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First attempt: gaming pc/OSX combo


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Hi all

 

After being a mac pro user for about 7 years; I realized that I cannot afford the new mac pro; my old mac needs to go in retirement and I can't play games on it anymore, using parallels.

 

So I discovered about this forum and the capability of certain combo of hardware, to work and allow you to install OSX on a non-mac hardware.

 

I have invested time and money in applications and such, so to me, is not as easy as just forget about macs and jump back on windows; so I opted for a machine that cost less than 4K (altho is a cool machine), and that allow me to still have a modern machine that can play modern games too.

 

I did some research, but the amount of data is staggering. Hence my post here.

 

Could anyone suggest me what is available today, that would run Mavericks and W7 (that's the one that I have; not planning to upgrade to 8 anytime soon), that can play modern games without problems (I don't need 4k or hyper settings; I don't play FPS...mostly I play racing games; simulators, RTS and RPG online; altho I am preparing to play games like Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous).

 

If possible I need to stay below 1K, I have the hard drives, so I need basically a mobo, graphic card, memory, processor and case.

I was planning to make something small; 4 hdd slots, a slot for a big video card, 16 Gb of Ram and a i7; altho I can't find references to motherboards and video cards that may work with OSX, which are not outdated or hard to find.

 

To summarize, I would appreciate suggestions about:

 

- smallest case with enough space for a decent gaming card, 4 HDD and 16-32 Gb ram (I can go tower but I would like to make something small, that fit the top of the desk, not where I put my feet on)

- Motherboard that would fit the aforementioned case (itx? Micro ATX?)

- Video card in the 200-300 dollars range, which would be a good fit for a gaming rig (found plenty of ATI but not so many recent Nvidia at good price, which seems to be the favorite card), which would fit in the case.

- How big of a power supply is needed? My last Pc built 8 years ago, would use a 300W; which by now I believe is not really enough.

 

Does anyone have a list of components for a small build, which would fit my needs?

 

Probably the 2 biggest hurdle are the mobo and video card; once  have these 2 settled, I can go for the processor, ram and case.

 

I appreciate your help, I am going crazy looking around at all the data :) Thanks!

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So far I've nailed down the processor, but still not sure about the mobo and video card and case

 

i7 4790 (LGA-1150) 3.6GHz

 

As mobo there is the Gigabyte GA-H87-D3H, but the GA-Z87-HD3 is also in the same price range...from what I understand; the Z is for unlocked CPU for over clocking, but the H won't allo SLI with 2 Nvidia cards; only Crossfire (which won't work for OSX anyway, right? So won't matter if you can do SLi or Crossfire).

 

The H one is Mini-ATX while the Z one is ATX; so I am more oriented to the H one at this point, so I can grab a smaller case.

 

For the graphics card I am not sure...but the best choice seems to be a GTX-770 from MSI.

 

Now what case would fit this configuration (if this is a working config for Mavericks)?

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Thanks :)

 

Ordered memory too; so at the moment I am waiting for all the parts to put it together.

 

For the processor I decided to go down a bit and pick the i5 instead than the i7; since most of the games on Windows do not have a great improvement; and the 3d software that I use on Mac (Cheetah3d, Cinema4D, Poser 10) are pretty much old and don't even use most of the new features from the more advanced chips.

 

So I have 

 

I5 4690K with stock fan (not planning to over clock)

Asus H97M Plus (micro atx)

PNY 2x8 GB DDR3 PC3-12800

PNY Enthusiast edition GTX770

Fractal Design Node 804 case

 

4x SATA3 HDD

DVD-RW USB drive.

 

The case has no power supply; and it cost about 100 dollars...I would like to spend less and have a small case anyway; what would you suggest?

Otherwise I am forced to buy a 29 dollars cheap ATX case and crappy power supply (450W would be enough?)

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Thanks :)

 

Ordered memory too; so at the moment I am waiting for all the parts to put it together.

