Hi, need help buidling a system from the ground up

[JustinAiken]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm looking to build an audio PC over the next few months, with the intention of dualbooting osx86 and win XP. I haven't built a new computer in a long time, so I have no idea anymore what motherboards are compatible with what chipsets or what ram etc etc...

 

Anyways, I'm going to be trying to piece it together over the next few months when I see good deals on craigslist or techdeals or woot or wherever.

 

So what I need is advice on the pieces I need for maximum OSX86 compatiblity, without being very expensive.

 

Chip - Dual core, should I go intel or AMD?

Motherboard - I'd prefer one with 4 ram slots, but that's it really. Just want it to be compaitble.

RAM - 2 1GB sticks for now, 2 later... does OSX86 need special kinds of ram?

HD - A small system drive, larger audio drive.. does OSX86 need special kinds of drives?

Video card - Doesn't matter too much, won't be playing games, just one that is super compatbile, and hopefully has 2 video outs

Lotsa USB and Firewire ports...

 

I have an mbox2 that I'll use for any serious audio work, so onboard sound is fine if it works for simply watching movie and such, but if onboard audio doesn't work in osx86 then any simple soundcard...

 

Anyways, any advice will be much appreicated.. I want to get a good as hackintosh as I can for as cheap as possible.

 

Thanks guys!

[JustinAiken]

Video card - Doesn't matter too much, won't be playing games, just one that is super compatbile, and hopefully has 2 video outs

 

 

Well, I would use it for games a little... I don't need to be capable of running DX10 in windows or anything, but I do want to be able to run Half-life 2 smoothly, even if the detail's low.

[candykane]

Well any old system will do new stuff usably tends not to be suported

if you read the forums 2-3 boads will defenedly pop out as compatible

 

AsRock 775Dual-915GV its an older board but everything runs right out of the box

 

then there is the rest they all have a large fan base and are always there to help

Asus

P5W its getting old max mem bus dd2 800mhz.

P5B a mutch cheaper board

 

Gigabyte

GA-P35-DS4

945p S3 /DS3.

.

video moost cards will do great. but usably nead a bit of tinkering to get them to work great.

nvidia cards nead a flash if you want to use more then 256 mb. intel video usably works out of the box.

and ati wel usay works after installing a driver.

 

 

A hackintosh is a PC so stick to pc hardware andy HDD DVDr ect will do keboard and mouses 2

micrisoeft an logitech have a few models that have mac drivers as wel for configuring extra buttons.

mouse speeds ect

 

good luck to you man

[Wrenbird]

Hello everyone,

 

I'm looking to build an audio PC over the next few months, with the intention of dualbooting osx86 and win XP. I haven't built a new computer in a long time, so I have no idea anymore what motherboards are compatible with what chipsets or what ram etc etc...

 

Anyways, I'm going to be trying to piece it together over the next few months when I see good deals on craigslist or techdeals or woot or wherever.

 

So what I need is advice on the pieces I need for maximum OSX86 compatiblity, without being very expensive.

 

Chip - Dual core, should I go intel or AMD?

Motherboard - I'd prefer one with 4 ram slots, but that's it really. Just want it to be compaitble.

RAM - 2 1GB sticks for now, 2 later... does OSX86 need special kinds of ram?

HD - A small system drive, larger audio drive.. does OSX86 need special kinds of drives?

Video card - Doesn't matter too much, won't be playing games, just one that is super compatbile, and hopefully has 2 video outs

Lotsa USB and Firewire ports...

 

I have an mbox2 that I'll use for any serious audio work, so onboard sound is fine if it works for simply watching movie and such, but if onboard audio doesn't work in osx86 then any simple soundcard...

 

Anyways, any advice will be much appreicated.. I want to get a good as hackintosh as I can for as cheap as possible.

 

Thanks guys!

 

for a processor, i would definately go with intel, i just think that intel is a little more compatible with osx, plus there are a lot of superior install DVD's that are intel only. I'd get a Core 2 Duo E6320 In Your situation.

