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The Definitive Hackintosh topic
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  • @shian - Get it! Never going back.

  • I'm actually in the process of building mine as well as soon as all the parts arrive. My system will be based on Asus Rampage Extreme motherboard, Intel Core i7-3930K Hexa-Core Processor and Asus GTX 680 video card. My biggest decision point was the choice of the chipset z77 (thunderbolt) vs x79 and since USB 3 looks very attractive at this point http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/6/3843944/usb-3-spec-update-coming-max-data-speeds-10gbps I went with LGA 2011 socket.

  • Hi I'm using a UD5 Mobo and intel I7 with OSX leopard and Snow leopard since aroud 5 years ,It's still working with windows XP/7 and Linux ,For the install instructions I followed the tutorial on the insanely mac forum (look in the génius bar for tutorials) http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ For booting every one I simply install each system on indépendant hard drives and use the GRUB bootloader of Linux to redirect on each drive for booting the selected hard drive

  • same as @Tommyboy - it was tough deciding between thunderbolt and the 3930k, but I decided to go with the x79 as well. Thunderbolt adoption has been slow and peripherals are still pretty expensive ($40 for a 1m cable?!). USB 3 looks more promising although enabling USB 3 requires some extra steps on the ASUS boards and there are some sleep issues as well.

  • Building a Gigabyte based Thunderbolt one this afternoon - Ill post results when done.

  • Been pretty happy with my z77 3770k build. Things a beast. No issues with sleep or USB 3

  • Hi fellow h4xOrz,
    There's talk on the tonymacx86 forum of making a Premiere benchmark for testing our hackpro's. Perhaps some of you find this interesting and would like to chime in. It starts around page 11 of this thread: http://www.tonymacx86.com/buying-advice/81648-hack-pro-4k-film-editing-vfx-12.html#post536476

  • The Thunderbolt build went amazingly error free - all working a charm and OC to a stable 4.8 Ghz and vv quiet. Thunderbolt USB3 and Firewire working. Pro Tools HD/HDX cards, Apogee Symphony and UAD Quad tested and working also.

    Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 Intel Core i7 3770K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.5GHz Corsair Hydro Series H60 2013 Edition High-performance CPU Cooler Nanoxia Deep Silence One Black Ultimate Low Noise PC Case 32 GB Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Low Profile Jet Black, PC3-12800 680W be quiet! Straight Power E9 CM BN199 PSU 240GB Sandisk Extreme, 2.5" SSD, SATA III - 6Gb/s, Read 550MB/s, Write 520MB/s 2 x 3TB WD WD30EZRX Caviar Green SATA 6GB/s 2GB Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti OC Windforce 2X, 28nm, 6008MHz GDDR5 (GPU Cooler installed) TL-WDN4800 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter OSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2

    No DSDT needed - easiest build yet.

    Looks like Gigabyte going to benefit from Apple Vs Intel re:Thunderbolt on MacPro argument for a while yet!

  • I am considering to buy a used hackintosh which the owner says has a geekbench score of 11716 (see here for actual test results http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/compare/1569174/1569174 ). I am still waiting to hear what graphics card it has. Is this a decent score? Can anyone give an example of how fast a video could be rendered? For example, a 3 minute, 1080/24p video with no color correction using Sanity 4? I don't have a clue.

  • The build above is around 20k but not aggresively OCed - CPU running @ 30. Degrees Cinebench might give you more GPU info if there is a score from that

  • im guessing this isnt legal lol, what are chances of getting in trouble , What decent beginner setup for under $1100 to edit gh2 footage? new to this hackintosh thing, ive had pc in past and now i own a mbp 13' and want a nice desktop.

  • @jclmedia it's not illegal unless you try and sell the boxes with the Apple software on. With Apples ongoing spat with Intel with them not allowing them to integrate Thunderbolt into their MacPro's, and the current EU standards problems they're having, it might be a long wait for a new MacPro. A hackintosh is essentially a Mac in every way when booted up - except much much cheaper!

    Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H Intel Z77 Socket 1155 Ivybridge / Intel Core i7 3770K Quad Core IvyBridge Processor / Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 Black Ultimate / Samsung 250GB 840 Series SSD / be quiet! STRAIGHT POWER E9 CM 680W / Corsair H60 2013 Edition Hydro Series Liquid CPU Cooler / Corsair Memory Vengeance 32GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 10 XMP / 1x Seagate 3TB Performance SATA 3 comes out at around £899 here in the UK so add your preferred graphics card to taste and edit away. For a Thunderbolt version of above add around £100 for the GA-Z77X-UP5-TH which works a treat.

    Join Tonymac or similar site and browse the builds - Stork has a great build that would be relevant for video editing or look at the NoFilmSchool guide to building one for a more video centric build.

    Good luck!

  • New 10.8.3 is out.

    http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3877/apple-osx-mountain-lion-updated-to-10.8.3.-inc.-windows-8-boot-camp-support.-cuda-updated/p1

    @Driftwood gave it a shot and reports all to be ok with the update. What kind of build it is?

