New build advice using some older components

[arke1]

Hi guys,

So I'm seriously thinking of taking the plunge and building my first Hackintosh (newbie warning). I'm a self-employed designer & creative director who does everything from design for print media, high-end retouching and image creation to ui/ux design and full animated explainer videos. So with that being said, having some decent grunt in my machine is extremely important to me but so is reliability...I operate a business after all.

I currently have the following systems:

1. 3/4 year old PC Workstation which includes i7 2700k CPU, 32GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333 RAM, Gainward GTX770 Video, 128GB Crucial M4 SSD, 5TB in HDD's (Seagate and WD), 750W Silverstone PSU. Monitors are brand new Dell 4K P2715Q and the old U2711. I built this system myself as I used to do IT work on the side but it still runs beautifully/hoons along.

2. Brand new Macbook Pro i7, 16GB, 512SSD, GT750M etc.

Just recently I made the decision to go back to using OS X exclusively for all my creative work and was hoping the newly purchased Macbook Pro would cut it but unfortunately it doesn't. I have this in place as my main system in clamshell mode and have it hooked to both of my 27" monitors. I find it to be quite laggy and the system has failed to meet my expectations for a primary workstation. I'm guessing some of those problems maybe stemming from the poor video and limited ram. I've also had to migrate majority of my working files to the NAS due to storage limitations on macbook - this also doesn't seem optimal.

So what I'd like to do is to perhaps salvage some of the components from my existing PC and build a half decent Hackintosh. The Hackintosh will be used for both work and some gaming so I'd also like to dual boot with Windows. I'm thinking I could get away with using the following parts from existing system:

32GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333 RAM
Gainward GTX770 Video
128GB Crucial M4 SSD (windows drive)
5TB in HDD's used for storage and scratch (Seagate and WD)
750W Silverstone PSU

Then I could purchase the following new components:

Core i7-4790K
Samsung 850 EVO/PRO 250GB (os x drive)
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H

So my question is how would these go for compatibility? Obviously the new components are well supported but how about the items from old system?

Also how reliable are these Hackintosh systems? What is the likelihood of them completely crashing due to updates for example? And are these issues easily recoverable? I'd hate to have this happen mid project.

Where are we at in the lifecycle of these new components? Is x99 support just around the corner? I guess what I'm asking is, should I hold out for a bit longer and wait for new Mac Pro releases?

Your advice will be most appreciated.

 

[Jakepro25]

Hi guys,

So I'm seriously thinking of taking the plunge and building my first Hackintosh (newbie warning). I'm a self-employed designer & creative director who does everything from design for print media, high-end retouching and image creation to ui/ux design and full animated explainer videos. So with that being said, having some decent grunt in my machine is extremely important to me but so is reliability...I operate a business after all.

I currently have the following systems:

1. 3/4 year old PC Workstation which includes i7 2700k CPU, 32GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333 RAM, Gainward GTX770 Video, 128GB Crucial M4 SSD, 5TB in HDD's (Seagate and WD), 750W Silverstone PSU. Monitors are brand new Dell 4K P2715Q and the old U2711. I built this system myself as I used to do IT work on the side but it still runs beautifully/hoons along.

2. Brand new Macbook Pro i7, 16GB, 512SSD, GT750M etc.

Just recently I made the decision to go back to using OS X exclusively for all my creative work and was hoping the newly purchased Macbook Pro would cut it but unfortunately it doesn't. I have this in place as my main system in clamshell mode and have it hooked to both of my 27" monitors. I find it to be quite laggy and the system has failed to meet my expectations for a primary workstation. I'm guessing some of those problems maybe stemming from the poor video and limited ram. I've also had to migrate majority of my working files to the NAS due to storage limitations on macbook - this also doesn't seem optimal.

