Thanks everyone for the tips and votes of confidence. After a long night of researching and learning, I am pretty much decided I will abandon Apple and build this thing myself! I have reviewed several guides and videos on everything from building a PC to installing Mac OS with the needed tools. I am not as intimidated as I was a few days ago. The only thing I want to avoid is unique problems with hardware configurations. So I will try to stick with recommended components from the buying guide or golden build threads. So, here we go!
Before I continue, I must say I am considering, just considering one option. This is purely for my own enjoyment, even though I know it will make the build harder. I would really like to use a Powermac G5 case for my build. It seems the biggest hurdles with this are: front panel wiring, motherboard mounting, rear grill modding and fans. I know I probably shouldn't be trying this my first time around, but I don't anticipate building another one any time soon. I have already looked into the process a lot and it seems quite doable. Front panel solutions are documented pretty well. Mobo can be installed by moving the standoffs, I'm fine with that. I have also seen some recommendations to using a tray I will look into. On the rear grill, as much I would love to keep it original, that is more work that I want to put into it right now. So I am planning to just cut out what I need to and cut a new panel to cover the ugly. For the fans, I would just buy new ones, or a new one if one would be enough. Does that sound doable?
Edit to add: I don't want to set myself up for a hard build the first time around. Better idea is to build it in an easy case and then I can take my time modding the G5 case later. So that leaves me wondering if I might be able to use a case I already have. I have a couple core 2 duo era towers here. I think one is a Gateway and the other is a Dell. I don't mind cutting up the bezel for the ports, but not sure if production machines like those can even be disassembled easily, let alone repurposed. But they both have optical drives and hard drives I might be able to use. One of them has a GeForce graphics card, it's kind of really old, I'd have to look up the specs on it it's a geforce 210. Might hold me off for a little while. Would the power supply be something I can use too? I checked my specs on outervision.com, it said my load wattage is 359W and recommends a 409W PSU. The Gateway has a 400W PSU if I can use it?!?!?! Just don't know if there are proprietary connectors in there. I've done my research and now I see that the PSU on those machines don't have any modern connectors. I assume I could rewire it, but that's too much trouble. I am looking at a used Corsair AX860 for the same exact price as the 650. It's far more than I'll every need, thus I assume I won't have to buy one for a long time, or I can sell it for more than a 650 if I decide to change my system.
Moving on to my parts list...
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 Mini ITX OC 3GB GDDR5 Graphics Card (GV-N1060IXOC-3GD) $189.99
Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel Z170 ATX DDR4 Motherboards GA-Z170X-UD3 $130
Intel Core i7 6700K 4.00 GHz Unlocked Quad Core Skylake Desktop Processor, Socket LGA 1151 [BX80662I76700K] $319.89
Corsair Hydro Series High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler H60 $64.99
Ballistix Sport LT 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) DIMM 288-Pin - BLS2K8G4D240FSB (Gray) $112.42
Samsung 850 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-75E500B/AM) $177.92
Corsair RMx Series, RM650x, 650W, Fully Modular Power Supply, 80+ Gold Certified $111.94
802.11AC Desktop Wifi Card 802.11 A/B/G/N/AC Bluetooth 4.0 OS X Yosemite 10.10+ PC/Hackintosh - Handoff and Continuity $59.99
This is the list I compiled last night. I want a machine that will outperform the iMac I had, and it seems this should be able to do that. I found a golden build with very similar, if not exact components. The only things I am wondering are:
1) I want to spread out my spending a bit, but I really liked the SM951 flash storage on the iMac. So I was thinking about adding PCIe flash modules later. It seems, though, that the NVMe SM951 is not really available in 1TB. I was able to find a few options for 400-500GB sticks. It seems I might be able to run two of those striped RAID 0, but I would need a mobo with 2 PCIe 3x4 slots, which the UD3 doesn't have. I found this one, which does have 2 slots, but it is not on the buyer's guide list, so I am not sure it's wise to try it. If not, is there a better solution to get faster drive speed? I tend to move large files around a lot, so I would like the performance. Since I can add it later, I can just use the 850 EVO for awhile, but I would like to plan for the future. The board I'm talking about is this one: GA-Z170X-Gaming 7. It also has thunderbolt 3, which might be nice, but I am not sure if it will work. I have to look into that some more. Edit to add: It's not that the SM951 isn't available, I think I was having a hard time finding the Apple one, because it uses a proprietary connector. I did find the NVMe modules, but they are almost $700. So I was thinking I could buy two and raid them, but buy one soon and another later. I have since learned more. I found that what I was looking for was actually the m.2 flash modules. For a little less ($600) I found the Samsung SM961 1TB stick. Not sure it will boot from that, I have to do some research here on the forum still. The GA-z170X-UD3 has 2x m.2 slots, so I no longer need to look at a less supported mobo.
2) I would like to be able to over clock, so I opted for the liquid cooling, assuming it will cool better. Would this assumption be correct?
Aside from those questions, I just have to decide of the G5 case is worth it or not and proceed. Thanks folks.
