New to Hackintosh - Building an i7 beast

[tonhe98]

Not going to delete my original post here, but I wanted to follow up with as much information as possible. My build was a complete success, and I have posted full details and instructions on my blog.

 

Hardware information...

http://tony.mattke.net/2010/02/09/the-road-to-hack-intosh/

 

Build instructions....

http://tony.mattke.net/2010/02/22/the-holy-hackintosh-build/

 

Thanks again!

 

-Tony

 

Ok, this is my first topic here, as many people start, I want some suggestions on my hardware list for my first hackintosh build. I am going to start off with the ex58 board and the i7 920 proc as many have. For now, I just want to keep the stock cooler, a single graphics card, and 6gb of ram. Eventually I want to upgrade the cooler, overclock to 3ghz+, add another 6-10 gb of memory, and add another graphics card to run SLI.

 

My main goals are building a stable/reliable machine that I can use for day to day work, do software upgrades on without too much hassle, and use as a gaming machine in the evening.

 

Anyway, here is my current shopping list....

 

GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

 

Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920

 

XFX GS250XZDFU GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

 

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 998681

 

CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

 

Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

 

PLEXTOR 24X DVD/CD Writer Black SATA Model PX-880SA LightScribe Support

 

Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5

 

 

I am a bit behind on hardware these days, so I would appreciate any advice... I should also probably mention that I'm not the average Joe off the street. I've been using Linux and FreeBSD for around 15 years, and I'm currently working as a network engineering consultant. But I am newish to Mac as I just purchased my first MBP at the end of 2008.

 

One question I have now is if I dual boot Win7 can I boot that install in a VM (via VMware fusion) like you would a boot camp install??

 

Anyway, I'll continue to update this thread as I work on this project, thanks in advance!

 

-Tony

[Swhay]

so what your saying is, you are going to be spending around 1500 for the base system. Not including a high quality IPS monitor, keyboard or mouse.

 

if you do want to include those items, like say a 24" IPS widescreen for around $600.00 and add say $100.00 that would bring your total to about $2000.00.

 

You would be better off buying a 27" quad core iMac and you would not have to worry about the problems that a hackintosh brings with it, like updating and tracking down drivers to get everything to work. Getting all those details right can be tiresome and then worry that an update will kill your sound or video, sleep, shutdown or restarting.

 

Now don't get me wrong I am NOT against hackintoshes. I started with a hackinthosh that I had running with minimal problems for well over a year. Once Snow Leopard was out, tracking down fixes to some of the problems mentioned above started all over again and took longer to find solutions that the first time around cause I had to wait for solutions to become available. Then once 10.6.1 was out more problems and so on, and so on.

 

At that point I knew I wanted a real mac at some point, then the 27" came out and the price came down with the new models and I took the plunge and bought a base 27" iMac and sold my 2 hackintoshes (a 3.06 quad and a 3.06 Core 2) I love it. Everything works as it should, it's more than enough power for me. I do some light photoshop work and have tried Final Cut 3 for some home HD movies I also run a Win 7 virtual machine in VMWare Fusion. No performance issues what so ever I hardly ever shut it down except for updates.

 

Good luck whatever you decide to do, just do a fair comparison between a hackintosh and a mac. You may find that it is not that much cheaper to DIY.

[tonhe98]

so what your saying is, you are going to be spending around 1500 for the base system. Not including a high quality IPS monitor, keyboard or mouse.

 

if you do want to include those items, like say a 24" IPS widescreen for around $600.00 and add say $100.00 that would bring your total to about $2000.00.

 

You would be better off buying a 27" quad core iMac and you would not have to worry about the problems that a hackintosh brings with it, like updating and tracking down drivers to get everything to work. Getting all those details right can be tiresome and then worry that an update will kill your sound or video, sleep, shutdown or restarting.

 

Now don't get me wrong I am NOT against hackintoshes. I started with a hackinthosh that I had running with minimal problems for well over a year. Once Snow Leopard was out, tracking down fixes to some of the problems mentioned above started all over again and took longer to find solutions that the first time around cause I had to wait for solutions to become available. Then once 10.6.1 was out more problems and so on, and so on.

