Help me choose some parts :)

[raptorxrx]

Long story short:

I impulsively sold most of my computer parts. When researching new parts, I was welcomed into the hackintosh world.

Budget:$575

Parts I have left over:
EVGA GTX 560ti
Plextor M3 128gb
Seagate 750gb
Samsung RAM 8gb

Need:
Case
PSU
MOBO
CPU
HSF
Wireless Card

What I'm thinking:
Case: Fractal R4-110
PSU: Corsair CX500-60
Mobo: Gigabyte Z77 UD3H-110
CPU: i5-3570k-170
HSF: Hyper 212 EVO with a Gentle Typhoon fan (already have the Gently Typhoon)-30
Wireless Card: TP Link 4800-35

I have a Microcenter near my house, and that's where I can get the lower prices on Mobo+i5

My Questions:
1) Will onboard sound work? I read in another thread here that the onboard sound would not work on the Z77 UD3H
2) If I ever upgraded to a seperate sound card such as the ASUS Xonar DGX or the DSX, would there be drivers/support?

3) Is it a pain to dual boot with Windows 7 or 8? I'm also a gamer, and my needs need to be met

4) What do you feel the biggest thing that Mac OS X offers that Windows 7 and/or 8 doesn't?

5) Once I get my machine up and running full throttle, besides upgrading, what won't work?

~raptorxrx

 

[janeman1811]

The audio on that mobo doesn't work, see http://tonymacx86.blogspot.nl/search/label/CustoMac the * by that mobo. Thinks that generally don't work are hot swap SATA, Hd audio (only green jack) and maybe thinks like automatic boot at a certain time, front audio, mainly small things. You can dual boot with windows 7/8 just search for a guide on the forums (some extra steps needed because of chimera) seperate sound cards don't work. Usb ones do. Personally I went with the Z77X-UD5H because of the supported audio controller.

I like OS X beacause of the small things like animations and the overall ease of use factor.

Just make sure to pick some hardware from the CustoMac guide and u will have a good experience with Hackintoshing!

-Jan

 

[runebinder]

Dual booting Windows and OS X is easy enough, I see you're going for a 128GB SSD and 750GB HDD. I take it the plan is to install the operating systems on different drives? 128GB will be too small to fit both on the SSD. I installed each OS with only it's drive connected and then connected both drives once done and Chimera picked both up with no issues.

As to benefits of OS X over Win 7/8 a lot of it is down to preferences in how the Operating Systems work, I have a Mac so making a hack made sense for me as I can use OS X only SW like Aperture for photo editing on my desktop. For gaming etc I still boot into Windows.

 

[raptorxrx]

I saw 50 views and no replies and I started getting worried. And now I find two posts! Awesome

I'm fine with losing some stuff, like front audio, Hot Swap SATA and other little things. I do need audio, however. Microcenter has the Gigabyte Z77 UD5H, and I see that Janeman 1811 has it, can anyone else give me any information on it? The reviews I've found look pretty solid.

I'm fine with using a DAC instead of an internal sound card, I can definitely live with that. I just wouldn't be buying one for a while, and so I would need on-board for a while.

As for the 128gb not being enough for 2 OS'es, I would have to disagree. I used to run Windows on a 30gb SSD just fine, and I've heard that Mac OS X takes closer to 10gb, while my Windows install is around 18gb. I watched Bob Roche's Dual Boot video, and it doesn't look like anything I can't handle, he just showed a very simple re-install of the boot-loader after installing both OS'es.

~raptorxrx

 

[BitterMelon]

As for the 128gb not being enough for 2 OS'es, I would have to disagree. I used to run Windows on a 30gb SSD just fine, and I've heard that Mac OS X takes closer to 10gb, while my Windows install is around 18gb. I watched Bob Roche's Dual Boot video, and it doesn't look like anything I can't handle, he just showed a very simple re-install of the boot-loader after installing both OS'es.

The raw OS, yes. But then you start to fill up with applications, documents, emails and caches (depending on use) which, unless you are really fiddly and keep that off the system drive, will make even a 120 GB drive cramped before long.

 

[Going Bald]

As for the 128gb not being enough for 2 OS'es, I would have to disagree. I used to run Windows on a 30gb SSD just fine, and I've heard that Mac OS X takes closer to 10gb, while my Windows install is around 18gb. I watched Bob Roche's Dual Boot video, and it doesn't look like anything I can't handle, he just showed a very simple re-install of the boot-loader after installing both OS'es.

~raptorxrx

Installing multiple OSs on a single drive is possible (see http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leop...multibooting-novice-updated-3-12-see-log.html) where I use a 160Gb HDD to install 10.6, Win7 and Ubuntu. While it does get crowded after awhile on a HDD, it isn't too bad, but a SSD slows down amazingly when it gets more than 75% loaded. If you are going to multiboot on an SSD I strongly suggest mooving your Users files to an HDD - see http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...reate-move-during-windows-7-installation.html for Win7/8 and http://lnx2mac.blogspot.com/2010/09/moving-os-x-users-to-separate-partition.html for OS X. If you pay real close attention, you can use the same User files for both OSs.

 

[raptorxrx]

Installing multiple OSs on a single drive is possible (see http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leop...multibooting-novice-updated-3-12-see-log.html) where I use a 160Gb HDD to install 10.6, Win7 and Ubuntu. While it does get crowded after awhile on a HDD, it isn't too bad, but a SSD slows down amazingly when it gets more than 75% loaded. If you are going to multiboot on an SSD I strongly suggest mooving your Users files to an HDD - see http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...reate-move-during-windows-7-installation.html for Win7/8 and http://lnx2mac.blogspot.com/2010/09/moving-os-x-users-to-separate-partition.html for OS X. If you pay real close attention, you can use the same User files for both OSs.

Thanks for the link on using User Directories. Since I still haven't purchased my parts yet, I hadn't really looked into how you are supposed to in OS X, I just knew how to in Windows.

As for the SSD slowing down a bunch when it gets crowded, Plextor has mainly gotten around this. Their speeds while "dirty" (loaded) is very similar to the speed blank. I have actually bench marked this before, and I don't think I will have a problem.

~raptorxrx

 

[DBP]

As for the SSD slowing down a bunch when it gets crowded, Plextor has mainly gotten around this. Their speeds while "dirty" (loaded) is very similar to the speed blank. I have actually bench marked this before, and I don't think I will have a problem.

Indeed such a slow-down is not a generic "SSD thing".
Hard drives definitely slow down as the "inside" of the disks fill up, and then seek times get crazy as the filesystem fills up and it looks for files all over the place. But SSDs don't have these issues. Granted, some SSDs such as the OCZ Agility drives use internal free-space management to speed up the drive when there's lots of space (with the result that the drive slows down significantly at several steps along the way to full). But don't paint all SSDs with the same brush.