x99 instead of 1151 - worth the trouble?

[kreispendl]

hi everyone and thanks for reading!
i'm coming from an early 2008 mac pro (8 core) and i don't want to put any more money into upgrading the system.. so it's time for a new computer.. unfortunately apple isn't showing us love and i have to move on..
i have a small business (media production) - so i need an all rounder system.
i'm aware that an overclocked 6700k will easily outperform my current 8-core (2.8 GHz xeon) system in most tasks.. however - 6 cores would be preferable.. and more pci lanes plus quad-channel ram sounds good too..

however - from all the builds i researched i couldn't really see how performant/stable the x99 platform runs as a hackintosh.. i mean there is no mac product available using that platform.. so i'm hasitent..

i've listed the system i'm planing below.
would it be worth the trouble to go with the x99? it should be as stable a system as can be (i'm aware it's a hackintosh.. but you know.. as stable as can be.. ).. is it stable once i get it to run and skip updates to the os?

any help very very welcome!
thanks.
gernot

Fractal Design R5,
be quiet! BN236 E10-CM-700 W,
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU,
Gigabite GA-Z170X-UD3 vs Asus X99-A
Intel I7 6700k vs Intel I7 6850k
XFX RX-480 8GB DDR5 (or 280x?.. possibly dual?),
Ballistix Sport LT 32GB DDR4 2400,
Samsung 850 EVO SSD 1TB vs. Samsung SSD 960 Evo NVMe M.2 1 TB (maybe.. worth the trouble?),
Seagate BarraCuda Pro 6 TB,
StarTech 2 Port 1394a (have a firewire audio interface)

 

[Adrian B]

Hi @kreispendl ,
Welcome to Tonymacx86!

Some X99 hardware does work very well - like the ASUS X99-A that you list has a few working builds around the forum that are easy to search for.As a platform X99 is often much more time consuming to get it up and running - it can be quite frustrating and is considered better as a non production rig due to the lack of X99 support within macOS. If you need to use macOS in a production environment then you do need to think carefully about this.

The AMD cards need a helper card to boot on regular PC hardware - there are a number of issues that surround this - remember that X99 integrated graphics are non existent. FCPX may chose the starter card as the GPU to use.

Read and above all ask other Asus X99-A users about their own experience.

Good luck

 

[kreispendl]

thanks adrian!

i guess that's the main question: if i get it to run, will the system be as stable as an 1151 system.

i thought the r9 280x were oob and working great with finalcut and motion etc? i know that the current gen amd cards aren't well supported yet.. and for the adobe side of thingsa gtx 970 would be the better choice anyway.. oh well.. i guess that's all part of the fun of hackintoshing.. so i better learn to enjoy this

 

[Adrian B]

thanks adrian!

i guess that's the main question: if i get it to run, will the system be as stable as an 1151 system.

From what I have read it certainly looks like it can be. I don't have an X99 system to comment on and give you my own personal experience from - so I advise that you address your questions to those that will share their own experiences.

i thought the r9 280x were oob and working great with finalcut and motion etc? i know that the current gen amd cards aren't well supported yet.. and for the adobe side of thingsa gtx 970 would be the better choice anyway.. oh well.. i guess that's all part of the fun of hackintoshing.. so i better learn to enjoy this

Adobe will actually run fine with AMD hardware and you can use nvidia graphics with FCPX - it just takes longer to complete each project.

If you went with socket 1151 and a GTX 970 (or similar) it will run rings around the old Mac Pro from 2008. If you then decide to have two working machines each focused on either FCPX or Adobe then you end up with a backup computer if something goes wrong with the other - food for thought!

 

[Fl0r!an]

The 280X works OOB, it'll "just" break sleep/wake, but I guess that won't work on the X99 system anyway.

 

[kreispendl]

Thanks for the info flOr!ian. i guess i could live without sleep/wake functionality..

more worried about future support of nvidia. future web driver support doesn't seem certain. after all there aren't many macs left out there using nvidia gpus (that aren't Hackintoshes)..

my guess would be that the coming imacs will use some sort of 460/70/80x polaris gpu and thus support for amd graphics should become better this year.. but it's a guess.. and i guess speculations right now won't help much..

and i also guess waiting for the 7700k won't make much of a difference - right?.. just more untested variables that might leed to more problems?

 

[Adrian B]

There is a testing thread for the new hardware - performance increase is in single figures even in Windows at present. There is an early adopters testing thread for the newest hardware so we can see what issues that we need to overcome - this will remain an ongoing process for a few months yet.
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...aby-lake-cpus-200-series-motherboards.211743/