 

At that point I knew I wanted a real mac at some point, then the 27" came out and the price came down with the new models and I took the plunge and bought a base 27" iMac and sold my 2 hackintoshes (a 3.06 quad and a 3.06 Core 2) I love it. Everything works as it should, it's more than enough power for me. I do some light photoshop work and have tried Final Cut 3 for some home HD movies I also run a Win 7 virtual machine in VMWare Fusion. No performance issues what so ever I hardly ever shut it down except for updates.

 

Good luck whatever you decide to do, just do a fair comparison between a hackintosh and a mac. You may find that it is not that much cheaper to DIY.

 

If I could buy a Mac Pro for a reasonable price I would, but I already have a monitor that works just fine for what I need (using it now with my MBP) I'm not really interested in the iMac right now... could def use a better graphics card, and with the yellow screen issues I've heard about I'm not exactly waiting in line for one. Not to mention that I have to buy the 27" to get into the i7 stuff... a mac mini would be great if they had any balls...

[muchlife]

Swhay makes a good point about pricing. if you spend x amount, you might as well get a real mac. however, there are 2 main reasons i feel people are drawn to hackintoshing pc hardware is...

 

A) obviously the possibility of saving lots of cash. and B ) the other is the comfort of customizing your hardware. often with imacs or macbooks, you can not upgrade your video easily, you can't add PCIe expansion slots for more firewire, usb, raid controllers, etc.. so if customizing your parts is important to you, and you dont mind the troubleshooting, hackintoshing can still be a good decision and interesting learning experience.

 

as for your hardware choices, x58, i7, ICH10R are great choices on a motherboard/CPU, and make for great hackintoshes

 

you will easily find support for onboard audio, networking, and enjoy some vanilla retail guides that should help you install. the GTS 250 i'm pretty sure can get full support using osx86tools to get an efi string (listed as 9800 GTX)

 

its hard to go wrong with a gigabyte board boasting an i7 or Core 2, and on a P45 or X58 chipset using ICH10[R]

 

you have not mentioned if your planning on 10.5 leopard or 10.6 snow...?

[tonhe98]

Swhay makes a good point about pricing. if you spend x amount, you might as well get a real mac. however, there are 2 main reasons i feel people are drawn to hackintoshing pc hardware is...

 

A) obviously the possibility of saving lots of cash. and B ) the other is the comfort of customizing your hardware. often with imacs or macbooks, you can not upgrade your video easily, you can't add PCIe expansion slots for more firewire, usb, raid controllers, etc.. so if customizing your parts is important to you, and you dont mind the troubleshooting, hackintoshing can still be a good decision and interesting learning experience.

 

as for your hardware choices, x58, i7, ICH10R are great choices on a motherboard/CPU, and make for great hackintoshes

 

you will easily find support for onboard audio, networking, and enjoy some vanilla retail guides that should help you install. the GTS 250 i'm pretty sure can get full support using osx86tools to get an efi string (listed as 9800 GTX)

 

its hard to go wrong with a gigabyte board boasting an i7 or Core 2, and on a P45 or X58 chipset using ICH10[R]

 

you have not mentioned if your planning on 10.5 leopard or 10.6 snow...?

 

You're right, I totally left that out.. I am going to be using Snow Leopard.

 

My main reasons are the lower cost. I can build this i7 system for less than a refurbed iMac ( donation parts, gift cards, etc. ) And its going to be as, or more powrful than a Mac Pro, which is in the class of machine I'm looking for...

 

As long as its going to be stable, I'm good with that. It doesn't seem like the install is that difficult, how are the upgrades? Obviously from what people are saying I'm not just going to be able to upgrade it like a normal mac, but how truly difficult/annoying are they? I was reading into this a while ago on another guy's site and he stated you could update the system as if it was a normal mac..

 

The process of installing a retail copy of OS X is simplified by the wonderful “Standard Retail DVD Install†script and instructions provided by digital_dreamer at InsanelyMac. This method of installation provides for a completely retail, vanilla install and uses the Chameleon bootloader to load any necessary modifications at boot time, without affecting the original system files and/or structure. This ensures that Apple Software Updates can be performed safely without the risk of breaking the installation.

 

Source : http://hishamkhalifa.com/?p=243

 

So, how true is this?

[r15177]

this is a quote from a guide about the i7 920 and mobo ex58 ud5, and also about updates.

