Advice for my Hackintosh Configuration to buy tomorrow!

[ericchen0121]

Been following and reading as much as I can. I will be putting in my order either tonight or early tomorrow. I would like to have some feedback on my proposed configuration.

 

USES: FCS, Final Cut Pro, Shake, Maya, other render/3d/compositing programs. Also, gaming (secondary).

 

MY CONFIGURATION: Ok, so I have listed my parts, along with a few parts I don't know yet -- fan/ethernet/DVD-RW. And, if some of you could check over my work along with answer some of my questions in italics, that would be awesome. Thanks! I look forward to being a part of this forum with my rig!

 

Motherboard: Intel Bad Axe 2 (D975xbx2) ($199)

Processor: Intel Q6600 2.4ghz with G0 Stepping ($299)

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2x1GB DDR2 800 ()

 

I will want to overclock this bad boy.

 

FAN: ??? SUGGESTIONS??? Should I also buy thermal compound?

HDD: 2x WD Caviar SE16 320gb (WD3200AKS)

 

I would like to take advantage of SATA II, but do not fully understand AHCI vs. IDE. I was reading up on BJMoose's comments, but maybe somebody can explain this.

 

VIDEOCARD: Foxconn 7900 GS 256gb (FV-N79SM2D2-OC)

 

Does it matter which brand of 7900 GS I buy? I want drivers that work (QE/CI) with it (haven't seen this Foxconn in the forums), and I want Dual DVI output. Will it work?

 

PSU: Ultra X-Finity 600W

DVD: ???Any cheap and reliable suggestions?

ETHERNET: ??? I don't know which ethernet will work with this. I frankly don't know too much about building a computer, but I know that I will need something working on en0 for FCP to work. Also, what do I have to buy to ensure my ethernet at home works? Wifi is secondary, but any advice with wifi is also appreciated.

 

KEYBOARD: Apple Keyboard. Unless there are better suggestions that don't break the bank.

 

 

 

Okay, that's all for now. Please advise!!! Thanks in advance!

 

-Eric

[BJMoose]

You will not be disappointed with your choice of motherboards. I don't think the manufacturer of the video card will make much difference. I've heard that the 256mb models should give you dual monitors with Natit dual v.02. Are your drives 8 or 16 mb cache drives. For overall system performance I would get the 16mb cache models if finances permit.

 

There are many good inexpensive dvd burners out there. I would suggest Pioneer 111s or 112s because that is what Apple uses in the Mac Pro and they will show up the same in system profiler as they do on the Mac Pro. If they're not available to you, many other brands will work.

 

With the Bad Axe 2 motherboard, the ethernet will work out of the box with JaS, Kalyway, uphuck, and XxX installers. With JaS and uphuck, you will have to replace the appleSMBIOS.kext in the extensions folder to operate FCS and CS3 properly. Kalyway and XxX have options right in the installer to achieve this.

 

As for keyboards, I use the same keyboard and mouse setup on all my systems. They're kind of old by today's standard and aren't sold new anymore, but I can still pick them up on eBay occasionally. It's the Logitech Cordless MX Duo Keyboard and Mouse Combo which includes a rechargeable cordless mouse and a keyboard that has the apple symbols along with the windows symbols. It's a USB setup that works out of the box. I haven't tried installing the OSX logitech control center to see if the programmable keys will work, but the volume and mute buttons work and that's all I'm really interested in. Good luck.

 

Edit: I should add that sound out works with Taruga's patch, but mic in does not work (as is the case on a lot of motherboards). I bought a Creative Labs USB 24bit Live external sound module which works with sound out and mic in right out of the box (no drivers necessary) with all installers.

 

Edit2: I should also have said that the stock fan is actually okay and not the loudest in the world. However I replaced mine with a Zalman quiet fan (can't remember the model number off hand). If you are overclocking, your fan will run more so you might want to look at a quieter fan. Without OC'ing, staying with the stock fan will be okay. To protect your CPU, no matter what fan you choose, you should use arctic silver 5. For best results, remember to clean the stock thermal protection off of the heatsink.

[ericchen0121]

Awesome. Thanks for the reply BJMoose. Helps out and gives me more comfort going into this purchase.

 

I'll keep you updated.

 

You will not be disappointed with your choice of motherboards. I don't think the manufacturer of the video card will make much difference. I've heard that the 256mb models should give you dual monitors with Natit dual v.02. Are your drives 8 or 16 mb cache drives. For overall system performance I would get the 16mb cache models if finances permit.

 

There are many good inexpensive dvd burners out there. I would suggest Pioneer 111s or 112s because that is what Apple uses in the Mac Pro and they will show up the same in system profiler as they do on the Mac Pro. If they're not available to you, many other brands will work.

