Ready to upgrade aging Hackintosh - seeking advice

[ShavenYak]

My current specs are in my signature. I've got some tax refund money on the way and am wanting to move up to Sandy Bridge. I had a bear of a time upgrading to Mountain Lion and am hoping to endure somewhat less pain in my hardware upgrade. For anyone else who has gone from P55 to Sandy - am I hoping for too much to think I can install the new board/CPU, hook everything up, reboot from a Unibeast disc, run Multibeast to install new kexts, and then reboot from my existing HD with everything intact and working?

I'm leanind toward a Gigabyte H77 and i5-3570. I'm not really interested in overclocking, but am I losing anything else by going this way instead of the Z77 and a 3570K? I'm not sure about video right now - I have a GT240 card with 512MB that I could keep using, but if it's not any better than the Intel HD4000 on the i5 I may just eBay it with the old board. Thoughts? Or should I spend another $90 or so and buy a GT640?

 

[Solidww]

My current specs are in my signature. I've got some tax refund money on the way and am wanting to move up to Sandy Bridge. I had a bear of a time upgrading to Mountain Lion and am hoping to endure somewhat less pain in my hardware upgrade. For anyone else who has gone from P55 to Sandy - am I hoping for too much to think I can install the new board/CPU, hook everything up, reboot from a Unibeast disc, run Multibeast to install new kexts, and then reboot from my existing HD with everything intact and working?

I'm leanind toward a Gigabyte H77 and i5-3570. I'm not really interested in overclocking, but am I losing anything else by going this way instead of the Z77 and a 3570K? I'm not sure about video right now - I have a GT240 card with 512MB that I could keep using, but if it's not any better than the Intel HD4000 on the i5 I may just eBay it with the old board. Thoughts? Or should I spend another $90 or so and buy a GT640?

I know your pain moving to 10.8.2 with a P55 set-up. Grrrrr.

The small price difference between k and regular 3570 is worth it. Since, your not needing a lot of graphics performance then it will be fine for you. Why, spend more for something you don't need?
Do you need a full size board? Then, Z77 will be better for the long haul as they offer more ATX board choices usually.

Anything other questions?

Enjoy, the new hardware and happy Ebay selling of the older items.

 

[Going Bald]

My current specs are in my signature. I've got some tax refund money on the way and am wanting to move up to Sandy Bridge. I had a bear of a time upgrading to Mountain Lion and am hoping to endure somewhat less pain in my hardware upgrade. For anyone else who has gone from P55 to Sandy - am I hoping for too much to think I can install the new board/CPU, hook everything up, reboot from a Unibeast disc, run Multibeast to install new kexts, and then reboot from my existing HD with everything intact and working?

I'm leanind toward a Gigabyte H77 and i5-3570. I'm not really interested in overclocking, but am I losing anything else by going this way instead of the Z77 and a 3570K? I'm not sure about video right now - I have a GT240 card with 512MB that I could keep using, but if it's not any better than the Intel HD4000 on the i5 I may just eBay it with the old board. Thoughts? Or should I spend another $90 or so and buy a GT640?

Hang onto the GT240. There may come a day you need an old card to install with until you get drivers installed for that latest high powered gfx card that unfortunately won't let you install with it in place (HD68xx series for example).

You need the K version of the i5 3570 to get HD4000 - the non-K has HD2500. HD2500 is noncompatible (which is strange when you consider some iMacs and mini's have HD2500)

 

[ShavenYak]

Thanks, guys. I didn't realize that the non-K used the 2500 for graphics, I was thinking the only difference was the multiplier being unlocked. But, I've done a little poking around at benchmark results and it looks like the GT240 still outperforms the HD4000, so a) I'll keep the GT240, and b) I still don't really need the K CPU.

But, the Gigabyte H77 ATX board uses VIA audio, which I believe is unsupported, so I will probably get the Z77-DS3H. And if I get the Z, I may as well spend the extra $10 on the K CPU.

 

[Solidww]

Thanks, guys. I didn't realize that the non-K used the 2500 for graphics, I was thinking the only difference was the multiplier being unlocked. But, I've done a little poking around at benchmark results and it looks like the GT240 still outperforms the HD4000, so a) I'll keep the GT240, and b) I still don't really need the K CPU.

But, the Gigabyte H77 ATX board uses VIA audio, which I believe is unsupported, so I will probably get the Z77-DS3H. And if I get the Z, I may as well spend the extra $10 on the K CPU.

Very well said!