Homebrew Hack Pro questions for first time builder

[Das Attorney]

Hello all,

 

First off - The forums here are really good - well laid out and concise, with knowledgeable attendees. I look forward to checking them out in greater detail.

 

As you can tell, this is my first post on these forums, so I would like to say a big "hello" to all and hope to find out some information/guidance on building a Hack Pro. Ideally, when I'm finished, I want to share my experience and make a written & Youtube guide for other newbies interested in creating a Hack Pro similar to mine.

 

I've done some background reading on the installation process and looked at some hardware that I'd like to aim for, but there are still many grey areas that I'd like some clarification on before I part with the cash.

 

I've owned an iMac for a couple of years now, and while it's a great bit of kit, the lack of upgrading options (and a few other bad design flaws, like lack of USB ports) has left me wanting to get a Mac Pro. I installed Windows via Bootcamp soon after buying the iMac and enjoy the dual-booting and functionality that the two OS's offer. Having only recently discovered the OSX86 project and community, I'd like to ideally construct a Hack Pro, which can dual boot using one of the Wine/Darwin/Chameleon bootloaders. At this stage, I'm not too concerned about learning how to set up the hardware to dual boot Windows and OSX, but I'd like to concentrate on finding out what's the best combination of hardware to go for.

 

I'm going to be using the OSX side primarily for creating music. I currently have Logic installed, and use a Line 6 Toneport as the hardware interface for inputting guitar/bass/keyboards/vox etc. I'm not really interested in using MIDI (if that makes a difference). The Mac side will also be used for some 2D & 3D graphics creation/modelling and editing (Blender and Photoshop). I also like to use the Mac side for X-Plane (although most of the scenery creation is done via Windows).

 

The Windows side will also be used for 2D/3D graphics work, through Photoshop and 3DS Max. Mainly though, I'll be gaming on the Windows side, running a few warmonger games like AA2/3 and ETW. At the moment, my Bootcamp partition runs X-Plane faster (but with the occasional crash) on Windows, so I will be using it on both OS's.

 

I'm aiming to purchase as many compatible components as I can (within a £1,000 budget) so that the installation and update of OSX is as smooth as possible. I do expect a certain level of problem solving to have to take place, but I'm confident that I can physically build the machine and then apply solutions to installation issues as needed. I will install the Windows side first, and then work on the OSX installation. During this time, I will still have my iMac, so I can still have access to a working OS to help me install it.

 

I'd like to go for a quad core Intel i7, mounted onto a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 motherboard. I'm not sure which graphics card to go for though - either a nVidia 9500GT/9800GTX or maybe an ATI Radeon 4870. It looks like the nVidias are easier to install, but if it's not too much trouble, I'd prefer to go for the ATI if possible. In addition, I'm in the UK and looked on the dabs.com website. The GFX cards on there are built under licence (by Gigabyte). Will this make any difference?

 

It gets pretty sketchy after this. I've checked out some RAM (either Kingston or Crucial DD3 sticks) and 2 SATA 1TB Hard Drives (one for Windows, one for OSX). I know I need a case & 750W PSU as well, but I'll look into those later. Will I need to get a seperate ethernet card (Broadcom etc) and a sound card adaptor? I've googled this, but can't make sense of the answers I've read. I don't mind spending extra money to get these items if required. I haven't really researched which CD/DVD Writer to put in, but I'll check that out later.

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5

Processor: Intel Core i7 920

Video: 9800 GTX/9500GT/4870HD

Hard Drive: 1 TGB 7200 rpm + 1 TB 7200 rpm SATA

Memory: 8GB RAM DDR3

Power Supply 750w

Media reader: DVDRW Serial ATA

 

There's no particular rush to start the project - especially with the imminent release of Windows 7 & Snow Leopard, but please feel free to come back with suggestions so I can research them and prepare for an exciting project!

 

Many thanks, DA

 

EDIT - Mods, I've placed this in the wrong forum - Could you please move it to theInsanelyMac Forum Subscribe Discuss and Learn Subscribe Buying Thoughts, Reviews, and Recommendations forum? Thankyou