Will these beasts (i7, 24GB RAM) work?

[rawmassen]

Hi guys, need some advice.

 

Looking at two options...

 

A. Insane & Expensive

 

6-Core i7 980X with Noctua NH-D14, with goal of 4.5Ghz

Asus Rampage III Extreme

24GB Corsair Dominator (6 x 4GB)

XFX 5870

 

B. Awesome & Affordable

 

4-Core i7 950 with Noctua NH-D14, with goal of 4Ghz

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R

24GB Corsair Dominator (6 x 4GB)

XFX 5870

 

Both will use an OWC Extreme 240 SSD for the boot drive, and a WD 2TB Black for data.

 

The use will be mainly Photoshop and Lightroom (hence the RAM).

 

Some questions for those in the know...

 

1. Has anyone used 24GB in a hackintosh before?

2. What's the fastest compatible graphics card (either ATI or NVIDIA)?

3. Is there a better suited mobo for the 980X?

 

Thanks!

 

Update

 

Opting for a Sandy Bridge setup, 2600K with 16GB RAM. Relatively cheap and when overclocked to 4.5Ghz, a beast.

[pirloui]

There is little chance you will benefit from the 6 cores except if you do heavy 3D rendering; and as for 24GB ram, the same.

I'm pretty sure you'd not notice any difference between the 6 core with 24 GB and the 4core with 8GB, so that would be my recommendation.

[projekt k]

first off above me is right unless you are doing some serious 3d stuff you are wasting your money, and in the case you were it would be wiser to buy a real mac in the sense that it's legal and you would be using it for a serious profit. now for some advice you can use if you just looked around the boards for no more than 5 minutes you would know nVidia is really the best way to go because it can be fully enabled. I would keep 6 core because that comment isn't true above, hell you could do some serious 3d rendering on a pentium dual core if you wanted, there are other things involved like what series graphics card you use and what your raid drive set up is like. There is no app that can truly utilize that much ram, that much ram is for a server based PC/MAC where several sources would be using it in one instance for maybe a total of 100-300 apps using the same ram sources. In that case you have multiple servers and more importantly a much higher more unaffordable sense of ram. Also I have noticed that as quick as a hackintosh can be no matter how great it is or how high the bench marks are, install windows 7 or linux on the machine and you will notice that the hackintosh ed of it doesn't use all of its resources for some reason. So if you need OSX i think your investment is screwing you in a sense that a Mac Pro runs at full speed and you get what you get over there.

 

Don't get me wrong I love my hackintosh, I am just saying a i7 6 core with 8 GB of ram is enough for now and you can always upgrade the ram. Also the new Sandy Bridge chips coming out soon i think within a few months will have an 8 core model so if you want an 8 core the wait isn't very far away.

[Mackilroy]

About NVIDIA being fully enabled, that's trash, ATI is also easy to use. I would know, having built my hackintosh around an ATI 4890. As far as the RAM goes, you're wrong about that, too – bioinformatics and Photoshop can easily use 24 gigs of RAM, among other things.

 

What do you mean that OS X won't use all the machine's resources? Mine certainly does. That part of your paragraph makes no sense.

 

Before you start spouting nonsense please check your facts.

[rawmassen]

I've decided to get a Sandy Bridge setup, 2600K with 16GB RAM. Relatively cheap and when overclocked to 4.5Ghz, a beast.

 

projekt k: I did look around the board, and was under the impression the ATI 5870 was a great choice since it's used in 2010 Mac Pro's, unlike the equivalent NVIDIA which requires more post installation work.

 

For the record, I own a 2009 MBP (8GB RAM) with genuine Adobe licences (including Leopard and SL of course), which is probably more than most in this board I would imagine. Including yourself perhaps?

 

Thanks for help all those who replied, much appreciated.

[ixxxion]

I've decided to get a Sandy Bridge setup, 2600K with 16GB RAM. Relatively cheap and when overclocked to 4.5Ghz, a beast.

 

projekt k: I did look around the board, and was under the impression the ATI 5870 was a great choice since it's used in 2010 Mac Pro's, unlike the equivalent NVIDIA which requires more post installation work.

 

For the record, I own a 2009 MBP (8GB RAM) with genuine Adobe licences (including Leopard and SL of course), which is probably more than most in this board I would imagine. Including yourself perhaps?

 

Thanks for help all those who replied, much appreciated.

 

Yes, the ATI 5870 is a great choice, but not all the device/manufacturer IDs are in the vanilla 5xxx KEXT. I have the XFX 5870 1GB, and the device ID is there by default, so I'm fully vanilla (with Kabyl's boot file and Chameleon 2 RC5).

 

Note: there is an issue with 2560x1600 resolution, you have to use the display port out for everything to work.... the DVI works, but when it wakes up from sleep, the display will never come back, several people are reporting this problem. I use DisplayPort and everything is good.

[Rommel64]

I've decided to get a Sandy Bridge setup, 2600K with 16GB RAM. Relatively cheap and when overclocked to 4.5Ghz, a beast.

 

projekt k: I did look around the board, and was under the impression the ATI 5870 was a great choice since it's used in 2010 Mac Pro's, unlike the equivalent NVIDIA which requires more post installation work.

 

For the record, I own a 2009 MBP (8GB RAM) with genuine Adobe licences (including Leopard and SL of course), which is probably more than most in this board I would imagine. Including yourself perhaps?

 

Thanks for help all those who replied, much appreciated.

 

I just got mine sunday (i7-2600 lga1155 with a p8p67 motherboard )and haven't gotten it to work, Hope you wont be as disappointed as I was, I'm going back to my core duo.

[Mackilroy]

Rommel64: there's a reason you haven't gotten it to work – you have to have a hacked kernel to do so. Wait until Apple releases SNB-based Macs of their own – you'll have better luck then.

[rawmassen]

Yes, the ATI 5870 is a great choice, but not all the device/manufacturer IDs are in the vanilla 5xxx KEXT. I have the XFX 5870 1GB, and the device ID is there by default, so I'm fully vanilla (with Kabyl's boot file and Chameleon 2 RC5).

 

Note: there is an issue with 2560x1600 resolution, you have to use the display port out for everything to work.... the DVI works, but when it wakes up from sleep, the display will never come back, several people are reporting this problem. I use DisplayPort and everything is good.

 

Thanks. I'll be using the 24" Apple Cinema display with a DisplayPort to Mini DP adapter, it's resolution is 1900 maximum.

[projekt k]

my point exactly if you have this software legally I am guessing you wouldn't drop money on Adobe suites for fun. There is usually some kind of business involved. Legally you can not make any profit on a hackintosh because the user agreement states apple applications of all brands must be ran on apple parts which includes the logic board. I built a hackintosh out of hobby, plus who actually gives Microsoft $300 for an OS license. I also built a hackintosh for professional audio recording, which is when I discovered if I want to be able to record clients on OS X I needed official Apple hardware. I own quite a bit of audio applications and hardware such as pro tools 9, interfaces, mic pres, plug in suites, so that whole I own Adobe Suites legally comment was just sad like you think you're better than me for owning software. Guess what I own stuff too for my work field. A lot of us do, a lot of us even own real macs, a majority of us hackintosh because simply it's fun. It's nice when you spend 1500 and get a more stable system than an up to date mac pro. i hope you got everything working.