 

For the processor I decided to go down a bit and pick the i5 instead than the i7; since most of the games on Windows do not have a great improvement; and the 3d software that I use on Mac (Cheetah3d, Cinema4D, Poser 10) are pretty much old and don't even use most of the new features from the more advanced chips.

 

So I have 

 

I5 4690K with stock fan (not planning to over clock)

Asus H97M Plus (micro atx)

PNY 2x8 GB DDR3 PC3-12800

PNY Enthusiast edition GTX770

Fractal Design Node 804 case

 

4x SATA3 HDD

DVD-RW USB drive.

 

The case has no power supply; and it cost about 100 dollars...I would like to spend less and have a small case anyway; what would you suggest?

Otherwise I am forced to buy a 29 dollars cheap ATX case and crappy power supply (450W would be enough?)

 

Christ no buy the cheap case but the power supply is the most important part of any build go with quality there. Something in the 650-850w range perhaps as low as 500 as these processors take next to nothing for power at full load. You want active PFC 80+ certification from a quality manufacturer like Corsair, Seasonic, Enermax a good name brand you can usually get the smaller ones on sale for good price. Oh the k processor makes no sense if you are not going to over clock save the money there as it is a feature you are never going to use you are paying extra for that can go towards the power supply.

 

BTW if you go with motherboard listed here you can install the Ozmosis firmware on it and have a just like a mac boot ie you can take you existing boot drive put it in a machine flashed with this firmware and it will just boot.

 

http://www.hackintosh-inc.de/index.php?page=Board&boardID=9&s=58ff80480bdf17a98e152753e26817d5decc0ec1

 

Google Chrome is your friend for it it will translate the pages without problems.

 

Edit: And do yourself a favour and get cheap pci-e network card based on the Realtek 8111 driver that is available on here unlike most of the others for the on-board nics it is rock solid driver that just performs like a champ, usually can get one of these for under $20.

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I see; so I don't need the K version then? I will go for a cheap case and a good PSU then.

 

What concerns me is the amount of power drained by the video card....the CPU is barely 100W, but the video card I heard can reach peaks of 300W...so considering another 200W takes me to 500W, but better go for more, in case I need more juice.

 

I will check the firmware that you mentioned, once I get the board. If I can have the same boot loader that I have on my old mac pro, and simply swap the drive and done, I would love that!

 

Why you add the PCI network card? Isn't the sound and network working on that mobo, when running OSX?

 

Thanks!!!

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I see; so I don't need the K version then? I will go for a cheap case and a good PSU then.

 

What concerns me is the amount of power drained by the video card....the CPU is barely 100W, but the video card I heard can reach peaks of 300W...so considering another 200W takes me to 500W, but better go for more, in case I need more juice.

 

I will check the firmware that you mentioned, once I get the board. If I can have the same boot loader that I have on my old mac pro, and simply swap the drive and done, I would love that!

 

Why you add the PCI network card? Isn't the sound and network working on that mobo, when running OSX?

 

Thanks!!!

 

According to Hardware Monitor my 4570@3.2ghz going flat out encoding h264 video 100% load all cores uses under 50w total my 4770k@4.0ghz mid 60's so I doubt that it will take that much, a good rule of thumb with a power supply is never load it more than 80% just like the socket on the wall. A 15a socket at 120 volts can supply 1800w recommended load little under 1500 roughly the 80 already mentioned. Yes the Ozmosis will do that for you and actually what I always do is clone my install just before new build put everything needed to boot on it and go from there. On the network cards while I appreciate the work done on the drivers by the people who do it most of them are just not there in terms of speeds/stability so I usually have always gone with natively supported OS X card saves you a pile of hassle, my most recent had driver from realtek that was complete and utter garbage the 8111 driver here by Meize is rock solid stable with that card which is why I mentioned a card based on that chipset family. Sound can sometimes be a problem as well depends on the codec on the board for that Ozmosis native sound with it you want alc892 or alc1150 I believe they are, my z87x-ud3h works fine with the VoodoHDA 2.8.6 driver on both my machines but not with the modified version in the Oz.

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