Choosing Compatible Components

[marosell]

Update: tonymacx86 2012 Recommended Builds and Components
​

Buying Advice is a great forum to get the latest and greatest tips on cost/value of current components on the market. But if you need to know if certain components are compatible at all with building a hackintosh with Tonymacx86.com tools and methods, be sure to check the wiki first!

Hardware

- Motherboard Database
- Graphics Card Database
- Optical Disc Drive Database​

Chipsets

- Audio Chipset Database
- Ethernet Chipset Database
- Graphic Chipset Database​

Peripherals

-Bluetooth Adapater Database
-NIC Adapter Database
-Webcam Database​

About Recommendations
No one wants to recommend a product they have working within their knowledge/comfort level, only to have it bite someone else because who couldn't get it working the way they wanted. Choose words carefully when recommending products, and do your research before listening to the recommendations of others.

Consider the following:

-When looking at components, see how easy/difficult of a time others have using said products. Learn how these components are enabled and the quality of the compatibility. (Example: Many are not happy with the quality of the voodooHDA kext for enabling the ALC892 sound. Many think it's just fine.)
-You may have to figure things out on your own. Understand your comfort level based on this acquired knowledge.
-See which chipsets match this comfort level.
-See which products contain those chipsets.
-Chose accordingly from those products based on your budget.​

Based on your knowledge and comfort level, different people will be drawn to different categories of products. As a general rule, please understand:

-If you have a high technical prowess for experimentation/tweaking and more flexibility in your budget, the more options you'll have to pick from.
-If you have a rigid budget and lower technical prowess, the less options you'll have to pick from.​

First Build?
Be sure to see Hackintosh Basics for a list of suggested reading to bring you up to speed.

Add your knowledge
And as always, be sure to visit the Wiki database pages to add your hardware if it isn't listed or to post notes or links to the forum for information that may help the next person with any issues they might have.

Thanks!

Brought to you by the Political Action Committee "Apple-fans for Wiki Awareness".

 

[zionic]

I second the sticky. Even though all of this information is available from the front page with research... I think a sticky would help keep the redundancy down. Great post man!

 

[Stork]

2nd the sticky recommendation. Wiki is looking good!

Apple's iSight webcam works on my system. It requires a FW400 connection.

BTW, what's "OOB" mean. It in the video card notes. Since I'm kinda a newbee, acronym definitions at the beginning of each Wiki section would help beginners.

Edit: I Googled OOB. "Out of the Box" is the closest I came determine.

 

[MacMan]

Sticky'ed.

 

[Stork]

Unfortunately, it seems that ATI cards support list is not up to date. Most of the cards listed there should work ok now?

Same thing with a lot of the Fermi cards?

Gang, the Wiki is user maintained. Owners of components are recommended to update the Wiki with their experience. There are too many permutations/combinations for just the moderators to maintain. So, if one component, in this case, video cards, worked or didn't work, update the Wiki.

Re: graphics cards. Search the Pre-Installation/User Builds and Post-Installation/Graphics forum sections for help with your questions.

zionic, Splin and ibobby, please update your signature blocks with details of your system(s) per FAQ #3. Detailed signature blocks allow us to help you better. TIA.

 

[marosell]

Per posts that have been split out into other threads because they were asking advice:

Guys, this is a stickied thread with info to read with regards to starting other threads. This should not be an on-going Q&A thread. Please start a new thread if you have an issue regarding buying advice or compatibility of hardware. Thanks.

 

[eelhead]

Posts removed.

Please use the proper sections in the forum to find your answers and by then they are not found then post a thread asking in the proper sections, please do not use this thread to do this.

This is the wiki informational thread in Choosing Compatible Components.

If you have questions regarding edits to the wiki pages either conduct the edits yourself or bring up a discussion in the wiki discussion area on the wiki page. If you need to learn how to do edits there is a guide and information page in the wiki section.

Also things are updated by all users, it is very hard for the mods to update known usable hardware (or even software) in the wiki base. It is a community effort to keep it updated so please take a moment and help out as well.

Thanks