New Hackintosh Pro - What Can I Salvage?

[CritKlepka]

Hey guys. I currently have a Macbook Pro and a custom built gaming PC, but I would like to have a Hackintosh instead of the gaming PC (or rather, have a computer that can do both). This PC was originally a CyberPower prebuilt machine but the current motherboard and CPU have been replaced by spares my brother had.

These are the parts I currently have in the custom Windows computer:

• Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 5 (MS-7917)
• CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 @ 3.50GHz
• MSI NVIDIA GTX 950
• Unknown brand 2TB hard-drive (brand not relevant I assume)?
• Again, unknown brand of 16GB RAM
• A 600W power supply - Googling the model number returns that its a no-name brand used commonly in prebuilts to save costs.

I have compiled a wishlist on Amazon that I would appreciate if you guys could review too to make sure everything looks good. I want it to be relatively painless and I especially want the iMessage and Handoff features, hence the OSXWIFI card. I didn't realize how old the CPU is in this current computer so I will probably scrap that, but the biggest thing I didn't know if I could carry over was the GPU. I mostly play only World of Warcraft and my framerates are acceptable and I'm happy with the performance, but I'm guessing now the CPU is the bottleneck and would continue to be so in a new build. However, I always see EVGA recommendations and such, but very little info on MSI. Will the MSI GPU work fine in the new build? It'd save me $250 too.

Amazon list: http://a.co/2PMEUGu

One other question; my brother raised the idea of getting a thunderbolt external GPU box like the BizonBox for my Macbook Pro (2016 model, i7, 16GB of RAM). My only concern with that idea would be heat. Or would that be a non-issue? Like I said, my uses are simply World of Warcraft and I will be learning iOS programming soon.

*Edit* I should also mention I want to run the latest version of OSX Sierra.

 

[trs96]

Why not install Sierra on your current Windows PC and see how it performs before buying a whole new system. I'm using a Z97 I5-4690K combo and it works great for El Capitan and Sierra. You won't see a huge performance difference by upgrading to a whole new build. Especially if you're mostly using it for iOS coding. You may want to buy that new Corsair PSU to upgrade your old one. Then you'll be sure it meets Haswell specs.

 

[nobodynose]

Why not install Sierra on your current Windows PC and see how it performs before buying a whole new system. I'm using a Z97 I5-4690K combo and it works great for El Capitan and Sierra. You won't see a huge performance difference by upgrading to a whole new build. Especially if you're mostly using it for iOS coding. You may want to buy that new Corsair PSU to upgrade your old one. Then you'll be sure it meets Haswell specs.

+1

I'm using a somewhat similar system (MSI H97M G43 + i5-4590S) and it performs great under Sierra, just as it did under El Capitan. I would buy an SSD to install macOS on, and leave the rest alone (except maybe a new PSU as trs96 suggested).