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[chexee]

So, I've been lurking around the forums for buying advice and have finally settled mostly on what I'm planning to get. I'd like to get a once-over of advice/criticism from the people on these boards, as I have a few people helping me out but none who have experience building a Hackintosh. I'd appreciate any criticisms or "WTF were you thinking?" as I'm new to dealing intimately with hardware.

Here's the context of what i'll be using it for:

USE
- Design: I'm a web & print designer, so heavy use of photoshop, illustrator, and indesign with some light video editing and encoding.
- Development: I do web development, so I'll be running MAMP and Coda alot. I don't think I need a powerful machine for this, but thought I'd put it in just in case it might be relevant.
- Light Gaming: I'm not a huge gamer, but I want it to be able to run the upcoming FFXVI and StarCraft 2 at decent settings.
- I'll want it to be fairly upgradable.


COMPONENTS

CASE (I'll be turning off the ugly blue lights)
XCLIO Windtunnel Fully Black Finish 1.0 mm SECC Chassis ATX Full Tower Computer Case

PSU
Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

MOBO
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard w/ USB 3.0 & SATA 6 Gb/s

HARD DRIVE
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

RAM
A-DATA Gaming Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model AX3U1600GB2G9-2G

OPTICAL DRIVE
ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM

CPU
Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750

GFX CARD
EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

NEWEGG WISHLIST: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Publi ... er=9622009

Feel free to tell me I'm a noob and/or suggest where I could upgrade/downgrade.

My budget is around $1000, but would prefer to keep it under.

 

[concoursal]

I'm a noob, but am putting my build together this weekend. Based on what I've read and been told, get a Sony Optiarc SATA DVD burner. Other brands have caused problems for builders and we're only talking about a $20 item here.

 

[smolex]

Every thing looks good in your build. I agree with previous poster about using a sony dvd drive just based on other posts. If you want to save some money you could drop the Full Tower case unless you plan on expanding later. Looks good. Post how the build goes. Thanks.

 

[chexee]

sweet, thanks for the feedback. I'll switch over to the sony optiarc. I think I will want room for expansion, I'll probably end up trying to stretch this system's life with upgrades as long as I can :]

Thanks!

 

[Lnx2Mac]

Looks good, except for RAM and DVD.

RAM
As for RAM, try getting the G.Skill Eco 1600@CL7...
http://www.amazon.com/G-Skill-ECO-240-pin-PC3-12800-unbuffered/dp/B0030MNLSS?ie=UTF8

There are several reasons to get these... One of the most important is that these are low-profile, allowing for big coolers to be installed...
Alternatively, the OCZ Gold are nicely priced in Amazon... While these are CL8 (not a significant diff), you can same some $... http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-OCZ3G16004GK-DDR3-1600MHz-Gold/dp/B0018SKT6S?ie=UTF8

DVD
Stick to Sony-Optiarc or Pioneer, as others seem to have issues with letting your Hackintosh auto-sleep unless there is a disc in the drive

Heat Sink/Fan
I'd recommend you skipping the Stock Intel Cooler...
Personally I'm a fan of Scythe Mugen-2 (for price/performance), Scythe Big Shuriken (if you need a low profile cooler for your case), or Noctua NH-D14 (if you want absolutely the best and price is not an issue).

Check out my build (http://lnx2mac.blogspot.com/), as it's very similar... Though I also aimed at having a silent build.

Good Luck !
Lnx2Mac

 

[chexee]

Thanks, I'll take your advice on the RAM, but can I ask for more detail on the CPU fan? Just wondering if its something I should get right when I build or if I can add it on later when I get more $$. How does it effect performance over the stock fan?

Thanks for the advice :]

 

[Lnx2Mac]

Just wondering if its something I should get right when I build or if I can add it on later when I get more $$.

You can get it later, if you don't mind tearing apart your build, as most big heatsinks require installing a backplate under the motherboard.
On the other hand, buying a CPU without the stock fan (normally called "Tray" or "OEM" versions) will save you about $10 vs. buying the one with (usually referred to as "Boxed").

How does it effect performance over the stock fan?

When I mentioned performance, I was referring to thermal reduction performance.

However, it might affect the CPU performance as well.
Intel processors (Pentium 4 and up), have a thermal monitoring (TM) feature.
When the CPU rises above its specified temp limit, the TM will try to cool it by throttling the clock speed.

Good Luck !
Lnx2Mac

 

[chexee]

Cool, I think I'll go for the Big Shuriken and buy it with the rest of the components. Also going with the OCZ gold, as Newegg has a good combo deal for it.

All in all, adding all the combo deals and promo codes, it came out to $834 + $36 shipping.
Also $65 in mail-in rebates that I always forget to send in, but if I do, a nice total of $805, well under my budget :]

If anyone's interested, there's a pretty good CPU + Gigabyte UD4P mobo deal going on at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDeal ... mbo.437416

Thanks!

 

[chexee]

whoops, also switched over to the Antec Three Hundred case for space-saving. Seems big enough to allow enough expansion for me and saved some money