First Hackintosh, need advice for a MacBook Pro user.

[hamiltus]

Hi,

I'm looking into building a Hack Pro for the first time and I was wondering weither or not my build would A) work and B) be good enough for CS5.5, FCP X, Gaming, and Media Server. My budget is €1300. Any advice will be greatly appreciated for the following parts :

CPU : Intel Core i7 2600K or i5 2500K (Didn't feel comfortable with Ivy Bridge's unclear stability) (Not sure if i need an i7 or not)
Mobo : Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3
Cooler :Either a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO or a Corsair H60 (not sure which is best)
RAM : Corsair Vengeance Blue LP 16 GB Kit 4x4GB
GPU : XFX Radeon HD 6870 (Gigabyte cards are rare here in france and expensive so this is the best I could find on amazon) (Model nº HD687AZDFC)
PSU : Corsair HX650 or AX650
SSD : OCZ Agility 3 60 or 120 GB
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 2TB
WiFi : TP-Link TL-WDN4800
Bluetooth : Belkin F8T016ng
Case : Corsair 600T White Edition (Coolest case I've ever seen bar none)
Optical Drive : Sony Optiarc DVD burner or LG BH10LS30 Blu-Ray Drive
Card Reader : Icy Box - IB-863-B Front Panel 5.25" Internal Media Card Reader and USB 2.0/3.0 Hub


Thanks for your help !

 

[BenHackintosh]

Just to give my opinion on the CPU, I run all of the things you want on my old 2.2Ghz Core2Duo so I think an I5 will be fine, unless you want everything to run faster than you can see it lol

Everything else looks fine imo, I think the video card and motherboard has been used before so a quick search on the forum should come up with a long list of installation manuals

Ben

 

[Solidww]

First off "Ju ne pa pal Francee". Joke, I know I butchered it so, please excuse me.
Also, I don't know Euros to dollars so please do budgeting math.

Aight, if you can fit it in the budget then definitely get the i7K. Why? It will be a better investment. Doing rendering work will only get tougher and tougher as time goes on. Do you work with 4K, H.264, AVCHD, etc.....? The i7 should be able to last for a few years and serve you well. I will lastly add that if you know your not going to be working in these codecs or any other highly compressed codecs then i5 will be fine for many years as well.

Gigabyte board gets a go!

I have heard a lot of bad things about Corsair H coolers and that they are loud but if your getting a quiet case they should be fine.

Always leave yourself room for expansion! Always! Get 2X8GB sticks and allow yourself the ability to add more RAM later. 16 is a lot and as time goes on you may decide that 32 is better.

If you plan to work with Adobe CS suite then consider an nVidia graphics card. Look at this video I was shocked myself. Mercury Playback Engine Comparison, CPU vs GPU GTX 260 vs GTX 460 in Adobe Premiere CS5 HD - YouTube There really isn't a need for a GTX285, GTX570, or GTX6XX series card. Save a few bucks and get a used 9800GT, GT240, or GT430. Will you be rendering out a lot of DVDs and Blu-Rays? Let me know. You will be able to Game, and run FCPX with any nVidia card.

650 Watt PSU is good if you planning for expanding in the future. If this is the case then get a large PSU. If your not planning to expand your machine then save a few bucks and go with a 550 or 500Watt.

60 GB SSD is good if your going to get 2! If only 1 then get the 120GB. It will perform better as time goes on. Two drives are better then 1 BTW.

Barracuda is go! If you can get more then 1 do yourself that favor and get 2 or 3.

WIFi, Bluetooth, Card Reader, and Case someone will chime in.

Sony DVD and Blu-Ray 2 Thumbs up!

I hope I have been helpful. Decide how you will use the machine and build for that. It will make your investment more worth while. Your emotions will control what you buy, but a little patience and research can save a you a few EUROs over the course of time. Good luck and stay in touch!

 

[hamiltus]

First off "Ju ne pa pal Francee". Joke, I know I butchered it so, please excuse me.
Also, I don't know Euros to dollars so please do budgeting math.

Aight, if you can fit it in the budget then definitely get the i7K. Why? It will be a better investment. Doing rendering work will only get tougher and tougher as time goes on. Do you work with 4K, H.264, AVCHD, etc.....? The i7 should be able to last for a few years and serve you well. I will lastly add that if you know your not going to be working in these codecs or any other highly compressed codecs then i5 will be fine for many years as well.

Gigabyte board gets a go!