 

for starters, this is the most compatible i7 board, in the world.

 

no, apple can not simply remove code we need. that code is also used for their macpro systems.

what can happen though is that updates sometimes makes our custom kexts incompatible. that is why its good to have as little as possible.

 

this has since 10.6.0 only happened with Sleepenabler.kext. workaround was simply to remove kext before update, then download an updated version to install after update. in that matter of speech, you are kind of dependant on others work for your computer to handle future updates. the Gigabyte EX58 UD5 has a really big topic in Tutorial forums though, so I don't feel like I'm going to be left out cold anytime soon.

 

 

a link to his guide

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...204010&st=0

 

r1

 

keep us updated on ur progress.

[Cindori]

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=204010

 

 

 

//read it

[Swhay]

You're right, I totally left that out.. I am going to be using Snow Leopard.

 

My main reasons are the lower cost. I can build this i7 system for less than a refurbed iMac ( donation parts, gift cards, etc. ) And its going to be as, or more powrful than a Mac Pro, which is in the class of machine I'm looking for...

 

As long as its going to be stable, I'm good with that. It doesn't seem like the install is that difficult, how are the upgrades? Obviously from what people are saying I'm not just going to be able to upgrade it like a normal mac, but how truly difficult/annoying are they? I was reading into this a while ago on another guy's site and he stated you could update the system as if it was a normal mac..

 

 

 

Source : http://hishamkhalifa.com/?p=243

 

So, how true is this?

 

 

As for updating like a normal Mac, I doubt this is true. I don't have experience with this particular MB, but although Apple can't mess with the code too much as it could break things for a real Mac Pro. There are still other things that can be done to the code that could and usually do break something like sleep, sound, restart, or shutdown. Plus you never know what else will come with those future updates. Unless you are a device driver programmer, you will have to wait until someone comes out with a fix and usually the only ones who fix it are the ones that have the hardware and can write and test objective-c code to make or patch a kext.

 

The other thing to consider is, you say you want Mac Pro level performance. Why? OS X 10.5 (More so with 10.6) is very efficient and does not require the level of hardware Windows does. Also, even with OS X updates, a new Mac machine will still be relevant for up to 5 years (Usually twice as long as a Windows Box) and by then it's time for a new machine anyway, so why would you need it to be upgradable. I think more advanced users coming from the Windows side always fear that a computer HAS to be upgradeable. That true on the Windows side, not for the Mac side.

 

Plus if you take the plunge and get a Mac, when you are ready to upgrade to a new machine, you should be able to sell your Mac for at lest half of what you paid new. I have seen Mac Minis going for more used than new.

 

I put together an Intel Atom ITX system for my mother-in-law with 80 gig HD and 2 gig of ram. I has 10.5.8 installed and the system is very fast for everyday surfing, e-mail etc. I wouldn't encode video on it or play a really high end game though.

 

Unless your going to do professional video editing and video encoding on it or 3d work. You may want to reconsider the performance level you are trying to achieve.

 

I'm not trying to discourage you at all. Just giving you a different view of things and maybe bring up things you had not considered.

 

I understand how you feel being new to OS X and hackintoshes. I felt the same way when I first started a year and a half ago. I was so afraid of not being able to upgrade if I bought a mac I thought they were too expensive for what you got, etc, etc.

 

The more I used OS X on my hack, the more I liked it and having to wait to update and find fixes almost every time an update came out, I soon saw the value of a real Mac. It's not just about the hardware or OS it's the whole package that makes it worth it, even if it's a little bit more expensive.

 

Thats the VALUE of a real mac.

 

Hope I gave you info to help you think it over and more to consider than just "it's cheaper".

[tonhe98]

As for updating like a normal Mac, I doubt this is true. I don't have experience with this particular MB, but although Apple can't mess with the code too much as it could break things for a real Mac Pro. There are still other things that can be done to the code that could and usually do break something like sleep, sound, restart, or shutdown. Plus you never know what else will come with those future updates. Unless you are a device driver programmer, you will have to wait until someone comes out with a fix and usually the only ones who fix it are the ones that have the hardware and can write and test objective-c code to make or patch a kext.

