Eric_O'_Conner Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Hi All First post to the forum, been reading a lot about osx86 lately. So I want to build my own Mac Pro with much less bucks and unncessary power ( who needs buffered ecc-checked drams ). I will use the homebrew mac pro for heavy photography works (Aperture, Photoshop). The total cost of the machine should be around £1200 or $1800 US Dollars. I'm looking at, Intel E6600 or above CPU, a decent graphic card that allow me to do some heavy 3D games when I'm not working (any of the NVidia 8 series card work in osx86 yet?), 2g or 4g of memory, 10000 prm hard drive and RAID 0 if possible. I'm not quite sure about the compatability of Mac OS X 10.4.8 and therefore want some advices here. I want compatability go first, stability go second and performence go last, price can be more flexible if necessary thanks!! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Hi! The best compatible cards are the 7900 series or 1900-1950. Also only 256vram or lower is supported. Sorry, but this is the current state of affairs. That's a really good idea. DDR-II is faster than FB-DIMMS anyway. With your budget, I say, get yourself a nice 975 board of your choice, like the new Abit, an Asus, maybe intel. The E6600 is an excellent choice, some decent ram and an overclock, and you will have a 100% compatible, seriously fast machine. Compatibility-wise, I don't think you need to worry. With well-selected components, OSX86 is a joy, 100% stable, fast and very responsive. Sorry, but I don't think raid is supported either. Only in software, which provides no performance advantages. Hope you're getting yourself a nice screen, 20-27" widescreen LCD recommended here... Please keep asking for more questions, good luck! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-274456 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric_O'_Conner Posted January 12, 2007 Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 (edited) Hi! The best compatible cards are the 7900 series or 1900-1950. Also only 256vram or lower is supported. Sorry, but this is the current state of affairs. That's a really good idea. DDR-II is faster than FB-DIMMS anyway. With your budget, I say, get yourself a nice 975 board of your choice, like the new Abit, an Asus, maybe intel. The E6600 is an excellent choice, some decent ram and an overclock, and you will have a 100% compatible, seriously fast machine. Compatibility-wise, I don't think you need to worry. With well-selected components, OSX86 is a joy, 100% stable, fast and very responsive. Sorry, but I don't think raid is supported either. Only in software, which provides no performance advantages. Hope you're getting yourself a nice screen, 20-27" widescreen LCD recommended here... Please keep asking for more questions, good luck! Woo... great... actually i spent the pass few hours searching the forum as threads regarding this topic are posted under all sorts of werid titles... so now i have 2 more questions: 1. yes im actually saving my many from Mac Pro to some real screen estates. I'm going to plug in two 24" LCD. will the current osx86 driver support this? how about 30" ? 2. Is 975 the latest chipset from Intel? does Mac Pro use this chip set as well? Sorry havnt been updated with component market for a long while since i left school. I guess i will soon come up with a complete list. then i will put everything inside a Lian Li PowerMac G5-alike case ... and horray! anyway , thanks again for your reply. Edited January 12, 2007 by Eric O' Coinner Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-274464 Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitamin-c Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Nice project you have got over there I would recomend the 1950pro, or perhaps xt, but im only sure about the pro. It runs very well under osx86 and when i need it, i just reboot and play oblivion at maximum settings at 1280x1024 Take any compitable moderboard that overcklocks well, and you will have a faster system. the 6600 seams to be a exelent choice too. perhaps you could go with the P5B Deluxe WiFi as it have wifi build right into it Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-274472 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric_O'_Conner Posted January 12, 2007 Author Share Posted January 12, 2007 Nice project you have got over there I would recomend the 1950pro, or perhaps xt, but im only sure about the pro. It runs very well under osx86 and when i need it, i just reboot and play oblivion at maximum settings at 1280x1024 Take any compitable moderboard that overcklocks well, and you will have a faster system. the 6600 seams to be a exelent choice too. perhaps you could go with the P5B Deluxe WiFi as it have wifi build right into it Hi thx for the advice, i guess i'll take it a bit further to the 512m 1950XTX, its about on par with the low end 8800 NVidia card. The problem is, will the current osx86 driver boost dual screen output, espcially when both screen are considerbaly big, (24"+) and the P5B Deluxe u talked about, is it the famous Asus 975 board? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-274495 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 2. Is 975 the latest chipset from Intel? No, but it is want you want here. does Mac Pro use this chip set as well? No, the Mac Pro is a completely different platform. You might want to look at this thread: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=26508 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-274513 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synaesthesia Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 Woo... great... actually i spent the pass few hours searching the forum as threads regarding this topic are posted under all sorts of werid titles... Hey, you have to check out the genius bar. There's a massive forum there titled "How to Build an Overclocked Conroe OSX86 Box" so now i have 2 more questions: 1. yes im actually saving my many from Mac Pro to some real screen estates. I'm going to plug in two 24" LCD. will the current osx86 driver support this? how about 30" ? I know you can get 30". Just get a card with dual-dvi, from the 7600GT upwards, I'd say. Not too shure about dual-screen. It might work, you must search the forum, or else pherhaps someone here knows... 2. Is 975 the latest chipset from Intel? does Mac Pro use this chip set as well? Sorry havnt been updated with component market for a long while since i left school. No Mac Pro uses another type of motherboard for it's dual Xeon processors, and FB-DIMM RAM. 975 is a current chipset, not the newest, quite old. 975 Motherboards cost more, but overclock well, are pretty stable and very well supported in OS X86. Go with what vitamin-c is saying, is good! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-274567 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric_O'_Conner Posted January 13, 2007 Author Share Posted January 13, 2007 right... seems like the harddrive is the bottle neck now.... any ideas about supported SCSI controllers? I still don't want to give up on RAID because the 10000RPM drive seems to be a bit more expensive than acceptable. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-274733 Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming77 Posted February 2, 2007 Share Posted February 2, 2007 hi - I thought people were having problems gettting their x1950 pro's to work correctly??? i have a 1950 pro, and am still debating whether to try OSX in it - i currently have vista installed, but it's not all that great... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-292257 Share on other sites More sharing options...
hixatchi Posted February 3, 2007 Share Posted February 3, 2007 I have the asus p5wdh and it works perfectly, network worked out of the box, sound only needs a drive u can find in teh genius bar or the hardware drivers section from taruga, and for video card i didn't have luck with x1900xt and xtx... i heard x1950 pros don't work too well, x1950xt should work with jcools driver...... out of the box though i have a bfg 7800gtx and that works perfectly with the driver on teh installation dvd or u could try 7900gs which i heard works like a dream too. skip the newer cards or cards with 512 mb other then ati as compatability is not there yet... and i tried 4 gb ram on my board works perfectly haha Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-292352 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stellair Posted February 8, 2007 Share Posted February 8, 2007 I am almost thinking the same as hixatchi but I'm wondering which one would be faster; 7900GS or X1950XT? And a Sapphire X1950Pro is recognized natively I think (red it somewhere on the forum) Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/38452-building-my-own-mac-pro/#findComment-297082 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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