Xeon powered workstation $3550 of Crazy

[philz]

I'm looking to build a real alternative to a Mac Pro.

Looking for dual-hexacore Xeon's and a OSX compatible motherboard. I've seen some things about EVGA's SR2 but no one actually explaining how to get it working... Any other board confirmed solid/stable/simple?

Any suggestions on parts? Builds budget is $3550.

So far only "Solid" picks I have are:
3x 120GB Sandforce based SSD's
3x 2TB WD Black Drives (or seagate better? I always was seagate before)
24 GB's of RAM
6xxx AMD GPU

I know this sounds batcrazy machine, but I do a lot of heaving design work. Anything from massive multi-gigabyte photoshop files to Final Cut Pro. Also starting to learn After Effects for some upcoming projects.

Of course I'll play the occasional game in windows

I'm not new to hackintosh world, so not like i'm a befumbling idiot... I do own mac's two, currently have the 27in iMac i7 2.93ghz with ssd/hd, though that will be sold once this is up and running

 

[jpa]

see my list in signature, build

 

[samisnake]

see my list in signature, build

your build doesnt seem like anything close to what he is proposing.


@philz, what is the mac pro with similar specs looking to run you back in $?
havent ever heard of a dual xeon hackintosh before, but your budget seems quite high, real mac pro money.
why build a hackintosh when the real thing is an easily viable option?

 

[jpa]

mmmm build hack pro, 4core normal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzxDAL_bwOo

 

[philz]

see my list in signature, build

your build doesnt seem like anything close to what he is proposing.


@philz, what is the mac pro with similar specs looking to run you back in $?
havent ever heard of a dual xeon hackintosh before, but your budget seems quite high, real mac pro money.
why build a hackintosh when the real thing is an easily viable option?

The closet I can get is the Westmere 2.93ghz hexacore chips, in a dual configuration would set me back $6200, not including ram or gpu or storage configuration.

I can also get a build with a single processor I want, the Westmere 3.33ghz hexacore, that'll set me back $3699, again not factoring in ram or gpu or storage configuration

Yes it's an awesome case, build, layout, support, works out of the box..... but the power is just not there! I need at least a geekbench score of 20,000 in a way for what I'm doing.

 

[philz]

mmmm build hack pro, 4core normal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzxDAL_bwOo

Looks like a great build, but it's nothing better than my current iMac (just slightly faster processor speeds).

I know what I want, and I stated that... I'm looking for at least a hexacore (if using consumer chips the extreme edition 990/980x), and what I'd really like is a dual-hexacore setup. It's a world of diffrince performance wise between your setup and what I'm looking to build...!

The three SSD's will be dived up like this:

• OSX Lion/Snow (I'm a dev)[/*:m:38ms03km]
• Scratch disk (yes a whole SSD dedicated to that)[/*:m:38ms03km]
• Windows (for the occasional game)[/*:m:38ms03km]

I might even get a hardware raid card for the 2tb drives, putting them into raid 5. As my extra storage (non-crazy work, like DSLR raw files, HD footage that's not being edited, etc).

Yes I'm looking for crazy, but I need it!

 

[jpa]

mmm cpu.
Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core

suppot
wiki/index.php/CPU_Database

Not yet

 

[philz]

mmm cpu.
Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core

suppot
wiki/index.php/CPU_Database

Not yet

It should work, it's older brother the 980X (also hexa) does according to that list...

It's still not really what I want, it's the if nothing else works option (which is to just buy a new iMac probably...)

I really am looking for info on dual-CPU boards... Do you have any idea on that JPA?

 

[jpa]

mmm cpu.
Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core

suppot
wiki/index.php/CPU_Database

Not yet

It should work, it's older brother the 980X (also hexa) does according to that list...

It's still not really what I want, it's the if nothing else works option (which is to just buy a new iMac probably...)

I really am looking for info on dual-CPU boards... Do you have any idea on that JPA?

ahh yes, works 980X
mmm I have no idea of dual cpu, if you need to spend much money on a hack pro? to do a very good 2500$

Refers builds,
viewforum.php?f=54

or

Sandy Bridge
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=18178

My ideas:
Build 1
Core i7-980X
GA-X58A-UD3R 2.0 or GA-X58A-UD7 2.0
CORSAIR Vengeance 24GB (6 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler or H70
XFX HD-587X-ZNFV Radeon HD 5870 or GIGABYTE GV-R687OC-1GD Radeon HD 6870
240 GB or 120 GB or 180 GB Mushkin Callisto Deluxe SATAII Solid State Drive - HDD OSX
1TB x 4 (x units) Samsung Spinpoint F3 Hard Drives - Backups
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S-0B
LG UH10LS20 Blu-ray Disc Combo
nMEDIAPC ZE-C128 Black Aluminum Panel
Corsair TX850W PSU v2

Build 2
Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz
ASUS P8P67 DELUXE or PRO
CORSAIR Vengeance 24GB (6 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
CORSAIR CWCH50-1 High Performance CPU Cooler or H70
XFX HD-587X-ZNFV Radeon HD 5870 or GIGABYTE GV-R687OC-1GD Radeon HD 6870
240 GB or 120 GB or 180 GB Mushkin Callisto Deluxe SATAII Solid State Drive - HDD OSX
1TB x 4 (x units) Samsung Spinpoint F3 Hard Drives - Backups
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S-0B
LG UH10LS20 Blu-ray Disc Combo
nMEDIAPC ZE-C128 Black Aluminum Panel
Corsair TX850W PSU v2

 

[philz]

mmm cpu.
Intel Core i7-970 Gulftown 3.2GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core

suppot
wiki/index.php/CPU_Database

Not yet

It should work, it's older brother the 980X (also hexa) does according to that list...

It's still not really what I want, it's the if nothing else works option (which is to just buy a new iMac probably...)

I really am looking for info on dual-CPU boards... Do you have any idea on that JPA?

ahh yes, works 980X
mmm I have no idea of dual cpu, if you need to spend much money on a hack pro? to do a very good 2500$

Refers builds,
viewforum.php?f=54

I actually do need to spend that much... As I said, for what I'm working on most of the $2500 builds wouldn't even be able to get me off the ground with the work I do...! Most of these $2500 builds only get a geekbench score of 8000-12000, I'm looking for at least 20,000+++... Video deisgn/editing is just straight raw power and multi-threaded to crazy limits...