Successful dual processor 8 core install

[wobblyrainking]

Okay so I just built a hackintosh pro for about half the price of the actual system, running Snow Leopard 10..6.4

 

This system is about $3800 dollars before tax and shipping if you order it from Apple:

 

-Supermicro X8DAL-3 running two Westmere 5600 series 2.4Ghz quad core i5 based Xeons

-8 GB (2GB x 4) Patriot ECC enabled RAM (4 for each processor bus)

-Board has two Intel 82574L network adapter which are supported in OSX (must add hardware -address pointer in IONetworkingFamily/Intel 82574L kext)

-Realtek AC97 sound works out of box

-Bluetooth Dongle (LINKSYS USBBT100 USB 1.1 wired inside to motherboard for aesthetics)

-Gigabyte Geforce 9800 GT 1 GB GDDR3 video card

-1 TB WD Hard Drive (for Snow backup, Win XP, Win 7, and Ubuntu)

-500 GB WD Hard Drive (for Snow Leopard, Win XP backup, Win 7 backup + Plus 1 NTFS formatted Universal drive to be accessed by all OSs)

 

4 OSs using Windows 7 Boot Manager:

 

-OSX (on a separate 500gb GUID partitioned drive using [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url] 3.0 supported and a retail 10.6.3 DVD + Mac Software update + [url="http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/"]#####[/url])

-Windows 7

-Windows XP

-Ubuntu Studio 64bit with all options and realtime kernel

 

Acceleration works with either NVenabler kext or GraphicsEnabler=Yes

Sleep works with SleepEnabler kext

Ext2 support works with extfs

 

Umm... not much more to say. It was pretty easy.

 

The only big problem is booting that many operation systems at once in a nice easy way. Win 7 loader's the best.

 

Tried to do it with Chameleon, but it's hard to get it to not register all the drives and you still have to select Win7 or XP when you load either Windows drive. Also to get it to recognize linux you have to create a primary partition somewhere for the Ubuntu bootloader which is difficult when you format an MBR disk with Snow Leopard because it makes so many little EFI and extra space partitions and primary partitions are only the first 3.

 

It's not worth it. Windows 7 bootloader can do all beautifully.

 

So yea... it's worth it to build a hack pro. I see it tossed around a lot that it'll be just as expensive as a Mac Pro. No... its half price. This cost $2000 with shipping (overnight delivery even!) and tax all at Newgg (except for a cooling fan and hard drive I bought at Fry's which was probably more expensive)

 

Works beautifully. Boots any of the OSs in about 20 seconds. Recognizes CPUs as 2.4ghz Intel Core i5

 

Tested graphics with Tales of Monkey Island. Ran at highest quality at any resolution. Installed an episode in 10 seconds. Loaded it in 5. No joke this thing is great.

 

Wish I wasn't building it for someone else...

 

Good bye awesome computer!