So what I'd like to do is to perhaps salvage some of the components from my existing PC and build a half decent Hackintosh. The Hackintosh will be used for both work and some gaming so I'd also like to dual boot with Windows. I'm thinking I could get away with using the following parts from existing system:

32GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 1333 RAM
Gainward GTX770 Video
128GB Crucial M4 SSD (windows drive)
5TB in HDD's used for storage and scratch (Seagate and WD)
750W Silverstone PSU

Everything looks fine apart from the ram, by today's standards it is quite slow and you can get some descent 1600, 1866 or 2400 mhz ram quite cheap now (last time i checked).

Then I could purchase the following new components:

Core i7-4790K
Samsung 850 EVO/PRO 250GB (os x drive)
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H

Looks good , but i always say this, if your not overclocking, don't buy the"K" models of CPU's or anything like that. Just get the normal 4970 and save yourself some cash.

Also how reliable are these Hackintosh systems? What is the likelihood of them completely crashing due to updates for example? And are these issues easily recoverable? I'd hate to have this happen mid project.

Very rare once you have set it up correctly, if they are done properly then they only crash as often as a mac does.

Where are we at in the lifecycle of these new components? Is x99 support just around the corner? I guess what I'm asking is, should I hold out for a bit longer and wait for new Mac Pro releases?

Your advice will be most appreciated.

There will be x99 support maybe soon, but there isn't much difference between x99 and x79 performance wise, so don't be concerned about that.

Jake

 

[Going Bald]

What is your mainboard on the 3/4 year old system? If the build is that new you should be able to install OS X on it with little or no problems, depending on the board and on-board chipsets. The i7 2700K is a fairly powerful CPU and has HD3000 gfx onboard, which will make it much easier to install OS X before reinstalling the GPU if you have trouble installing with it installed and have to remove it.

 

[arke1]

Some great advice so far guys thank you.

Going bald - totally forgot about that! The board is an Asrock z77 Extreme4. How do they go for support?

Any other comments are most welcome.

 

[samisnake]

thatll work

 

[Going Bald]

Some great advice so far guys thank you.

Going bald - totally forgot about that! The board is an Asrock z77 Extreme4. How do they go for support?

Any other comments are most welcome.

You will need to use NullCPUPowerManagement kext to prevent KP on AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext loading or patch the BIOS to unlock MSR, but the build you have now will do just fine.

If you don't care about sleep or speed step I would just install NullCPU and forget about it.

 

[arke1]

Sleep and speed step are of no real importance to me. I'll give it a go with existing system and new SSD for OS X drive and see how I go...hopefully it's a fairly straightforward procedure.

How do I go about creating the dual boot? Can I just simply load yosemite to the new SSD and the dual boot will function by selecting drive on boot?

 

[Going Bald]

Sleep and speed step are of no real importance to me. I'll give it a go with existing system and new SSD for OS X drive and see how I go...hopefully it's a fairly straightforward procedure.

How do I go about creating the dual boot? Can I just simply load yosemite to the new SSD and the dual boot will function by selecting drive on boot?

You could do that, using the function hotkey to select a boot device at boot, but it is easier just to set the OS X drive as first in BBS boot order and select the Windows drive from the Chimera or Clover boot screen.

First thing to do is determine if Windows in installed Legacy mode or UEFI.
Open the disk management tool as if you were going to partition a new HDD and look at the Windows drive - how many partitions in front of the NTFS c:\ partition? If one partition, it is installed Legacy if 2 or 3 it is installed UEFI. If UEFI use Clover for the boot loader. If Legacy use Chimera.

 

[arke1]

I'll give that a shot Going Bald. Thanks for your assistance so far! Will let you guys know how I get on.

 

[arke1]

You will need to use NullCPUPowerManagement kext to prevent KP on AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext loading or patch the BIOS to unlock MSR, but the build you have now will do just fine.

If you don't care about sleep or speed step I would just install NullCPU and forget about it.

Ok, Yosemite has been loaded...all working fine for the most part aside from a few drivers and things missing audio/ethernet etc.

I've got MultiBeast loaded and am just wondering where to from here? What should I load/run to finish off the installation and get everything working/stable? Can I just simply run one of the prebuilt configurations "easybeast" for example, install the few drivers that aren't loaded and everything will be fine?