If I get a CPU that doesn't have HD 4000 (ivy) or HD 4600 (haswell) graphics then what special must I do to install Mavericks with a HD 5870 2GB card? Also if for some reason I have issues with my graphic card can I get at least even basic use out of the embedded graphics?
Also one thing I would like to point out is that when you are making these buying guides not everyone is looking to buy ALL the parts and they might be using some parts that they already own.
So for example someone might have laying around several compatible graphics cards and they may not have a need for a ton of ram. As for the other benefits who needs more than 2 Sata SataIII connectors and 2 SataII connectors... any normal HD can be connected to the SataII connectors with a minimal if any loss in performance. I doubt many people that are doing this on a budget will be running more than 2 SSD drives so 2 SataIII ports is plenty. You also have to remember the target market. We are comparing these to mac minis which can not have more than 2 HDs and use mobile processors. As for the USB 3.0... again it is similar to the SataII/III thing. Most devices don't benefit from USB 3.0 and you are probably not going to own more than (2) if any devices that do benefit. So for example I own (1) USB3 External HD and a USB3 thumb drive that can hit 200MB/s so I would just make sure I plugged those (2) devices into the USB3.0 ports and everything else into the USB 2 ports.
That being said...
I think it would be a great idea to offer a buying guide to the cheapest possible hackintosh with HD4600 and the cheapest possible hackintosh with non compatible embedded graphics and the cheapest compatible PCIe graphics card.
This way people who already own a compatible graphics card have an idea of what motherboard and processor would be the absolute cheapest they could get.
Celerons are dirt cheap... and you can buy compatible PCIe cards on ebay for $30 that have equivalent or better performance when compared to the HD4600.
Regardless the first time I read one of these buying guides my question was... so the cheap motherboards don't work??? Because you are recommending the Z boards on almost every build with maybe an H once in a while.