Nickhamm Posted December 18, 2006 Share Posted December 18, 2006 I am looking to build an OSx86 machine that is a Core Duo/Core 2 Duo based machine. I have searched the boards here and found endless posts unanswered and many troubled with many systems and am looking for the cheapest system that will work perfect or as close to perfect as possible. If the cost is too high, I can also settle for a Pentium D or even a higher end Pentium 4 with 64-bit support. I would like to total costs to be under $500 (higher if need be, no more than $1000) using quality parts (4 out of 5 eggs/stars at least). I already have an 80GB PATA HDD, a 160GB PATA Hard Drive, a 16x DVD Burner, a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I strongly prefer Wireless Internet Support. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/36162-best-bang-for-your-buck-osx86-machine/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepdog43 Posted December 21, 2006 Share Posted December 21, 2006 (edited) Bang for the buck this will be difficult to beat. It is not easy to build a cheap Core 2 Duo as ram has skyrocketed, as have the boards. That ram listed should allow you to overclock quite a ways. My brother has something similar (better vid card, different brands) and it runs killer for the money. I would not go any cheaper on anything as you will start holding back the processor. The one thing I would upgrade is the Video card to a BFG 7900 GS. Really a nice card, but it will add another $98. Another good upgrade is an Asus P5b or P5w-DH Deluxe. Either will add $70-90, the DH has a supported 975 chipset for easier install, p5b will overclock more. Faster but cheap ram, you are on your own. While not everything on here may rate a 4star, everything on it has been proven to work well. Intel e6300 - $183 Gigabyte P965 DS3 (see the guide on this site for help getting it going, works great.) - $135 BFG 7600GT 256meg PCI-E - $93 PQI Turbo 2gigs DDR 667 ram $215 Thermaltake 550watt PSU - $96 Total - About $720 Wireless you are on your own. Edited December 21, 2006 by sheepdog43 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/36162-best-bang-for-your-buck-osx86-machine/#findComment-259147 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickhamm Posted December 22, 2006 Author Share Posted December 22, 2006 Well, after talking this over with my cousin (who is the one actually building this machine) he decided to go a different route (though he did like your list). ASRock 775i945GZ Motherboard - $66.12 Intel Pentium® D Processor 820 2.8GHz - $95.50 Seagate SATAII Hard Drive 250GB - $65.16 Corsair 1GB DDR2-533 Memory - $108.00 THERMALTAKE TR2 430W Power Supply - $45.85 --------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL: $380.63 The ASRock Board seems to be solid and he said he didn't need anything super powerful for video right now and he has a laptop with GMA950 and it is good enough for him. This board states it will support the Core 2 Duos that are going to come out (supposedly) with 800mhZ front side bus. This also has the ability to upgrade graphics later with a PCI Express (x4, but still PCIe). So it works for now and has ability to upgrade later. And its cheap. We are working on assembling it tomorrow, so we should know how Mac OS runs on it by tomorrow night. We have the 10.4.8 JaS reseed and JaS 10.4.4/10.4.5 for backup. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/36162-best-bang-for-your-buck-osx86-machine/#findComment-259831 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickhamm Posted December 25, 2006 Author Share Posted December 25, 2006 (edited) OK, it was built and installed XP and then tried to install Mac OS and both discs were very jittery as far as graphics and performance. Once they installed, it was slow and jerky and the intro movie wanted to loop. I finally figured out I had to disable one core of the Pentium D. Once I did that by adding cpus=1 in com.apple.Boot.plist under kernel flags, it ran smooth as silk. GarageBand rocks and we even have the start of Airport Support. The wireless card is an AT&T Plug&Share 6500G card. It has an Aetheros chipset (device ID 0013). It shows up as an airport and wireless networks it creates (for file sharing) show up under windows on my cousin's laptop, but he cannot get it to connect to his wireless G router (DI-524 rev C). Otherwise, it is fully functional (minus the Happauge 150MCE tuner, which as far as I know there is no way to get that to work, even with eyeTV). If anyone has advice on the wireless, it would be appreciated. Edited December 25, 2006 by Nickhamm Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/36162-best-bang-for-your-buck-osx86-machine/#findComment-261326 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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