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The Definitive Hackintosh topic
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  • well i play 0 games, haven't played any since years, not on the mac or pc anyway.

    I'll check out the Titan or wait how the HD Radeon thing develops, i still have some time. Wouldn't surprise me if the would get more support in the near future. On the tonymacx86 forum there are some who got it to work so maybe more people will dig into this.. (i hope :-)

    Just wanna make a setup that'll last me for about 4 years until it needs an upgrade.

    Are the also benchmarks for videocards that are not focused on gaming?

  • For what it's worth, my 660 renders in the background of FCPX with no problem as well. Not sure what's considered fast or not but coming from FCP7, I'm just stoked it works!

  • Right now I don't care about openCL. I use Premiere (casually) so CUDA. My main thing is 3D openGL coding in Max/MSP/Jitter. My GTX670 is doing fine for now :)

    It's working 100% too. Very important for me as I work with lots of displays/projectors in my projects and have to rely on it for live performances.

  • I would get a Titan then, at least you will have half the OpenCL power of 7970. (oh and AWESOME gameplay!)

  • hehe, well, gaming is my oldest addiction and the only one i still succumb to from time to time ;)

  • True, yet try not to spend too much cash on Nvidia, its a bit of a up hill battle with OpenCL. Why do you think apple has ditched them. Besides - who has time for game play when you can be editing video?

  • Myeah... only do that if you're prepared to work out the kinks. There is no full support yet AFAIK. No guarantee there will be either.

    http://www.tonymacx86.com/347-depth-gigabyte-amd-radeon-hd-7970-oc.html
    http://www.tonymacx86.com/graphics/92710-10-8-3-amd-radeon-hd-7xxx-graphics-testing-thread.html

  • @andrevanberlo

    7970- buy it now, while they are still in stock... I'm thinking of buying a few. ;-)

    With a 7970 you can switch background render BACK ON! (Oh, and set it to 0)

  • Trying to make up my mind on the graphics card to go into the hackintosh. (I've pretty much decided on the main board (P9x79 Pro) and processor (i7 3960K).)

    I work mainly in FCPX and I'm not sure about the benchmarks in some tests as many benchmarks are about gaming, not video editing.

    On top of that, i believe i saw somewhere that both resolve and adobe are going to be supporting OpenCL soon and off course FCPX is going to be optimized for the AMD dual GPU card.

    But.... Hackintosh forum only lists the GTX cards in their lists so does it mean i can't use anything else?

    So... which card for the hackintosh that will be primarily used for FCPX?

    GTX ... ? Radeon HD ... ? Firepro ... ?

  • Btw, given the new Mac Pro's AMD gfx cards, chances are openCL will universalize, also in Adobe products

  • @Shaveblog Yeah, your earlier post was compelling as well and I think this is the way I will go for now, experiment/learn Premiere Pro, and make the NVIDIA jump if I commit to that platform. I will reread your posting about iMac designation and go that route instead of the MacPro 3.1, etc.

    Glad to have confirmed that NeatVideo is pokey regardless.

    Of course, some smart coder (which I am not) seems to have pulled off the ability to switch between ATI and NVIDIA cards during boot-up under Unbutu (I cannot validate the claim): http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1420321&s=7d1169cee5226594e73da0bb246d4280

    Something like gfxCardStatus 3.0+ would be pretty handy...

  • I'm needing info for fcpx and 7970- anyone have any experience?

  • I would agree with that. NeatVideo and Grain Overlays take forever. I was kind of surprised about this.

  • @WalterH If you are primarily a FCPX user, your best bet is an ATI/AMD GPU, as they are currently better optimized for Open_CL. This has nothing to do with the similar sounding Open_GL, which is what gamers look for in a video card. For speeding up FCPX, you are better off with a 3 year-old HD5870 than with any current NVIDIA GPU.

    I use NeatVideo Pro in FCPX and can tell you that it's slow, period, but obviously worth it when you really need it. A CUDA card is not going to speed it up under FCPX - maybe it will under After Effects if you choose to apply NeatVideo NR there, but CUDA will have zero effect in FCPX.

    Bottom line: if you are primarily a FCPX user, ATI/AMD is your best bet. If you are primarily Premiere Pro, NVIDIA CUDA will offer the fastest performance. A really powerful card in either camp will work decently for both editing programs but if you really want to optimize performance, you need to choose the GPU chipset that's best for your particular editing program.

  • @dtr and vicharris Helpful clarifications. Thanks much.

  • Ok, got it. I have the non Ti 660. No problems.

  • The Nvidia's do OpenCL as well as CUDA. AMD cards are much better at it though (more openCL processors). Recent AMD card support is emerging on hackintoshes but still experimental, ie. far from rock-solid. My GTX670 is working great in PP CS5.5 and my openGL 3D apps. Don't have FCPX to test but openCL benchmarks work. I'm using the EVGA FTW 2GB card.

  • @vicharris Do you have that linked Zotac? Here is the main thread regarding the 660 Ti (scroll down and note the FAQ about FCPX) and I found this complaint in other threads as well: http://www.tonymacx86.com/general-hardware-discussion/66611-660-ti-thread-questions-answers-here.html

    Haven't read complaints about other cards, i.e. non-Ti 660, GTX 670, etc. once a few bugs were addressed. Basically, wanting a little assurance that NVIDIA cards drive FCPX well also before dropping $1.5k on a machine.

  • No problems with any of that. I have the 660. What are people saying does not work? It's a little hard to tell in your post.