    Has anyone else tried it? I am always scared shit when it comes to updating my hackintosh, so please report any eventual problems and please include your hackintosh build details :)

  • Lots of reports here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/317-os-x-10-8-3-update.html

    I've got 3 gigs in the next weeks. Only updating after that...

  • It is nice to have a hackintosh topic here since all of the most popular forums are over crowded and poorly moderated to the point where they become almost unusable. So, thanks for the link, still, keep it alive here ;)

  • Updated all 5 Hackintoshes here to 10.8.3 no issues. But they are all Sandy Bridge or later, with Gigabyte boards requiring no DSDT and very few custom kexts. Hacks built on distros, or requiring lots of patches and kexts to boot should probably refrain from updating unless they know exactly what they're doing and it's not the day before a project is due.

    Note: all 5 machines required both Trim Enabler (all use SSD boot drives) and audio kexts reinstalled after the update.

  • I was thinking to upgrade my hackintosh, currently I have i7 920 and gigabyte ex58-ud5 mobo with 12gigs of ram, running a ML 10.8.2 installed with hackinstaller script.

    I like how this "no need for DSDT" sounds like, so can you recommend a motherboard and a cpu that would be the best for this kind of setup.

    I want to buy new cpu, mobo, ram and ssd, everything else will stay.

  • Gigabyte all the way for me the thunderbolt ones work very well easiest Ive built yet - GA-Z77X-UP5 TH very simple to set up, take 30 mins to install no DSDT - follow STORKs build on Tonymac for Multibeast tweaks.

  • Good to hear. Seems like a strong contender for the rack mount system I 'd like to build in the near future. Too bad provided wifi/BT doesn't work but I can live with that.

  • The BT can be made to work apparently - I'm using BT dongle - using TP Link TL-WDN4800 for Wifi no kexts needed and fast.

  • @inqb8tr I was in almost the same boat as you - i7-930 and a Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R. Overclocked, cooled and silenced, it was a beast, but it also pulled a lot of power out of the wall when hammering a render. I replaced it with an i7-3770K and a Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H, which is much faster yet draws less than half the AC. I've got it moderately OC'd (3.5GHz) and with 32GB RAM and a Radeon HD5870, it cuts through anything I throw at it.

    I put this rig together over a year ago so there are alternatives today I'd probably go with. Quite honestly, if I had to do it over again, I'd go with a, i5-3570K and Gigabyte's Z77 Mini-ITX board. That's the config I'm running as a server and it's ludicrous overkill, plenty beefy and quick for FCPX/AE work. OC the 3570K and you'll rarely notice it's not an i7, and you'll idle along at 30W or so to boot. That is, of course, if you go with the onboard HD4000 GPU, which works in a pinch - for pro video editing, go with a discrete GPU.

    Neither of these Ivy Bridge Gigabyte rigs needs a DSDT, and only a handful of kexts are needed for full OSX 10.8.3 support. The tonymacx86 site is your friend here, that's where you'll find the recipes and support.

    I've been building Hackintoshes for many years, ever since the first distros were floating around. Back then it was a tightrope act just to get a PC to boot OSX Leopard. Now, as long as you get the right Gigabyte board, you can boot retail Mountain Lion with little fear of breaking the install from OS updates. It really is almost too easy now to build a solid enough Hackintosh for pro work. Between that and a hacked GH2, we live in interesting times.

  • About i5 vs i7, when rendering for example H.264, it is quite a pleasure to see the 8 cores/threads load meters rev'ing up to max. I can't compare to i5 but it seems like a big advantage of i7 over i5 if you spend a lot of time rendering. That being said, whether rendering will use all available cores/threads seems to depend on the fx I used in Premiere, so it 's not always the case.

    Apart from rendering, there's indeed not many cases where an i7 has a big advantage over an i5, especially when OC'ed.

  • I jus upgraded from my 13' late 2011 mbp to early 2013 hackintosh.

    mbp: i5 c2d 2.3ghz 4gb ram intel hd 4000 graphics

    Hackintosh: i5 3570k 3.4ghz 8gb ram evga gtx 650 ti 1gb

    Im def. going to upgrade my ram to 16gb once i get the cash , and possibly get a better gfx card. Ive read that the 560 or 570 is it that does really good almost compared to the quadro4000 series i think. I mostly edit hacked Gh2 footage and Hpx170 footage, and some light gaming. any suggestions for a possibly better card than what i have? not saying im not happy i just want possibly better/faster card with around 2-4gb of memory. Also for monitors I just got a decent acer 22' for $60 of craigslist, works great, only one dead pixel :. I did some research on monitors and I really wanted to get the 27' apple cinema display they got on B&H for like $899. I looked around on newegg and saw some really nice 27' Dell monitors that have more colors and seem reallly nice, I just dont know the tech terms of the monitors,ect.

    Thanks

  • @Shaveblog Thanks for the tips, I think I'm gonna go with i7 anyways. Been a while since I purchased anything so I guess I can't avoid doing some more research.