What do you think of this build?

[prog]

I'm trying to define the components to make a hackintosh system for audio production (Pro Tools mainly). I'd like to get the most compatible system I can while also powerful for audio. It'd be nice to not have to mess around and just boot from the snow leopard dvd.

So, this is what I've been thinking:

Intel Core i7 950 Processor BX80601950 - 3.06GHz, 8MB L3 Cache, 4.8GT/s QPI, HyperThreading, Quad Core, Bloomfield, LGA 1366, Retail, Fan

Intel DX58SO Motherboard - LGA 1366, Intel X58, SATA, CrossFireX Ready, Triple Channel DDR3 support, RAID, Hyperthreading support

Corsair XMS 6144MB PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz (3x2GB) RAM

Western Digital WD10EALS Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200RPM, 32MB, SATA-3G

(2nd hdd, for audio)
Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200RPM, 64MB, SATA 6Gbs

EVGA 512-P3-N987-TR GeForce 9800 GT Video Card - 512MB GDDR3, PCI Express 2.0, DVI, HDMI, VGA

Lacie 130820 3 Port Firewire 400 PCI Card (I need a Texas Instruments firewire chipset)

Thanks!

 

[SMHI]

CPU: Best you can get for the money TODAY that works well with Mac OS X.

MOTHERBOARD: If you havnt bought it, get a Gigabyte board instead. A Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R, GA-X58A-UD5 or Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7.

MEMORY: Only 6 GB for music? Get 12GB because 6GB isnt much for music making. When I talk about music i mean Cubase with audio of best quality like from Eastwest.

Sata 6 dont give performance gain on mechanical hard drives. Its like throwing money in the bin. Wait till SSD drives come out later this year that has extreme performance. Will come before summer I think. RealSSD drives, or what they are called perform better then SATA2 drives but they are around a year old I think. Is SATA 3/6Gbps supported by Mac OS X by default or do they need kext to work?

AUDIOSTORAGE: In general, get harddrives today with 500GB platters at least.

GRAPHICS CARD: What I can see it will work. wiki/index.php?title=Graphics_Card_Database A tip is to get a card with passive cooling, no sound.

FW CARD: I dont know.

 

[prog]

Hi, thanks for chiming in.

Why do you recommend Gigabyte instead of Intel? I thought Intel would guarantee a better compatibility.

I don't need more ram because Pro Tools is still a 32bit app. Also, I don't use huge sample libraries, mainly mixing live music. When I use a sampler I always bounce to audio anyways.

I considered SSD drives or a velociraptor 10k rpm drive. But I'll be using this system for mixing (and not that many tracks anyway). I don't record more thatn 4 tracks at a time. They cost a lot and there's not a lot of benefit to me. The audio drive has a 64mb cache, that should be enough, wouldn't it?

What graphic card do you suggest with passive cooling? (I definately don't need anything fancy here)

Thanks!

 

[prog]

Opinions?

 

[justr]

The gigabyte boards are being recommended because so many of us have those boards on this forum-- and they work nearly flawlessly with OS X (not to mention they are great for overclocking!).

I haven't checked the wiki, but is your board supported for OS X? You need to make sure; at the very least if you have a problem you'll find tons of people who can help you with a gigabyte board.

Sata II vs 6.0 won't make any difference at the moment-- and not because of the drives. OS X doesn't support full 6.0 speeds... it runs those drives (like C300 SSD) at Sata II speeds.

 

[prog]

The gigabyte boards are being recommended because so many of us have those boards on this forum-- and they work nearly flawlessly with OS X (not to mention they are great for overclocking!).

I haven't checked the wiki, but is your board supported for OS X? You need to make sure; at the very least if you have a problem you'll find tons of people who can help you with a gigabyte board.

Sata II vs 6.0 won't make any difference at the moment-- and not because of the drives. OS X doesn't support full 6.0 speeds... it runs those drives (like C300 SSD) at Sata II speeds.

Thanks!

I thought of those drives because of the cache size (64mb for the audio drive), actually. I think I'll go with the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R now.

 

[justr]

The X58A-UD3R has been treating me well. Works great!

I do want to put in a disclaimer about SATA 6.0. It's almost impossible to envision Apple NOT supporting it in the future, so a board with SATA 6.0 (the UD3R has it) might let you access those wild speeds on SATA 6.0 SSDs down the line.