voiceover Posted July 17, 2010 Share Posted July 17, 2010 Hello fellow hackintosh community members, Ok, I recently sold my old Hackintosh, which was an AMD phenom build. It worked fine to be honest, but stuff like the fans always spinning at high level, the case being ATX (I should of gone with a micro ATX case) and later a failed bios flash just caused me to totally hate that computer. I had a gigabyte motherboard with it and in the end, my bios failed to flash so I had to mess with pins to get the backup bios to load, and then before I sold the machine it booted off my flash drive which had the bad bios file on it... It flashed it over again, so that's when I just said, "enough of this computer!" I already have purchased a new 750 GB Seagate HDD for $59. I just completed my purchase of an Intel core i5-750 CPU as well, for $184, after getting a nice deal for it: $10 off (it was $194 originally). As my nickname implies, I use the voiceover screen reader. This means that I absolutely had no need for graphics-heck, I could even use my computer without a screen if I wanted to, since I don't look at it. Thus, I really don't want to have to buy a graphics card, but since I don't see any motherboards around which have inegrated cards in them, I guess I'll have to. I want to build this next hackintosh for under $500, with the already listed components (which add up to $230). Are there any good motherboards (which are cheap as well), and microATX/midtower cases? I'm looking to use this hackintosh in college, and we all know how small college dorm rooms are... I'll be happy if my LCD fits in that tiny room! Thanks everyone. All the best, Tomi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mackilroy Posted July 17, 2010 Share Posted July 17, 2010 The only MicroATX board I know if that I'm (fairly certain) is supported is the Gigabyte P55M-UD2. That bumps you up to $420. I found a case by Rosewill that has pretty good reviews – the R101-P-BK – that also includes a built-in PSU. If you don't like it, though, here is a link to all the MicroATX Mid-tower cases with power supplies built in. It's $44.99. The lowest GPU that I could find that was still compatible was an XFX 9400 GT – which is ~$10 over your preferred price. I'll do some searching around later when I have more free time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neil43 Posted July 17, 2010 Share Posted July 17, 2010 Hello fellow hackintosh community members, .... Are there any good motherboards (which are cheap as well), and microATX/midtower cases? I'm looking to use this hackintosh in college, and we all know how small college dorm rooms are... I'll be happy if my LCD fits in that tiny room! ... Well you could look at this Zotac MB which is Mini-ITX. The idea is "small but powerfull system". Zotac thread. neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voiceover Posted July 18, 2010 Author Share Posted July 18, 2010 Thanks so much for the comments and feedback I took a look at those cases, and later went to my local computer store (Micro center) to see if they have any of them. They actually had the one you mentioned (the 450 W supply one), but I noticed that it only had 1 sata connector+2 molex ones, which troubled me slightly. The guy said that it's solveable but I would need a converter cable. I ended up buying a case for $34, it's an apex microatx with a 300W power supply. I don't know if the power supply will be anything good, but 300W is I guess better than the 200 and 250W ones out there. I'll probably not overclock the CPU or the ram/board, since I just want a relatively powerful hackintosh for college dorm use. Perhaps HTPC-work, you know. I also looked around for graphics cards. You mentioned the 9400gt, which is a great card and actually Sparkle sells them for like $46 fanless, which is not bad. My retail shop had that as well, but also the 8400GT for $17 after a $10 mail-in rebate. Is the 8400GT a bad card? I know some of the Macs use it, from what I can recall. I t has 512 MB ddr2 memory and what I liked about the card was that it does not hook up to my power supply like most graphic cards do, so that was a plus for me. Again, I wanted to keep the build as power efficient as I can, while maintaining a low price for it. I know... I did make quick decisions on this build. I looked online before hand as well and actually the case for $4 isn't bad at all, considering that it had a 450W SU. I'm still looking for a motherboard though. The ITX board was nice since it had built-in wi-fi;However the lack of an IDE port and PCI slot was slightly disconcerting. Thanks for the recommendation though So the p55-ud2 right now is my top choice, unless I find something for a cheaper price that is also hackintosh compatible. The lowest I've found that board was $98. Any other motherboard recommendation that is really hackintosh compatible? Thanks for all the help I hope to have this system up soon. All the best, Tomi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mackilroy Posted July 18, 2010 Share Posted July 18, 2010 No other motherboard ideas from me, mine cost three times that. I don't know how well the 8400 GT works – I know the 8800 GT does, so presumably the 8400 will as well, but I use ATI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voiceover Posted July 27, 2010 Author Share Posted July 27, 2010 I built it! Alright, I've been using this hackintosh for a few days now. Maybe 2? Thanks so much for the help on it, it's working great. I ended up using the p55m-ud2 motherboard. It was cheap (when compared to others) and seems, to date, to be working fine. Gosh, I hope I didn't just jinks it! Lol! Here's the build: core i5-750 (Speedstep won't work on core i3s natively it seems) apex tx-373 microatx case with a 300W power Supply 4 gb OCZ ddr3-1600 Ram (sadly, it's clocked at 1066 MHz ) 750 GB Seagate Baracuda 7200.1 HDD A nice looking floppy drive BFG Nvidia Gforce 8400gs card p55m-ud2 board a really cool cd-drive (not really). LG, 22x DVD The first thing that will most likely go for an upgrade in this build will be the graphics card. I got it for $17 at my local microcenter, and boy does it reflect it's price! The fan sounds like a small saw spinning. If I put my finger on top of it, I can hear the difference of just the CPU/case rear fans. The stock cooler isn't any better, either. It's ok, keeps my CPU at around 38 ºC idle, but it will also need an upgrade later on. I'm not sure of any CPU coolers that would fit my Microatx case and the board;The included 300W Power supply has no other hook-ups for coolers or graphics cards. It's not the best power supply, but it does it's job, and I suppose I'm happy for that as well. I'm not planning on overclocking any sort, simply because it can mess with hackintosh speedstep and performance, so it should be enough. Overall, I paid $505 for the build. Very satisfied. Nothing is perfect I suppose. I hope it will help someone out in making a budget-conscious build. I was really surprised to see the core i5's value this low, when compared for it's performance anyway. That's not Intel-like. All the best, Tomi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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