First Build for Music Production

[groovensynth]

Hello,
I have a hw & sw background, but since this is my first ever computer build I'd like a peer review of my HW selection. I will be using the machine for
mostly music production and have chose the following HW. The reason for traditional HD is because I just aquired a new 2TB drive. it can always be upgraded.

CPU - i7-9700K 8core
Ram - 16GB ddr4 2133 MT/s
MOTHERBOARD - GIGABYTE Z390 I AORUS PRO WiFi
FAN - Corsair Hydro Series H60 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
CASE - Thermaltake Core V1 SPCC Mini ITX Cube
P/S - CORSAIR RMx Series RM850x CP-9020180-NA 850W
WIFI - fenvi FV-T919
GRAPHICS - Sapphire Radeon 11265-05-20G Pulse RX 580 8GB

Thanks in advanced

Tim

 

[Jamesbond007]

Hello,
I have a hw & sw background, but since this is my first ever computer build I'd like a peer review of my HW selection. I will be using the machine for mostly music production and have chose the following HW. The reason for traditional HD is because I just aquired a new 2TB drive. It can always be upgraded.

CPU - i7-9700K 8core
Ram - 16GB ddr4 2133 MT/s
MOTHERBOARD - GIGABYTE Z390I AORUS PRO WiFi
FAN - Corsair Hydro Series H60 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
CASE - Thermaltake Core V1 SPCC Mini ITX Cube
P/S - CORSAIR RMx Series RM850x CP-9020180-NA 850W
WIFI - fenvi FV-T919
GRAPHICS - Sapphire Radeon 11265-05-20G Pulse RX 580 8GB

Thanks in advanced

Tim

Your system should be compatible with MacOS High Sierra / Mojave / Catalina and the upcoming Big Sur.

 

[scottkendall]

Hello,
I have a hw & sw background, but since this is my first ever computer build I'd like a peer review of my HW selection. I will be using the machine for
mostly music production and have chose the following HW. The reason for traditional HD is because I just aquired a new 2TB drive. it can always be upgraded.

CPU - i7-9700K 8core
Ram - 16GB ddr4 2133 MT/s
MOTHERBOARD - GIGABYTE Z390 I AORUS PRO WiFi
FAN - Corsair Hydro Series H60 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
CASE - Thermaltake Core V1 SPCC Mini ITX Cube
P/S - CORSAIR RMx Series RM850x CP-9020180-NA 850W
WIFI - fenvi FV-T919
GRAPHICS - Sapphire Radeon 11265-05-20G Pulse RX 580 8GB

Thanks in advanced

Tim

16GB seems a bit low for music production IMO 32GB is the min.

 

[groovensynth]

16GB seems a bit low for music production IMO 32GB is the min.

Thanks for that feedback Scott - 1st music production unit too.

 

[CatBus]

Hi @groovensynth,

I'm beginning a new build with an almost identical HW lineup. The only issue that might affect you is that the Gigabyte board has only a single PCIe x16 slot - so you would have to choose whether to populate it with the graphics board OR the fenvi wireless card (which works like a champ).

Good luck and let us know how things are going!

cheers,
J

BTW... I'm a keyboardist and am using my first Hackintosh for a bit of digital music production as well (MainStage3, Logic Pro X, FL Studio 20, and Ableton Live 10 Studio). As another poster pointed out, you probably want to consider aiming for 32GB, although 16GB is more than ample to run any or all of these apps. And the good news is, nearly all of them have CPU and memory monitors so you can see how resources are being consumed. That should be helpful in assessing your actual needs. J

 

[groovensynth]

WOW.... thanks for letting me know on the wifi card. what motherboard are you using? i am also going to move to 32gb ram too.

Thanks!

 

[CatBus]

Hi @groovensynth, I'm using the exact MB that you're using - Gigabyte Z390 I Aorus Pro WIFI.

I successfully got macOS Catalina (10.15.7) installed using OpenCore 0.6.2 over this weekend on the first try! I haven't had time to fully stress test it yet, but so far everything works and seems pretty stable.

My hardware is pretty similar to yours:
MB = Gigabyte Z390 I Aorus Pro WIFI
CPU = Intel 3.70 GHz Core i5-9600K (Coffee Lake)
iGPU = Intel UHD 630
dGPU = Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB (used for installation only)
WIFI/BT = Fenvi T919
STORAGE = Sabrent 1TB Rocket Q NMVe PCIe SSD
RAM = HyperX 3200 MHz DDR4 @ 16GB (will upgrade later)
AUDIO = Realtek 1220-VB codec

I installed the system using the Sapphire Radeon RX 580 card, reset the BIOS for video out through the iGPU, and then swapped out the dGPU for the Fenvi WIFI/BT card. For live music performance and digital music production, I don't need much in the way of graphics. I'm using a Viewsonic 1080p monitor connective via DP and it works fine. Also, I installed the system onto an old Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD drive and then cloned it over to the NVMe drive (in the M2P slot) once things were working. I don't really have much of a need for the built-in audio - other than to listen to youtube videos I suppose - but this worked OOB. I ended up using layout-id=11, which seemed to work well. Most of the digital music stuff I need depends on USB connections (synth KB's, pad controllers, control surfaces, USB audio interfaces, DI boxes, etc.). I rolled my own USB port map using Hackintool, which makes it SO easy to do.

Since my hardware set up is almost identical to yours (even the case ;-), I'd be more than happy to share my EFI folder if you'd like. It might just be drop and go, especially if you're planning to use macOS Catalina.

I don't have any plans to move to Big Sur, since I'm mostly interested in stability.

Let me know if the EFI folder would be helpful and I'd be happy to share it with you. I suspect that all you'd need to do is roll your own SMBIOS entries using GenSMBIOS, check your BIOS settings, and copy the EFI folder to your USB installer. I downloaded all of the latest Kexts, SSDT's, and *.efi drivers from Github, so everything is up to date as of this past weekend.

Oh, forgot to mention: do yourself a favor and make sure that you're using the latest BIOS from the Gigabyte web site. I upgraded it before doing anything else and discovered that it includes a setting for "CFK Lock", which is critical to getting the system to boot and install. I used Q-Flash and it went without a hitch.

Good luck!
J

 

[Gigamaxx]

WOW.... thanks for letting me know on the wifi card. what motherboard are you using? i am also going to move to 32gb ram too.

Thanks!

The problem with the z390 and 490 Gigabyte WiFi boards is the WiFi card can’t be swapped out. They have a whitelist so it may be better to get a non WiFi model and pick up a pci card.
Asus, MSI and Asrock can use built in WiFi cards if you need or want a WiFi that is built in. The BCM 94369ng is a great little module that is compatible.

 

[groovensynth]

Thanks for that! My only question is that it appears that you are using the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 only to load the OS, then switching to the internal graphics. It would seem , unless I'm missing something, that is a pretty expensive tool to use to load the OS.

 

[groovensynth]

The problem with the z390 and 490 Gigabyte WiFi boards is the WiFi card can’t be swapped out. They have a whitelist so it may be better to get a non WiFi model and pick up a pci card.
Asus, MSI and Asrock can use built in WiFi cards if you need or want a WiFi that is built in. The BCM 94369ng is a great little module that is compatible.