New Build: trying for quick setup, reliable operation...

[gronk]

Looking for advice. I'm a long-time reader but this is my first post.

Background:
I'm a designer. Had a MacPro but dumped it to pay the bills. Looking for similar performance on day-to-day design tasks but don't need all 8 cores of headroom (why bother when Adobe has no idea what to do with them).

Aims:
- Quick build (I've serviced/rebuilt Macs my whole life, this my first with PC parts)
- Mac-like experience, but I can deal with certain drawbacks
- Day-to-day reliability is more important than top-end performance

Selected parts (Microcenter):
Intel Corporation Core i7 860 Processor Boxed, SKU: 292144, $199.99
- Secretly, I really want the 27" iMac, so my aim is to match that level of performance, and be able to toss in my RAID drives
- My understanding is that I don't need to buy extra cooling if I'm building and running stock

Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 LGA 1156 P55 ATX Motherboard, SKU: 560847, $129.99
- I like the forward mobility of SATA3 because I like to push around large files, assuming that works someday
- I like the basic functionality of this board, but I'm not at all married to it.

EVGA GeForce 9800GT 512MB PCIe 2.0 x16 Graphics Card, SKU: 563171, $109.99
- This will be upgraded when I'm comfy with the build, but my take is that this card is plug-n-play

Corsair XMS3 DOMINATOR 4GB DDR3, 1600MHz 2x240 DIMM, Unbuffered, 8-8-8-24 - with DHX - Core I7, Core i5 and Core 2, SKU: 494724, $169.99
- From what I can tell these sticks have performed well for people

Antec Earthwatts 750W ATX Power Supply, SKU: 101675, $149.99
- I know nothing about power supplies. Will this push 8 SATA drives? Says it can, but I don't trust spec sheets

Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case, SKU: 473454, $49.99
- Not my ideal case at all. But it's cheap and will get me off the ground.

Extra Credit: I'm assuming that I can transfer my PCI-X 2224 Rocket Raid card into this box and it will show up under the Mac (after installing proper drivers on the Mac side). Does anyone have any experience with a similar situation? Would this require any BIOS editing? Or does it just show up on the PCI bus like any other device?

Interested in any feedback, thumbs up or thumbs down.

Love the site, keep up the good work. Will report back when I go through with this.

 

[jimx86]

What you have is basically the ideal build for a mac. I'm not sure about the extra credit though.

What DVD drive are you looking towards?

 

[Lnx2Mac]

Looking for advice. I'm a long-time reader but this is my first post.

Welcome !

Selected parts (Microcenter):
Intel Corporation Core i7 860 Processor Boxed, SKU: 292144, $199.99
- Secretly, I really want the 27" iMac, so my aim is to match that level of performance, and be able to toss in my RAID drives
- My understanding is that I don't need to buy extra cooling if I'm building and running stock

Do yourself a favor... Get an OEM (without stock cooler) CPU...
The Stock cooler is junk, but in terms of thermal & noise...

EVGA GeForce 9800GT 512MB PCIe 2.0 x16 Graphics Card, SKU: 563171, $109.99
- This will be upgraded when I'm comfy with the build, but my take is that this card is plug-n-play

I guess this should be OK for you. Not sure you'll have to upgrade it.
However, if you do plan on upgrading, and are picking this just for the installation, then get a cheap 9400 instead...

Corsair XMS3 DOMINATOR 4GB DDR3, 1600MHz 2x240 DIMM, Unbuffered, 8-8-8-24 - with DHX - Core I7, Core i5 and Core 2, SKU: 494724, $169.99
- From what I can tell these sticks have performed well for people

Check these out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231321
Lovely G.Skill Eco 1600@CL7... $114.99 !
Cheaper and better than the Dominator...

Antec Earthwatts 750W ATX Power Supply, SKU: 101675, $149.99
- I know nothing about power supplies. Will this push 8 SATA drives? Says it can, but I don't trust spec sheets

I think that should be enough...

Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case, SKU: 473454, $49.99
- Not my ideal case at all. But it's cheap and will get me off the ground.

Yep.

Extra Credit: I'm assuming that I can transfer my PCI-X 2224 Rocket Raid card into this box and it will show up under the Mac (after installing proper drivers on the Mac side). Does anyone have any experience with a similar situation? Would this require any BIOS editing? Or does it just show up on the PCI bus like any other device?

Have no idea about this one...

Good Luck with your Build !
Lnx2Mac

 

[gronk]

What DVD drive are you looking towards?

Good point, I knew I was forgetting something. I have an ATA Pioneer burner (-111 I think), but I'm pretty sure I saw a note that the ATA bus typically doesn't boot SL for install purposes. My plan was to grab a run-of-the-mill SATA burner (preferably Pioneer) when I'm buying everything else and then not take it out of the box until the ATA burner route has failed. Perhaps I should pay more attention to this small detail...

 

[gronk]

EVGA GeForce 9800GT 512MB PCIe 2.0 x16 Graphics Card, SKU: 563171, $109.99
- This will be upgraded when I'm comfy with the build, but my take is that this card is plug-n-play

I guess this should be OK for you. Not sure you'll have to upgrade it.
However, if you do plan on upgrading, and are picking this just for the installation, then get a cheap 9400 instead...

Good to know. The 9800 is in my initial price range and can handle 9/10 of what I'll throw at it. Maybe if it's all I need I just drop it in now.

If I actually upgrade I may head towards a massive upgrade like the Quadro FX but only because I have hard evidence that I'll need the horsepower and that it will be used. All the cards in the lower ranges seem to give similar performance and there's no telling how good the support for a particular card is regardless of it's horsepower.

Basically, I've lost confidence in Apple and Adobe production apps utilizing available horsepower until I've seen a real-world difference. I do mostly print work and image retouching, but I dabble in 3D animation and video work. I've had bad luck over the past few years with poor app performance when there's massive available hardware headroom. To say the least, I'm pretty skeptical about needing more than just a strong card and leaving the fashionable cards for suckers with cash to burn.

 

[s0ldats]

i have the same case and processor. with 2 intake fans, and the included exhaust fans, my cores are running at a scalding 32-35ËšC!! (web browsing / music). in games it'll get up to the low 40's.

the HSF i'm using is the coolermaster 212+, but i've also heard good things about that mugen.

as far as install, with your setup, it will be as painless as it gets. after assembling the computer, it took 32 minutes from bios setup to my 2nd reboot after multibeast. (and i was dilly dallying in the bios menu for a while!)

used the retail 10.6.3 disc.

thanks tony and the forum!!

 

[tinkerC]

For graphics, I found one, the EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ Video Card, for 100 dollars on Tiger Direct.

For DVD drive, pick a 20 dollar one, none come cheaper, like the LG GH22NS40B DVD Writer, also from tiger direct. Good luck with your build,

Tom

 

[s0ldats]

i've heard people having problems with LG drives in the scope of hackintosh, so be wary.

 

[Lnx2Mac]

Beware of LG... viewtopic.php?t=1100

 

[flatfoot]

@OP: The RAID card should work since it's Mac compatible (as you know) and there are PCI slots on your board, which the card is compatible with.