 

RAM doesnt really matter, just get brand name DDR2 667 or DDR2 800, those have the best price/performance ratios.

 

If you can afford it, get a Western Digital Raptor (74 or 150 GB) for your system drive(theyre wickedly fast), and get just a large brand name drive like Seagate, Western Digital, or Hitachi for your audio drive(go for 320+ GB, so youre sure you have enough space) osx doesnt need any special hard drives.

 

I couldnt tell you what motherboard to get, because im really not sure on whats compatible. go with someone else's recommendation on that. Just make sure that if you take my processor suggestion to make sure your motherboard is compatible with an intel core 2 duo.

 

For a video card a *256 mb*(this is important, 512mb cards dont work right in osx) geforce 7300gt or 7600gt will be perfect in your case. get the 7600gt if you have the extra cash.

 

onboard audio usually works, its the PCI sound cards that dont work.

 

make sure you have some DVD-R's for osx86 install dvd's

 

on some motherboards S-ATA doesnt work without patching in osx, so before you buy a motherboard, confirm that your choice is compatible with it. check the hardware compatibility lists at the osx86project wiki. if your motherboard choice isnt on there, ask around on the forum.

 

hope that helps

[EtherealRemnant]

The Bad Axe 2 is the best board for OSX, hands down, if you want newer hardware.

 

Everything works out of the box but the sound, which can be fixed if you run Taruga's patcher... but if you're looking to do audio work, I'd go external on the sound anyway. Someone else can shed expertise on that.

 

Processor, Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 minimum. Honestly though, if you have the cash, grab the Q6600. Its 279 on Newegg and that puppy being a quadcore is a lot more future-proof than a dual-core and will perform like butter in OSX.

 

RAM - If you want to overclock, get Crucial Ballistix or OCZ Platinum Rev 2. Both scale nicely on this board.

 

Video card - get a 7900GT if you want the best price/performance/ease of compatibility with OSX. They aren't much more than a 7600GT and offer a decent amount of added performance. Avoid cards above 256MB unless you want to mess with BIOS flashes, patches, etc., as was stated previously.

 

Hard drive - Honestly, I have never noticed a performance increase in anything but benchmarks with a Raptor versus a standard SATA-II drive.

 

Whatever you do, avoid Gigabyte motherboards at all cost. They're quality is lacking severely. I tried to 965P-DS3s when I was building this system and both of them were extremely unstable boards. I then returned the second one and got my Bad Axe and haven't looked back.

[zurk]

my shuttle works great with full audio - see sig.

and its got a core2 for $300.

came partially pre assembled as well with case mobo and psu wired.

[JustinAiken]

Okay, thanks for all the help guys!

 

for a processor, i would definately go with intel, i just think that intel is a little more compatible with osx, plus there are a lot of superior install DVD's that are intel only.

 

Okay, def. getting genuine Intel.

 

If you can afford it, get a Western Digital Raptor (74 or 150 GB) for your system drive(theyre wickedly fast), and get just a large brand name drive like Seagate, Western Digital, or Hitachi for your audio drive(go for 320+ GB, so youre sure you have enough space) osx doesnt need any special hard drives.

 

Does the raptor make much difference on the system drive? All I'd have on the drive is programs... the audio drive though I'd want to be able to open many tracks at once... i.e.. read 20 or so large files at once, so I'd rather have the raptor for the audio drive, unless there's a good reason to have a faster HD for the program drive.

 

For a video card a *256 mb*(this is important, 512mb cards dont work right in osx) geforce 7300gt or 7600gt will be perfect in your case. get the 7600gt if you have the extra cash.

 

A 256 MB ram 7300GT should be fine for me then... does the manufactorer matter? Newegg has some EVGA ones for really cheap...

 

hope that helps

 

It does, thank you!

 

The Bad Axe 2 is the best board for OSX, hands down, if you want newer hardware.

 

Everything works out of the box but the sound, which can be fixed if you run Taruga's patcher... but if you're looking to do audio work, I'd go external on the sound anyway. Someone else can shed expertise on that.

