Okay I've been saving up for an Ivy bridge build for about a year now. I3570K with a GA-X77-DS3H mobo and a 660ti. Now that has well has come out is it worth putting together a new build instead? I'm building this hackintosh to duel boot mountain lion and windows 7 for audio production and light gaming. Will a haswell chip benefit me? I'm sure that ivy bridge will get cheaper aswell
An overclock on a K model at stock voltage Ivy>Haswell at stock. Add to this you are talking a 100 bucks difference, due to motherboard price chip price. That could be used on a SSD to create your own fusion drive.
The Haswell is perhaps the worst overclocker of all the 1155-1150 chips. This might change but atm? The initial release chips are awful unless you are VERY lucky, and even then you are talking about de lidding most of the time, which is not good for new PC builders. What DOES the Haswell offer? It offers very good integrated graphics that can compete with the AMD integrated graphics. It is more of a big upgrade for budget laptops, prebuilt computers (dell's and such) then something with a 660ti. Anything like 4.2 ghz on a Haswell, 4.5 GHZ plus on a ivy (which is usually the standard no risk OC, which makes the chips equal) is pretty much overkill anyways, in all but Crysis 3 at a 2560x res.
You can get a openbox z77 ds3h or better yet the z77 minitix Gigabyte boards for 60 to 70 bucks often at microcenter. An = z87 board is gonna cost a ton, add to that you have to worry about compatibility atm. If you are looking to OC the ds3h isn't very good for it if I remember right (can't change voltage at all so 4.2 might be max, which would still be equal to a stock Haswell).
If you aren't OC at all the K versions are a waste to be honest.
This guy explains it here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHQqpIEw7jk
Check out some of the Bitfenix prodigy z77 mini itx builds. They look brilliant as a Hackintosh. Some of the custom mods on the case look better then anything done by Mac.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WYOjNgeJ-o
If you are looking for the 27 inch Imac monitor? It is around 400 bucks. Uses the exact same panel, and even has the hole where the mic goes.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?p_id=10509&seq=1&format=2
The money you will save going to z77 atm, can be put towards a 128 gig SSD and you can create your own fusion drive for a fraction of the cost apple charges (search forum).
It is always a "should I wait question" with computers. The fact is? USB 3.1 is coming out soon, so even if you bought a Haswell, you are still screwed. Basically you should look at it differently. What gives me the best bang for the buck atm. The answer is Ivy Bridge. You can find some silly deals at Microcenter right now, and a lot of Open Box deals. If you are going to be doing huge transfers from USB 3.1? You might want to wait for that, but will Mac even support that? Or will they stay with thunderbolt, in which case you could buy a thunderbolt board for transfers and the difference in price between a z77 and z87 is HUGE and compatibility is always an issue with the things (sleep issues).
Anyways hope this helped ya. Have fun on your new Hackintosh.
