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The Definitive Hackintosh topic
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  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev Sounds great. I think the most reader/newbie friendly guide I've seen is on the nofilmschool website. It'd be sweet if we could get a "personal-view hackintosh" going.

    @dtr Yup. Good to clarify that for all. :)

  • Here's an interesting approach to selecting hardware for your Hackintosh.

    http://techreport.com/articles.x/23376

  • At least basic istructions how to install Hackintosh (and where you find installer), and what are minimum rquirements for hardware would be nice.

  • As soon as my build comes in all do a little video of install and assembly as we as parts selection!

  • @artiswar: Thanks! Very cool. Look forward to it.

  • Hi, I am thinking of building a hackintosh to use only for video and sound editing, I wont need to use any windows programs, I just want it to run mac stuff. I want to do it, since I will get more powerful computer for less money (I can not afford a Mac pro) I never build a computer before in my life, I can get a friend to help me with that, and I am willing to do all the necessary reading to learn how to set it up. Do you people think it will be very hard to do? Any advise? I have a basic computer knowledge, but I am a mac user...

  • @xavieramelio - Start reading. Plenty of advice above. Good links as well. Learn your basic computer jargon (RAM, Hard Drive, Solid State Memory, CPU, Motherboard, GPU, etc) and how it will effect your build.

  • @dtr

    Thanks a lot.

  • @artiswar, @dtr, thank you for the advise, I will look more closely to all this links.

  • I was looking at the builds of tonymacx86, I did some homework on looking at the stuff I do not know,I am considering the pro build, still there are so many options and possible combinations... Can someone tell me your thoughts on the different options of CPU, mother boards and Graphic cards. Maybe some examples on your own builds like @badhussar post will help me. I am looking at expending $1200 max. Thanks in advance, I also would like to have firewire 800 connectivity for external hardrives, any idea?

  • My system's posted above. It's about a year old though, some things are outdated. The HD6870 graphics card was already old when I built it but I picked it because it was well supported. There's better Nvidia options now.

    To get useful advice it might be more practical if you tell us your intended use and the configuration you're thinking of so we can react on that.

    I use a Sonnet Tango 800 PCIe card with firewire 800 and USB2.0. Firewire works fine but the USB ports don't for some reason.

  • @xavierramelio - Do you already have peripherals like monitor, keyboard, mouse?

    You could do a i7 Ivy Bridge, with the Gigabyte UD5 mobi, Nvidia GTX 560ti, 16 gb of RAM and that would get you right around there. I would do a 128gb SSD for boot and apps in OSX and for starters a 1TB internal.

  • @artiswar I do have peripherals, I may get a new monitor, but that will be later on... I will look into your suggestions, thanks. @dtr, my main use will be video and sound editing, some graphics (mostly photo editing) but main use video and sound. I am choreographer and I started doing sound for my dance pieces as well as videos. I am shooting with a GH2 with some of Driftwood's patches and the editing is very taxing on my laptop (macbook pro) I am also planing on doing longer videos and that becomes impossible with the system I have now. I will use premiere for video and Logic for sound. I want the hackintosh exclusively for that and I will keep using my laptop for my everyday needs.

  • This is a newbie question, but is there possibilities for adding two separate firewire busses on a hackintosh?

    The reason is because I need one fw400 for my mbox pro, and another for external drives. Having everything on one bus slows it to the least common denominator of fw400.

  • A Hackintosh is a Macintosh basically so whatever a Mac does .... just different disk management in BIOS AHCI etc

  • @xavieramelio I'd say get the fastest CPU and largest RAM you can afford, add an Nvidia graphics card for CUDA acceleration in Premiere, see http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/3823/graphics-card-for-video-editing/p1 . Get a 'k' Intel CPU with a decent cooler. They're so easy (and intended) to overclock that it's really a shame not to do it. If you can build a hackintosh you can easily do that as well.

    @qwerty123 as i understand the sonnet tango 800 card has individual firewire busses for each port, so you wouldn't get that issue. I haven't tested to confirm that.

  • @xavieramelio my Hackintosh at home destroys PT10 and Logic in Lion >>> than all of my £8k + MacPros dotted in my studios - go for it spend a grand and start doing it - by the time you decide your choice will be out of date anyway, it aint how fast the box is, it's what you do with it - 99% of anything you see on TV or hear in the charts is edited on shyte old Macs (and I do mean OLD) - winning awards making money etc just go for it

  • @dtr, thanks for the advise and link. @sondgh2, I hear you and you are wright about what you say, artistic vision is first and the box is just a tool, in any case, a better tool than what I have now wont heart me, I also would like to go through the learning process of doing it.

  • Mine's a year old and day in and out I sit in "world class famous" studios where I watch the beachball of doom on Macs waiting for the edit to catch up (almost like the legendary AMS Audiofile days of 10 edits ahead lol) Processor power hasn't increased Pro Tools's efficiency for example - whereas SSD's and super cheap Ram has infinitely - it's instant hardware fast now with hundred + track 5.1 mixes fplaying in microseconds after hitting the Spacebar - same with Logic - if you bought an i5/7 now with SSD and 16 Gig RAM (at least) on a board that works (mostly all of em do now DSDT wise Hackintosh) you'll be laughing for years :) Don't miss out on the creative time by playing the component waiting game, trust me it's pointless! For example on major very well known studio I'm at next week still has the same old shit shit Mac fromyears ago and old PT but hell it works - if you are working for clients perhaps render times are relevant - if not make some tea, have a beer and make something great in your own time! If you get stuck drop me a PM

  • @soundgh2 Can you let us know what (step-by-step) guide you used to build your machine? My main uses for a machine will be running pro tools and premiere (and also resolve). So it'd be nice to build the same machine as someone else who has got this working with no problems. Are you running Snow Leopard or Lion or Mountain Lion?

    I'm trying to decide between the hackitosh route or getting a cutom pc built. I'm more at home with macs, but stability, compatibility, etc is a concern with the hackintosh route.

  • There's also a lot of build guides here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-builds/