What do you think of this build? $5000 Video Editing Machine

[sammybee]

Currently have a maxed out iMac 5k late 2014 and it just isn't cutting it anymore. It'll be for video editing 99% of the time but I would like to have something with enough power for Cinema4d and then some as well. I'd love to get one of the newer CPU's from intel that are similarly priced but they're not compatible yet I'm assuming?

The display I'm still not entirely sure on, I defiantly want a curved monitor (that real estate would be incredibly useful for the programs I use), would love something with 10bit depth but I haven't found a suitable curved monitor under 1.5k that has true 10bit.

I'm also not sure if I'm better off just getting a Geforce 1080 and buying another for duel later on or just getting a 1080 TI. Will defiantly be doing some gaming on this to.

What do you think? Would love to hear some suggestions, wanting to keep this under $6000


Intel Core i7-6900K 3.2GHz 8-Core Processor
Corsair H100i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Gigabyte GA-X99-Designare EX ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-2666 Memory
Kingston SSDNow UV400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive[
Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Asus GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB STRIX GAMING Video Card
Thermaltake View 27 ATX Mid Tower Case
EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Samsung S34E790C 34.0" 3440x1440 60Hz Monitor

 

[trs96]

It can be done. Here's a Sierra Guide based on that motherboard. The author even provides his EFI folder for you.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-gigabyte-x99-ga-x99-designare-ex-i7-6950x.214481/

Still if this is your first hackintosh you've got a lot of studying to do before you begin the install. This process is much more complicated than installing Windows 10 on a PC. Takes a lot of time and patience.

 

[sammybee]

It can be done. Here's a Sierra Guide based on that motherboard. The author even provides his EFI folder for you.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-gigabyte-x99-ga-x99-designare-ex-i7-6950x.214481/

Still if this is your first hackintosh you've got a lot of studying to do before you begin the install. This process is much more complicated than installing Windows 10 on a PC. Takes a lot of time and patience.

That's brilliant! Thanks for linking me to it.

Defiantly not taking this lightly, haha I've seen how quickly hackintosh's can turn from a dream machine into a nightmare for 3 days while you try and fix something. I'm still not completely happy with my current configuration yet either... any recommendations?

 

[sammybee]

Quickly, you could consider X299 with 10 cores for not much more. It'll give you way better upgrades in the future and the new Macs are using that mobo, so good compatibility.

Mainly I wanted to talk about the screen.
I have a Dell 34" (3440x1440) curved screen and the colour accuracy is outstanding! I'd check out the accuracy of the colours on anything you buy. I also have a Dell 27" screen beside it because it's the same 1440 pixels deep. I got it cheap

On the next mac pro vein, they're going to have the radeon vega GPU, so if you can afford it, that'd be a safe bet.

Didn't even think about that, any boards you'd suggest? I was mainly going with the x99 because of it's thunderbolt compatibility.

It's not the Dell U3415W is it? Looking at that one right now. Defiantly want something with the highest color accuracy I can possibly get on a curved screen!

Honestly Radeons cards have been underwhelming for me, and for what I use program wise they take advantage of the Nvidia cards more than they do with Radeons lineup.

 

[sammybee]

Personally I'd get the Gigabyte Aorus gaming 9. It has thunderbolt as well, but it's really expensive. Some of the Asus have thunderbolt too. The 10 core 2066 is cheaper than the older 10 core.
Personal experience, overclocked intel chips work really well for me as opposed to xeons. My software uses a mix of single cores and sometimes all cores for rendering, so i7 is perfect.

Yes the Dell U3415W is great! The best colour out of all the consumer screens by far.

I guess we need to wait until it's been tested to find out about the vega. It'd work brilliant with my CAD software so is a no brainer for me.

Yea defiantly a little to expensive for me, haha. I'll look into some alternatives though because I'd defiantly want to future proof this setup as much as possible. I actually looked into duel xeons but most of what I read the i7 usually outperforms. Glad to hear the i7's working out well for you, I was on the fence about it. Not sure if I'll go with the i7 I've listed though seems a little excessive.

Sweet! Added to my cart, looks like the one I'll go for then. To bad we don't get the newer version of it over here in Aus/NZ.

For cad it would defiantly be amazing! If I wasn't primarily going video I'd probably hold-off on this build in case of compatibility with it but I doubt Adobe will take advantage of it :/.

 

[NoLooseEnds]

Hi, how did this build go?

 

[sammybee]

Hi, how did this build go?

It's been great! It did take me awhile to get it stable enough to be my daily machine but that mostly came down to my lack of hackintoshing experience. I've been using in since August of last year and once I worked out the kinks it's been incredibly stable since.

I'd only change one thing about my build and that would be getting a 3 fan water cooler as I'm limited in my overclock due to temps but other than that I've been loving it.

 

[NoLooseEnds]

Happy to hear that!

Especially since I'm thinking about doing my first Hackintosh build as something similar. May I ask what the major kinks you worked out was? Does it still have any that you did not get sorted? And what is the noise level?

And I guess it is pretty similar specced as the new iMac Pro (base model), would you consider buying the iMac Pro instead today?

 

[sammybee]

Happy to hear that!

Especially since I'm thinking about doing my first Hackintosh build as something similar. May I ask what the major kinks you worked out was? Does it still have any that you did not get sorted? And what is the noise level?

And I guess it is pretty similar specced as the new iMac Pro (base model), would you consider buying the iMac Pro instead today?

Hey sorry for just responding now I haven't been on here for awhile.

The major kinks for myself really just came down to user error and experimenting as this was my first Hackintosh build but for the most part, I followed this guide. I did have a few issues with CPU power management which I initially couldn't get to work properly (crashing during high CPU load, random crashes for no reason etc) I did end up getting it somewhat working however as at idle the hack definitely uses less power. Other than the CPU power management which isn't a necessity for desktops (especially production machines) like it is for laptops the only other issue I have had was with sound which is still ongoing; sound will occasionally cutout for a few seconds although this is most definitely due to one of my sound kexts.

The actual noise of the machine has been fantastic! I've got 6+ fans in my machine including the ones sitting under the water cooler and it's incredibly quiet even while editing. The only time I really hear the fans is while doing something CPU intensive. This isn't something that I would be to concerned with if I were you as fan speed is something you can let the Motherboard handle and not the OS so if you have decent fans and a quiet case you should be ok.

Speaking as someone who religiously bought only Apple computers I honestly don't think I would. I love Apples ecosystems and their operating system but I can't justify spending their prices on something I won't be able to change and adapt to my needs.

 

[NoLooseEnds]

Thanks. Good to hear others experience.

I'm also very invested in Apples ecosystem, but I can't justify the cost for a desktop system. If I was buying another laptop, that would be a totally different story.

So I'm pretty sure I'm going the hackintosh route, but I'm still researching. I'm also a bit on the fence/curious about whats going to happen with the CPU prices/releases around the meltdown and spectre issues.