 

The other thing to consider is, you say you want Mac Pro level performance. Why? OS X 10.5 (More so with 10.6) is very efficient and does not require the level of hardware Windows does. Also, even with OS X updates, a new Mac machine will still be relevant for up to 5 years (Usually twice as long as a Windows Box) and by then it's time for a new machine anyway, so why would you need it to be upgradable. I think more advanced users coming from the Windows side always fear that a computer HAS to be upgradeable. That true on the Windows side, not for the Mac side.

 

I have a MBP Pro Core 2 @2.53 ghz w/4gb of ram now. I heavily tax this machine everyday, I continually run it out of memory and peg the cpu. Having a desktop of offload some of the VM ( I say VM, but a lot of what I do is with emulated Cisco and Juniper routers ) load to another machine it would be great. I do have 2 servers that I use for this as well, but it would just be nice to be able to do some of the work locally without starting up another machine.

 

I understand how you feel being new to OS X and hackintoshes. I felt the same way when I first started a year and a half ago. I was so afraid of not being able to upgrade if I bought a mac I thought they were too expensive for what you got, etc, etc.

 

Honestly, I don't think the iMacs are too over priced, but their graphics performance isn't even equal to what I have on my laptop. (from what I've read, I haven't used one) I honestly wish they had an i7 Mac below the price range of the Mac Pro, hell even under what the i7 iMac costs (I mean, it does include a monitor.... ) that would perfectly fit my budget and it would be easily updated to include much more memory and possibly even better graphics ability.

 

The more I used OS X on my hack, the more I liked it and having to wait to update and find fixes almost every time an update came out, I soon saw the value of a real Mac. It's not just about the hardware or OS it's the whole package that makes it worth it, even if it's a little bit more expensive.

 

Thats the VALUE of a real mac.

 

Hope I gave you info to help you think it over and more to consider than just "it's cheaper".

 

Honestly, I should of used a better description of why than cheaper. Its more about my perceived value. Getting exactly what you want in a machine is worth quite a lot to me. Not something I can do with an iMac, and I can't begin to afford a Mac Pro.

 

 

That said, I think I'm going to move ahead in this project. I have a little bit more reading to do, but I have a feeling I'll be ordering parts later today.

 

Thanks again for everyones thoughts and opinions, I'll keep you updated!

 

I do have one question that I can't seem to find a decent guide on. What is the difference between all of the bootloaders people are using. I obviously don't want to make the wrong choice here....

 

I see a lot of people are using Chameleon RC3 or maybe RC4, but some prefer the PC EFI..

 

Can someone point me to a guide?

 

Thanks!

[tonhe98]

So, I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on my parts order, but I have one question.

 

Any opinions on this graphics card, vs the one I was going to order.

 

New Card - PNY VCGGTX260CXPB GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814133270

 

Previous Card - XFX GS250XZDFU GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814150439

 

It appears to be a higher end card, with just a little less memory (odd memory size there). Its about $35 more, but I've never purchased anything from PNY, and I want to make sure its 100% compatible.

 

Thanks again !

 

Update: I went ahead and pulled the trigger on a BFG Tech GTX 275 -- Lifetime warranty, and I found a page that stated all 200 series cards were supported.. so, lets see what I can make work.. I'm submitting my order for the rest of my parts shortly...

This is the card I ordered.. http://www.compusa.com/applications/search...FGEGTX275896OCE

[tonhe98]

So now its time for the waiting game... Everything has been ordered..... wish me luck, I'll post pictures during the build process

 

Update: I hate newegg some days.. I ordered early, paid for rush, they never sent me an email (and still haven't) about my order. Nor did they tell me for some reason my card didn't process, I notice this at 5pm EST - tell them to reprocess my card (which had already been charged according to my bank) and it goes through just fine. So yeah, they didn't ship my stuff today... ohwell... Hopefully the video card shipped (amazon marketplace), PSU should be here Monday.

[tonhe98]

Since most of the decent heatsinks require a mounting plate under the board these days, I decided to go ahead and order one now. Been reading up on the overclocking the i7 920... looks to be a pretty simple process, and from what I've read most people have pretty good luck getting their systems up to 4ghz. I'll be happy with 3.5-3.6 though, no need to push the envelope too far.

 

I was originally going to order the Noctua NH-U12P, but after reading some reviews, it seems like the much smaller Thermalright CoGage True Spirit is not only a much better value, but it actually works a bit better as well. A note for anyone considering the Noctura... The fan hangs into your memory space, so you end up losing an entire slot... that alone was a deal breaker for me.