I have heard a lot of bad things about Corsair H coolers and that they are loud but if your getting a quiet case they should be fine.

Always leave yourself room for expansion! Always! Get 2X8GB sticks and allow yourself the ability to add more RAM later. 16 is a lot and as time goes on you may decide that 32 is better.

If you plan to work with Adobe CS suite then consider an nVidia graphics card. Look at this video I was shocked myself. Mercury Playback Engine Comparison, CPU vs GPU GTX 260 vs GTX 460 in Adobe Premiere CS5 HD - YouTube There really isn't a need for a GTX285, GTX570, or GTX6XX series card. Save a few bucks and get a used 9800GT, GT240, or GT430. Will you be rendering out a lot of DVDs and Blu-Rays? Let me know. You will be able to Game, and run FCPX with any nVidia card.

650 Watt PSU is good if you planning for expanding in the future. If this is the case then get a large PSU. If your not planning to expand your machine then save a few bucks and go with a 550 or 500Watt.

60 GB SSD is good if your going to get 2! If only 1 then get the 120GB. It will perform better as time goes on. Two drives are better then 1 BTW.

Barracuda is go! If you can get more then 1 do yourself that favor and get 2 or 3.

WIFi, Bluetooth, Card Reader, and Case someone will chime in.

Sony DVD and Blu-Ray 2 Thumbs up!

I hope I have been helpful. Decide how you will use the machine and build for that. It will make your investment more worth while. Your emotions will control what you buy, but a little patience and research can save a you a few EUROs over the course of time. Good luck and stay in touch!

Thanks a lot for the advice. For the i5 vs i7 debate i would mainly be working with DSLR footage and for the GPU, I thought AMD would be better for a OOB installation instead of nVidia (ie OpenCL Enabler for nVidia).
Also I thought buying a water cooler would be helpful to decrease the temperatures in the system cos the H60 came highly recommended for overclockers. BTW is there a limit to my multiplier (As in due to SSDTs) ?

 

[hamiltus]

I thought AMD cards were better for a OOB experience. Also (for the i5 vs i7 question) I would be mainly working with DSLR footage.

 

[hamiltus]

Also my optical drive would be Either DVD or Blu ray not both

 

[jester969]

I thought AMD cards were better for a OOB experience. Also (for the i5 vs i7 question) I would be mainly working with DSLR footage.

What he means if if you will be mainly using Adobe Premiere and other Adobe apps. Then, a Nvidia card will suit your needs better b/c of CUDA.

 

[hamiltus]

Does that work/apply to OS X ?

 

[BenHackintosh]

Yea it does

 

[ElKanyeEast]

It just so happens that my Hack was built for all the things you want (Check out my build "Kanye's Build" on p1 or p2)

Since you'll be doing a lot of rendering I would suggest the 2600K or 2700K along with a Z77 board. I know that seems silly but the Gigabyte Z77 boards dont need a DSDT and you can get a Z77 board for cheaper than a Z68 board. You'll also need any Nvidia graphics card because of CUDA (Already stated) so the 560Ti will do just that. Overall your build is pretty good but I don't think blu-ray works with OSX so your LG Blu-Ray player won't work (I believe that was also previously mentioned). I find the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Series annoying to put on and they don't give you good temps (I get 39 degrees C on idle) The best is the H100 - http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm you can look there and choose what you would like.

Anyway, here is a mock build and you can see what you think

CPU - 2600K http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115070 $290

CPU Cooler : H100 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181017 $110

Mobo - Z77-DS3H http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128547 $115

Ram - 8GB XMS3 DDR3 1600Mhz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233202 $47

GPU - MSI 560 Ti Twin Frozr II http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127565 $245

PSU - OCZ ZT 750W http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341052 $105

SSD - OCZ 120GB Vertex 3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227726 $100

HDD - Seagate Barracuda 2TB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148506 $210

Wifi - TP-Link TL-WDN4800 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704133 $43

Bluetooth - Belkin F8T016ng (Couldn't find a Newegg link)

Case - 600T http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139005 $180

DVD - Lite On DVD Burner http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289 $18

Card Reader - Rosewill 74-in-1 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820223109 $10

Build Total: $1473 (Without Bluetooth) which is 1203.85 Euro

If your willing to spend $1619 = 1332.95 Euro then you can get a HUGE upgrade to the MSI 670 Power Edition Twin Frozr IV http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127685

There my .02 cents and I did put about a half hour into making this list so the least you could do is look over it