Custom or TonyMac Build?

[notshy]

Hi guys,

I was wondering for all of you guys thinking of joining the Hack community with your first build or maybe subsequent builds - are you going to follow one of the Official TonyMac recommended builds or use your own components?

Just a quick poll here to see if there's a better way the we can help you guys with your first time builds. This isn't supposed to be a trick question but after spending a while on here I've seen a number of users requesting their own build components rather than following the TonyMac or MacMan builds. An example of this is trying to get 5770 cards up and running that aren't "reference" designs and hence need a bit more configuration with the ATI boot loader.

I'd just like to understand the reasons for going for a custom build ? This is all to go towards how we can make the information on the Wiki and Forum more user friendly for you guys.

Anyways - answers on a post card please and please chip in with your comments !

 

[SMHI]

GRAPHIC CARD: I wanted a passive cooled card with no external power source (Extra cable from PSU) that supported the latest, DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1, with the most performance. Then I went for Zotac GeForce GT 430 ZONE. The other good thing with this card is that it isnt long and will not collide with my hard drives. It has DisplayPort that is a good thing!

In other thoughts if I wouldn't go for this card I would get a low profile passive cooled card to not block the air flow in the case so much.

MOTHERBOARD: I recommend everyone who want a Hackintosh a motherboard with four memory slots (Better for future upgrade), Firewire port and USB3. It dont cost much more but to me it is idiotic to not get USB3 when it is supported and a lot faster then USB2.

MOTHERBOARD SIZE: When it comes to motherboard in almost every case a ATX motherboard is not needed. It's only good for people that want to run SLI/Crossfire or have many extra cards. To bad that there isnt any motherboard in mATX, USB3 and good SLI/Crossfire (At least one extra 8x PCIe port). The best board for for this is Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4 but it dont have USB3 integrated or GA-H57M-USB3 but its other PCIe port is 4x and it is in the lowest part of the motherboard and GPU cooler must be small on the card mounted there.

I prefer GA-H57M-USB3 over GA-H55M-USB3 because the extra PCIe port on GA-H57M-USB3 is 4x but on GA-H55M-USB3 it is 1x. It's better if I ever want to get a extra card and not have the motherboard to limit my options.

A annoying thing about motherboard, why do they cram in old PCI ports when the chipset has support for more PCIe channels? GA-H57M-USB3 has support (H57 chipset) for 8x channels but only have a 4 port. Why not replace the PCI ports with 1x PCIe ports? Or are the channels used by Gigabytes extra SATA ports? It cant use 4x PCIe channels.

 

[eelhead]

Well I can say that I will most likely follow one of TonyMac's builds.

I can say that I never built a computer before and figure I would follow a known working Hackintosh build. I would use a users custom build but I still have a lot of reading on the board before I make that decision. I am hoping to use this community after I make my first build to then tweak and customize it to my liking. Of course I still don't know whether to wait for a TonyMac build with Sandybridge and lightpeak used or just dive in now and go to town.




lol I have to edit this because I am all over board now after reading so many posts.
I have I somewhat custom set up going based off of other peoples rigs. No I shale see how it goes