 

Anyway, back to waiting until my parts start arriving. I may grab a spare drive and go through the initial process via my SATA -> USB dock on my MBP.. just so I know what exactly to expect...

[hero223]

which installation method are you going to do? i just bought all the same specs as you except video card and am setting it up now? Will the retail usb method working? & do you know absolutely the easiest method to install snow leopard without having a mac. I just have a mac book pro and i can hook u pa external usb drive but not the drive itself. Thanks

[tonhe98]

which installation method are you going to do? i just bought all the same specs as you except video card and am setting it up now? Will the retail usb method working? & do you know absolutely the easiest method to install snow leopard without having a mac. I just have a mac book pro and i can hook u pa external usb drive but not the drive itself. Thanks

 

This is my first hackintosh, so I know very very little about what I'm doing. But, I am following this method.

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=185097

 

I'm going to use my MBP with a Sata -> USB drive dock, hope that works...

[hero223]

Yah im trying that right now but it still seems quite complicated, what im going to try to do is install SL onto my external HD on my mac book pro & then connect that to the newly built system but the only thing im getting confused with is on how to install SL onto my SATA drive. I wish there was a simplified guide telling me step by step. Ive heard of the usb method but cant really find anything on it

[tonhe98]

Yah im trying that right now but it still seems quite complicated, what im going to try to do is install SL onto my external HD on my mac book pro & then connect that to the newly built system but the only thing im getting confused with is on how to install SL onto my SATA drive. I wish there was a simplified guide telling me step by step. Ive heard of the usb method but cant really find anything on it

 

The install process on that page is pretty straight forward. I'm testing it out tonight on a spare drive I have laying around, but don't have a full system to boot it yet.. obviously.

 

The only thing I see being a post install issue is the video card. ( and my Win 7 Dual boot )

[r15177]

@ hero223

 

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=204010

 

the "absolutely easiest method" that i know of for your setup

 

-r1

[tonhe98]

Parts have started showing up. I'll add a group photo when everything gets here..

 

So far I just have the BFG Tech GTX 275 OC'd Video Card and my Corsair 850w modular power supply... Hope everything else shows up soon.

 

Update: Looks like everything else should arrive on Wednesday!

[tonhe98]

My parts just got here!!!

 

http://grab.by/2aQZ

 

Update:

 

Everything is built, took a break for dinner... now working on getting OS X installed!

 

http://grab.by/2b4x

[tonhe98]

So yeah, I'm having some issues getting my hackintosh to boot for the first time after following the digital dreamer's guide... Here is a link to the post I made in that thread, if anyone could help that would be great..

 

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php...d=1403306

[tonhe98]

Well, I gave up on both Digital Dreamers script, and the Empire EFI -- myHack was the way to go. It takes much less time, and I don't have to remove the drive from the machine!

 

Anyway, everything is up and running, I need to do some editing on my smbios.plist and make sure sleep is working ok, but other than that I have everything up and solid. Here is a geek bench screenshot!

 

http://i.imgur.com/JtFCi.jpg

 

-Tony

[tonhe98]

As of last night, everything is working 100% -- including sleep. Previous to my discussion on IRC last night, my machine was running great, except when I woke from sleep the beast would reboot!! Apparently the fix is simple enough though. Go into System Preferences -> Enegery Saver and turn on Start up automaticly after power failure. (altho this was the only change I needed to make, they also mentioned that under Security you need to ensure Use secure virtual memory is turned off... )

 

Anyway, everything else works, its running like a dream, dual booting w/ Win7.

 

If anyone is interested to hear more, or has any questions, let me know! Thanks!!

[KariNeko]

Congratulations! i7/X58 builds work very well.

[tonhe98]

Thanks, I've noticed some odd things regarding the ethernet ports... the connection shows up as 0mbit in Network Utility, and iStat doesn't seem to register any traffic going across it... odd

 

 

Update: It appears that lots are having issues with iStat Menus... as for the Network Utility issue is probably just some odd driver thing..

[KariNeko]

I'm using my Marvell 88E8056 onboard ports so I can't comment on that problem, here Network Utility and iStat Menus are working correctly.