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New User - Going from MAC to HAC


dhmc
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Hi everyone, just signed up... been a windows techy for years microsoft trained (not that that means anything!) so I know a fair bit about building machines.. In fact I did it for a living at PC WORLD for many years.

 

So the time has come for me to ditch my mac mini 2010 and mac pro and use the funds to build the mac of my dreams

 

As a new user I cant post in any other section so could you guys just ok this list for me and see if it looks ok?

 

Here's what I have lined up

 

Intel Core i7 950 3.06Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail

 

Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit x2

 

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) Motherboard

 

Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail

 

ASUS GeForce GTX 460 Direct CU 1GB DDR5 Dual DVI HDMI PCI Express - Retail

 

Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 850W Power Supply

 

Thoughts?

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OS X doesn't give two {censored} about what PSU you're using. You can install OS X on any compatible PC that has a sufficiently powerful, working power supply.

 

The GTX 460 will not work, there is no driver support for any other Fermi cards but the original GF100 based ones. Refer to the Fermi wikipedia article for details.

 

The Fermis that do "work" run at half the performance of a 9800GTX, has an annoying vsync issue and color profiles don't work.

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what graphics card is the "best" for use with a hack machine?

 

And the PSU is not over-kill, not for what I have planned for it anyway

 

Oh and I'll be doing Video and 3D rendering, whether that makes a difference

 

OS X doesn't give two {censored} about what PSU you're using. You can install OS X on any compatible PC that has a sufficiently powerful, working power supply.

 

The GTX 460 will not work, there is no driver support for any other Fermi cards but the original GF100 based ones. Refer to the Fermi wikipedia article for details.

 

The Fermis that do "work" run at half the performance of a 9800GTX, has an annoying vsync issue and color profiles don't work.

 

Does it matter which brand/varient of the 9800? Do you have a link to one that will work out of the box? What bit will the run at?

 

Finally, other than whats been discussed will everything else be ok? e.g. the motherboard and cpu?

 

One last question.... will it run all 4 cores on the cpu?

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I have a Leadtek Winfast PX9800GTX+, device ID 0x612 - it works with no modifications to the OS X Nvidia drivers.

 

Any compatible card from the Geforce 8 series and above will work in both 32- and 64-bit kernel and drivers mode.

It doesn't matter that much, OS X is not like Windows, you can run 64-bit apps and address up to 32GB RAM in 32-bit mode on OS X. Read this for more information:

http://www.osxbook.com/blog/2009/08/31/is-...ow-leopard-k64/

 

The other parts you listed are good to go, and there are installation guides for that motherboard available. Google TonyMacx86.

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cheers mate, hopefully i'll be building the machine over the next few weeks..

 

One thing that just interested me was a guy on here using a server motherboard with two xeon's and he posted that it worked out the box

 

and checked the parts are its relatively cheap!

 

The hardware in question was

 

 

Supermicro X8DAi Intel 5520 Dual 1366 Motherboard

 

Intel CPU Xeon E5620 Quad Core Processor

 

Now for two processors and the board is only 700 ish pounds which is quite cheap..

 

Do you have any knowledge on a dual cpu server based setup?

 

Sorry for all the questions!!

 

Thanks in advanced

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One final question.. can I use any motherboard?

 

There are many good boards available for the i7 chip

 

Asus P6 X58D

 

Asus Rampage III Extreme Intel X58

 

Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Intel X58

 

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R

 

To name just a few... is there only a select few that can be used or any?

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Thanks guys....

 

Can I just confirm something..

 

Using a hackintosh I can boot straight into the OS like a mac would and not have some sort of watermarked bootloader?

 

Because I'll be using this in a studio and don't want clients to think I'm using pirated OS (which i wont do anyway)

 

Ok I'll check out tony's stuff

 

One more Q lol ;)

 

would this work?

 

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/c...ech/gtx260.html

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ok awesome (on both counts)

 

Only last question, I want to have an automated (none coding) installation as possible...

 

Do you guys have a tutorial I can search for that has a straight forward install?

 

The option to load straight into the OS how would I enable this feature? Does it require any special editing?

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Do you guys have a tutorial I can search for that has a straight forward install?
Search the forum/web using your MB name or chipset name as a search criteria. You just need to find which one boot CD is most suitable for your hardware, so you could avoid complications and troubleshooting.
The option to load straight into the OS how would I enable this feature? Does it require any special editing?
If you use Chameleon or any Chameleon-based boot loader (in fact you must use one, if it's going to be the retail install), then configure it using either manual method or Lizard application. The thing you should configure is a boot options. It's just has to be configured to boot directly to OS X, without any prompt or delays.EDIT:

Also you should configure the boot theme (what graphics will be shown during the boot time). I'd suggest using the BootCamp theme. It is very similar to native Mac look and feel.

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iWant :)

 

Is it Gigabyte? What software have you used to modify it?

Nope, it is an Intel server board with custom, Intel-made AMI BIOS. Intel has it's one program to change OEM logo in the BIOS. But there are some guides for other BIOS's (search by the manufacturer of the MB/BIOS).
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dhmc, I'm also interested in building my Hack with a SuperMicro server motherboard (X8DAE).

Who is the guy you're talking about? I'd like to PM him.

 

billiejo

 

 

cheers mate, hopefully i'll be building the machine over the next few weeks..

 

One thing that just interested me was a guy on here using a server motherboard with two xeon's and he posted that it worked out the box

 

and checked the parts are its relatively cheap!

 

The hardware in question was

 

 

Supermicro X8DAi Intel 5520 Dual 1366 Motherboard

 

Intel CPU Xeon E5620 Quad Core Processor

 

Now for two processors and the board is only 700 ish pounds which is quite cheap..

 

Do you have any knowledge on a dual cpu server based setup?

 

Sorry for all the questions!!

 

Thanks in advanced

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