  • I've read and reread a ton of material (this thread, the gfx card thread, lots at tonymacx86...) and I would like some clarification/confirmation:

    This all seems great and clear for the Resolve and Adobe crowds, but I am still primarily working in FCPX with some Motion (OpenCL) and while I am interested in moving toward CS6, I'd still like to know that FCPX will work well in a hackintosh that I am planning based on the GA-Z77X-UP5.

    Lots of chatter at tonymac that the 660 Ti's don't work well with FCPX. Very interested in the inexpensiveness of the GT 640 for lack of expense but unclear that the new NVIDIA support with 10.8.3 covers that. Pretty interested in the non-TI GTX 660 for performance/price relative to cost of the 670: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500270

    I use NeatVideo quite a bit in FCPX and read in their forums that they aren't OpenCL but CUDA... Particularly stuck by post from Shaveblog, apefos, and all others and having a tough time reconciling all this info/possibilities.

    Basically, wondering if the NVIDIA/CUDA route will also support FCPX well or specifically what cards work for folks.

    Thanks.

  • @soundgh2 stability is very important so to me it is very comforting to read hackintosh'es can be solid as a rock.

    With maybe a new mac pro around the corner i thought i might wait for that but that machine will be very expensive as all of them are.

    So either 4-core or 6-core hackintosh it'll be. From economic point of view it'll probably be the 4-core and i'll just pray it is strong enough to do the live streaming of 3 HD cams (and i'll forget about recording de live stream to ssd for now)

    Thanks for everyone's input, very much appreciated!

  • Sat in the pub yesterday with 4 people built that exact rig for - they've been video editing, Pro Tools editing, Logic music writing day in and out with zero down time - Gigabyte boards have taken much of the pain away! That build's already much cheaper - seems there's an exponential drop in pricing for SSD and RAM, and Intel's new chips don't break that much new ground, so that build is still valid! I mix on fully loaded HDX Protools systems at work and my "old" hackintosh native with Apogee in my prep room at home, still on Snow Leopard, burns the Avid rigs, on paper shouldn't but viscerally are more reactive when chopping through dials.

  • @soundgh2 I'll check out your example purchase!

    I must say when i started doing the math on everything I "need" all those 'little' things add up.

    I would need the computer (2200 for the 6-core), monitor(500-1000?), extra cam(800), decklink quad (800)+ hdmi-sdi convertors(750), wirecast (700) --> all in euros....

    Simply can't afford it now... So, perhaps going the quadcore route(1400) + intensity prox3 (600 -saw a video where someone uses 3 intensity pro cards with wirecast+MBP) + cam(800) + wirecast(700)+monitor(500-1000).

    still a lot of money but it would save me the convertors and the extra grand for the computer.

    Wish there was a way to use my 2010 iMac as a monitor

    "Without O/C the Giga TB board Stork-esque builds were 14k -16k out of the box and overclocking the RAM gave 18k + no processor O/C at all x

    Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5-TH, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub, DVI-D HDMI Thunderbolt Nanoxia Deep Silence One Black Ultimate Low Noise PC Case, USB 3.0, Air Chimney 250GB Samsung 840 Series Basic, 680W be quiet! Straight Power E9 CM BN199, 93% Eff', 80 PLUS Gold, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX Corsair Hydro Series H60 2013 Edition High-performance CPU Cooler Intel Core i7 3770K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.5GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 8MB Smart Cache, 35x Ratio, 77W,Retail LG x24 DVD±R, 12xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x13/-RWx13 ,12xRAM with M-DISC Support, SATA, Black, OEM 32GB (4x8GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 10-10-10-27, XMP, 1.5V 2GB EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked, 28nm, 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 980MHz, Boost 1059MHz, Cores 1344 +Free Game 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 Barracuda 7200.14 SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms NCQ OEM"

  • Without O/C the Giga TB board Stork-esque builds were 14k -16k out of the box and overclocking the RAM gave 18k + no processor O/C at all x

    Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5-TH, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub, DVI-D HDMI Thunderbolt
    Nanoxia Deep Silence One Black Ultimate Low Noise PC Case, USB 3.0, Air Chimney
    250GB Samsung 840 Series Basic, 680W be quiet! Straight Power E9 CM BN199, 93% Eff', 80 PLUS Gold, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX Corsair Hydro Series H60 2013 Edition High-performance CPU Cooler Intel Core i7 3770K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.5GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 8MB Smart Cache, 35x Ratio, 77W,Retail
    LG x24 DVD±R, 12xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x13/-RWx13 ,12xRAM with M-DISC Support, SATA, Black, OEM
    32GB (4x8GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 10-10-10-27, XMP, 1.5V
    2GB EVGA GTX 660 Ti Superclocked, 28nm, 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 980MHz, Boost 1059MHz, Cores 1344 +Free Game
    3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 Barracuda 7200.14 SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms NCQ OEM

    As an Example purchase.

    I run multiple studios on Mac Pros and HDX Protools in our post studios - working at home (hackintosh) and porting to mixing studio - the hacky's destroy the Mac Pro's on Audiosuite and Native- actually on loading also. I run Hackytosh and Apogee Symphony at my home studio and HDX, SSL Aws900 etc at multiple work spots - still find home so much slicker. Go figure - hours of real world time savings over a year of front line work so far. Due probably to fear, the client facing suites are still Macs - however no crashes or KP on any hackintoshes as yet (touch wood) I have no qualms using Hackys over Mac Pros in my professional day to day work - and have several out in the field in music studios running and writing hits daily with no downtime - earning far more than I do lol

  • @posit That's pretty damn cheap. I really didn't see any other cheaper options for the hardware I bought, but I had to buy everything and I did go a bit overboard on some things but I couldn't see a way to get it below $1250 or so. What is in yours?