPU will blow away my current Xeon 8-core configuration.

Good luck!

Any of you guys in Los Angeles by any chance? I'm looking to build a system for audio production as well. I don't know about you guys but it might be worth to mention that the system should be as silent as possible no?

 

[KapnKrunch]

Any of you guys in Los Angeles by any chance? I'm looking to build a system for audio production as well. I don't know about you guys but it might be worth to mention that the system should be as silent as possible no?

Sorry, not any longer (but I moved from Simi Valley 12 years ago)!

Nonetheless, my config definitely considered noise, and that's why I chose that Corsair quiet case, the intelligent power supply (that turns on the fan only when necessary), and the CPU cooler with dual fans that shouldn't breathe very hard. All my drives are SSD's, except the 4TB Barracuda, which I'll be using for backups, and that can probably be set to spin down when not in use.