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Looking for a bit of advice on this build!

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jasonw223

jasonw223

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Hey, I'm looking to put together my first hackintosh! I've built tons of computers - but have yet to try one of these... It'll be for my wife by the way.

Here are the components I was hoping to use:
-----------------------------------------
Intel Core i7 2600k processor
Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z motherboard
2x4gb Mushkin 2133mhz Redline Ridgeback
1gb GTX 560 Ti video card
2x120gb ADATA S510 solid state drives (1 for OS-X, 1 for Windows)
2x1tb WD Caviar Black hard drives (same)
24x Asus DVD-RW
Corsair AX-750 power supply
Antec mini p180 case (white of course)

Now I have most of these parts here already, but I can definitely switch them out for other things if it'll save me some trouble. It seems like everyone on this site really recommends using Gigabyte motherboards in particular, and that is what I'm mainly curious about. I've found a few people on google who seem to have this Maximus board up and running with Lion though, so I'm not sure...

Also, does that hard drive combo look alright? SSD+HDD for both Mac and Windows?
And finally, will that video card be OK, or is there a better option?

Any advice or comments would be great! Thanks!
 
All parts have been bought then switch out Asus drive for SONY Optiarc.

Check user builds for other posts detailing Lion installation on that board.

Parts are fine except that SSD. Stick with trusted brands like OCZ Vertez, Crucial, Samsung, Intel.
 
The reason to get a Gigabyte board is most have the ALC889 audio and 8111E ethernet for guaranteed easy compatibility. I looked at newegg and I could't tell which audio and ethernet your board have. Unless you already own that board, or are getting a crazy good deal on it, I would try and get a gigabyte board, the GA-Z68MX is a comparable mATX board.

Also you mentioned the Vertex 3. There are tons of opinions on this, but the Sandforce 22xx drives have horrible reliability. The Crucial M4 128gb has very high reliability and is regularly only $100 without a rebate. Speed wise it is still very fast 490mbps read, 160 write. Random speeds are better than the Vertex 3 which excels at sustianed read/writes.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820148448

RAM wise, outside of benchmarks, 2133 is waste of money. 1600 is all you need. See here.... http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sand ... -best-ddr3

The 560ti is a great GPU. The 6870 is comparable, and unless you are gaming or using CUDA, it is better for OSX compatibilty.

Also unless you plan on going SLI/Xfire some day, 750watts is overkill. 550w/600w is more than enough for your needs. I run a 2500k OC'd to 4.5ghz and a 6850 with 2 SSD&2HDDs on a 400w Antec Neo Eco and my max consumption with Prime95 and Furmark is 330w (@80% efficiency so really 264w out of my 400w max).

Just some thoughts that could save you money.

Great build BTW.
 
Retired and SOLD
GA-Z77X-UD5H |  i7 3770K |  GeForce GTX TITAN
Portable Power
GA-Z87N-WIFI |  i7 4770K |  GeForce GTX 780 Ti
Right on, thanks for the posts guys! I think I will actually switch to Crucial SSDs instead of these OCZ ones then - I've also heard about reliability problems...

So the motherboard is still my main concern - I was hoping to use the Maximus Gene for a few reasons: I already have an extra, it's pretty deadly looking, and it seems like some other people have tried it successfully. Here's that link again:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... pic=266525
For some reason it puts an underscore beside the ".com" - just delete that and it'll work.

I'm open to switching boards - but would only like to do that if it will really save me a significant amount of time... and honestly I'll trust you guys. This is my first hackintosh, but I am a fairly advanced computer-person - I've actually been building and selling custom PCs for a couple years now...

The RAM and PSU will probably stay, and I do know that they are overkill for sure. I've just got them laying around here. The 750w one was more reasonable than this Antec Quattro 1200w beast that I was thinking about haha.

OK and lastly, for the video card - I don't mind switching at all. Is it just the 6xxx series of Radeon cards that work best? I can get a real good deal on a 6970 right now if that is the case... Also I do have an extra GTX 480 if it's just the GTX 5xx series that is a bit tougher to work with. Thanks again for all your help!
 
69xx cards are not supported.
 
As jester said, you will need a 6850 or 6870 if you go ATI. If you already have a 480, you may as well use it, I think it is supported and it is more powerful than a 68xx series anyway. You just need the NVIDIA update in multibeast to use it.

The main advantage of the 6850/70 is that they are identical to the 6970m in the iMac 12.2 so they get easy software compatibility, but you sound experienced so getting an NVIDIA card to work shouldn't be hard for you, just read the right posts.
 
Retired and SOLD
GA-Z77X-UD5H |  i7 3770K |  GeForce GTX TITAN
Portable Power
GA-Z87N-WIFI |  i7 4770K |  GeForce GTX 780 Ti
OZC SSDs especially the Agility 3 series are know to have higher failure rate then average. Lately I notice online retailers are discounting Agility 3 to undercut other brands. The Vertex 3 / 4 uses higher quality memory chips and should be better durablility.

I just got myself a SanDisk Extreme 240Gb SSD. It still uses Sandforce controller. Sandisk has its own fab and they have the first pick from the production line. They uses more premium toggle mode chips in the Extreme SDD. I am so happy with my first SSD from Sandisk I also upgrade my MacBookPro 5,5 and another one in a Windows based HTPC.
 
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