 

Okay, I'm leaning towards this board... how hard is this patcher to use? Do you just patch the install ISO, or is it complicated BIOS flashing or something? Because even though I have the high quality mbox2 for sound work, I still want onboard audio to work for iTunes and such.

 

 

Honestly though, if you have the cash, grab the Q6600. Its 279 on Newegg and that puppy being a quadcore is a lot more future-proof than a dual-core and will perform like butter in OSX.

 

Does Pro Tools LE support quad-cores? I can't really afford that now, but in the future perhaps... Core Duo for now I guess.

 

RAM - If you want to overclock, get Crucial Ballistix or OCZ Platinum Rev 2. Both scale nicely on this board.

 

Overclock the ram, or the chip? More info please.... Also, if I were to get 2 GB of fast ram and 2 GB of regular cheap RAM, could I use the 2 GB mostly, and have the other 2 as an overflow?

 

Oh, and that bad axe 2 supports 8 GB, but how many slots does it have?

 

my shuttle works great with full audio - see sig.

and its got a core2 for $300.

came partially pre assembled as well with case mobo and psu wired.

 

That's not powerful enough for my needs, but I gotta say that that is alot of a lot cooler than a Mac Mini.

[EtherealRemnant]

The patcher is extremely easy to use for the audio. Grab the patcher from Taruga's first post (its under the drivers section here in the hardware forum under AppleHDA solution), then near the very end, I actually uploaded the codec dump for you.

 

Grab the 1.16 HDA patcher, then grab the codec. Drag the codec onto the patcher and it does everything else for you. Then you reboot and voila!

 

Honestly, as far as multi-core goes, it seems like OS X natively splits the load between cores on its own, regardless of the apps you're running. I have the processor meters up in the menu running and the load between the two cores is always right within 5% of the other. I don't have a perfect answer for you as to quad-core support but it really seems like the OS X kernel does it all for you. That said, considering that Pro Tools is a professional tool, I'd imagine it would support multiple cores, since the Mac Pro does.

 

By overclock, I meant both the RAM and the chip. When you overclock on an Intel chip with a locked multiplier (any chip but the Extreme chips), you have to overclock the FSB to get the processor overclocked, which in turn overclocks the RAM as well.

 

The Bad Axe has 4 slots that can handle a max of 2GB per slot. Also, I don't ever recommend mixing multiple styles of RAM. Technically if you're not overclocking, you should be alright... but that's not always the case. If you want a stable system stay with the same type of RAM (both brand AND model), especially since you're wanting to use this mostly for productivity - imagine how pissed you'd be if X program crashed when you were in the middle of something and hadn't recently saved.

[EtherealRemnant]

I'm extremely board so I'm digging up the links to the AppleHDA patcher and the patch file for you...

 

1.16 patcher: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act...st&id=11042

 

STAC9274D codec dump: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act...st&id=15459

[JustinAiken]

Okay, thanks for the info... 4 slots is good cause then I can get 4 1GB sticks for fairly cheap...

 

Which osX86 ISO should I get btw?

[Wrenbird]

the only reason i say to get the raptor for the program drive and not the audio drive is because your programs will load faster. 20 audio files at once should be fine on a typical sata II drive, because programs usually send files to the RAM first. thats why you should make sure to have 2gb or more RAM.for graphics, manufacturer doesnt matter, evga's are usually good, just dont get some brand youve never heard of, and research issues(if any) with evga cards if you get one, since a lot of evga cards seem to have problems with the stock fan on them.the bad axe, as with most motherboards, has 4 RAM slots.

Okay, thanks for the info... 4 slots is good cause then I can get 4 1GB sticks for fairly cheap...Which osX86 ISO should I get btw?

for the osx86 install iso, i'd go for the uphuck 1.4i or 1.3 install DVD.both are 10.4.9. don't ever try to use a combo update unless it specifically says for osx86. 1.4i has no power pc code left in, making it faster. much faster.1.3 has a TON of extras you can choose to install along with osx86.make sure to select only one kernel when you install, this will only be a concern if you use 1.3, since 1.4i only has one kernel to choose from.