I'm new so go easy on me! Help with edit bay

[kingdom1]

Hey guys I've done a ton of reading on these boards over the past week and I'm finally ready to post what I think will be a good build. Help guide me!

 

This is going to be used exclusively as a final cut studio machine for editing my shorts, I'm tired of keeping my mbp chained to my desk and external monitor. I'm also running a pimped mac mini connected to my lcd tv. If apple had a midrange machine I wouldn't be doing this, but they don't, plus this fun.

 

So I've got 2 options that I think will work. One is based off a tigerdirect barebones kit, the other is all me. I'm gonna list the parts of both and you tell me if I should have any problems getting 10.5.2 on them, I don't think I will but it's always great to have input.

 

Custom Build

 

Case: Antec P182

Mobo: Intel D975XBX2KR

CPU: Intel Q6600 2.4ghz

CPU Fan: ZEROtherm Butterfly BTF90

PSU: OCZ GameXStream 700w

RAM: 2x OCZ OCZ2P8004GK PC2-6400 4GB

GPU: EVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512mb

HD: 3x Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB

DVD: 2x Samsung SH-S203B/BEBN

Extra Fans: 2x Scythe S-Flex 120mm 1200rpm

 

Tigerdirect barebones build: LINK HERE

 

Case: Ultra Aluminus

Mobo: Intel D975XBX2KR

CPU: Intel Q6600 2.4ghz

CPU Fan: ZEROtherm Butterfly BTF90

PSU: Ultra 700w XVS

RAM: Corsair 2GB DDR2 PC6400

GPU: EVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512mb

HD: Western Digital 400GB

DVD: Samsung SH-S203B/BEBN

 

I know both of them are relatively the same the reason why I posted the barebones is because since I've never done this before and I bricked all my stuff I'd be out less money (I don't want to run it as a windows machine, I have no need for windows), but I think I can do it right.

 

Are their any issues with Final Cut Studio on a Hackintosh? My mbp is dual 2ghz, 256mb gpu, 2gig ram so this has to fly compared to that right? The mbp isn't bad for hdv editing but I want more beef.

 

I won't game aside from the mac version of WOW so this should be fine for FCP and after effects right? I want this to be semi equivalent to the last gen mac pro quad 2.66. Should I overclock the 2.4 to 2.66? How do I do that? Is that only for windows or does that OCing work in leopard as well?

 

Sorry for all the questions but I haven't owned a pc in 3 years so this needs to be a mac and this needs to be good for editing. I'm worried about being out almost a grand and having a stupid windows machine I won't want if this doesn't work.

[knewsom]

hey bro, I'm a noob to hackintosh too (though not to Macs), so my advice may be countered by someone with more experience, but here goes:

 

Funny thing is, I'm considering building a similar system as MY final cut suite - I'm a professional editor, but I'm also a stay at home dad, and I don't have the extra coin to buy a Mac Pro. Currently, I'm running a G5 dual 2.0 with 3 gb RAM, a 500 gig system drive, and a 750 gig SATA media drive, with an external for audio. I use a Pinnacle CineWave capture card for video input and output, and for calibrated video monitoring (I know, I know, the CineWave is way old, and not even officially supported, but it seriously works like a dream)

 

Now, I'm sure you've read that not every update will be good for you - but take it from an Editor, you should NEVER just run updates willy nilly until you've checked to make sure it won't break any of your extra hardware drivers or software, so an extra website to check shouldn't be too big a deal.

 

Now, if you're just editing shorts using HDV, you won't really need a RAID, but you may want to make sure whatever case you get (and mobo) has the ability to build one in the future if you decide you'll need it. Also, you may want to check and make sure that mother has a spare PCIe slot so you can add a Black Magic DeckLink card, should you need it.

 

Now, back to hard drives: DO NOT EVER BUY SEAGATE, unless it is the "enterprise" edition of a drive - those are good, the rest WILL FAIL YOU, I GUARANTEE IT. I've NEVER had one that didn't have problems, and that's out of two internals and several externals. WD is ok, I'd personally go for Hitachi, and once more, there are often multiple editions of their drives, look for the one with the best consumer ratings - NewEgg has a great feature for that. (there are several people calling 1 edition of the Desk Star the "death star". Needless to say, don't buy that version)

 

On to machine performance. FCP is a RAM hog. The more memory you have, the better. You've got 4 gigs listed there, I'd go for 8. OCing your proc might help a LITTLE, I'm considering an OC with liquid cooling to help my render times and smooth out real-time rendering, but I'm not certain it's necessary. Before my son was born, we had two FCP macs in the office, and bought two new 8-core Mac Pros with 16Gigs RAM and Kona3 cards. To tell the truth, there WAS a speed increase between the different machines, but it wasn't much. FCP is well optimized for the G5, and so are much of its plugins, and most of them were running in Rosetta on the MP. Now, one other thing to note, the G5's were hooked up to a Fiber Channel RAID 5, which was an X-Serve RAID, and it was SMOKIN fast, whereas the mac pro's were just using an internal RAID-0 with 2 1TB SATA drives. So, I think drive speed certainly had something to do with the speed differential, or lack thereof.

 

As far as any issues with Final Cut on a hackinthebox, I don't know, I've basically made a similar post and gotten no replies, but I see no reason that there should be a problem, except that PC components aren't always 100% reliable, and with a hacked OS, it can be difficult to ferret out the root of any problems you're experiencing.

 

What my plan is, is to buy my components, build my machine, and beta test it rigorously for a couple months before selling my G5. If I find the new system to be insufficiently stable, I'll wipe the HD, and sell the machine on e-bay or craigslist.

 

As far as installation goes, I took a peek at the wiki, and If you follow the instructions, everything SHOULD work fine.

 

Anyhow, I hope you do it, and let us all know how it works for ya!

[BigPimpin]

You're going to get different opinions on hard drives from everybody. Seagate would be my first choice. The newer ones run fast and cool, and Seagate is the ONLY brand that has never, ever given me a problem. I've had every other major brand die on me including non-deathstar Hitachis, Western Digitals and Maxtors. I think Maxtor is owned by Seagate now but I still wouldn't touch a drive with the Maxtor label on it.