 

With the Bad Axe 2 motherboard, the ethernet will work out of the box with JaS, Kalyway, uphuck, and XxX installers. With JaS and uphuck, you will have to replace the appleSMBIOS.kext in the extensions folder to operate FCS and CS3 properly. Kalyway and XxX have options right in the installer to achieve this.

 

As for keyboards, I use the same keyboard and mouse setup on all my systems. They're kind of old by today's standard and aren't sold new anymore, but I can still pick them up on eBay occasionally. It's the Logitech Cordless MX Duo Keyboard and Mouse Combo which includes a rechargeable cordless mouse and a keyboard that has the apple symbols along with the windows symbols. It's a USB setup that works out of the box. I haven't tried installing the OSX logitech control center to see if the programmable keys will work, but the volume and mute buttons work and that's all I'm really interested in. Good luck.

 

Edit: I should add that sound out works with Taruga's patch, but mic in does not work (as is the case on a lot of motherboards). I bought a Creative Labs USB 24bit Live external sound module which works with sound out and mic in right out of the box (no drivers necessary) with all installers.

 

Edit2: I should also have said that the stock fan is actually okay and not the loudest in the world. However I replaced mine with a Zalman quiet fan (can't remember the model number off hand). If you are overclocking, your fan will run more so you might want to look at a quieter fan. Without OC'ing, staying with the stock fan will be okay. To protect your CPU, no matter what fan you choose, you should use arctic silver 5. For best results, remember to clean the stock thermal protection off of the heatsink.

[candykane]

The Q6600 has a 1066 MHz bus so well it dont make sense to put slow 800 mhz mem chips on it.

oke its cheap if you do go for 800 MHZ chips make sure its clockable (i got GEIL ddr2 800 it goes to 900MHZ )

Hmm you could always go for the Asus P5W deluxe its cheaper (159) every thing works out of the box exept sound but with Taruga's patch it will work.

and best of all you also get Wifi the Main board is smart 2. you can manualy set fan speed or let the main board control it, in my case making my pc realy quiet only realy turning up fan speed at full load. (we even got leopard (beta) working on it)

Ati X1900xtx 512 mb or the x1950xt 512mb give dual dvi you install them with a installer (jcool) and they realy work well.

ati cards dont suffer the 256 mb limit .

 

goodluck with your system!

[shoarthing]

. . . The Q6600 has a 1066 MHz bus so well it dont make sense to put slow 800 mhz mem chips on it.

. . erm, no: the 2.4GHz Q6600 is a 9x multiplier 'quad-pumped' (Intel marketing-speak) CPU running on a 266MHz CPU bus . . 9x 266=2400.

 

Similarly (more marketing speak) DDR2 = 'Double Data Rate' & '800' stuff in fact runs on a 400MHz memory bus.

 

. . so this sort of memory gives a fair old bit of headroom if run at 1:1; since it is unlikely any Q6600 will run stable at 9x400 ie 3600MHz without a heck of a lot of vcore & cooling. At such a speed the DDR2 would be running at its default clock.

 

. . on a happier note, many of these Q6600s will run effortlessly (without a vcore bump) & 24/7 stable at 9x333 ie 3GHz, or, for better performance, you can lower the multiplier to 8x, crank up the vcore a notch or two, & see if you can hit 8x400 ie 3.2GHz.

 

Best memory recommendation is to go for bog-standard big-brand JEDEC spec PC6400 rather than flashy boutique stuff with meaningless 'heatspreaders' - stuff that runs at the default 1.8 vdimm with standard SPDs gives far fewer hassles & is more likely to run in 4x1GB or 4x2GB configurations.

[Azurael]

Stop buying 975X already! P35 supports Penryn, is cheaper, is just as compatible with OS X with a couple of plist edits, overclocks better, is faster at the same clocks due to a more advanced memory controller, and unless you want to use ECC RAM there is no advantage whatsoever to buying a board with a 2 year old chipset.

 

They're right about RAM though. 1:1 is always faster than async, so even with 1333MT/s chips, you only need 667MHz RAM for optimal performance. That's why DDR3 is an utter waste of space at the moment. It's higher latency, more expensive and slower in practice. Even at the 450MHz FSB I need to get my E6320 up to a decent clock (and you'd never need that with a Quad; you've got a decent - x9 - multi there), I'm only pushing my RAM (GeIL PC6400C4) 50MHz above stock.

[goodl]

@shoarthing

does wireless work on p5w dh? I have a deluxe on my main windows rig and getting a bad axe for my hackintosh which will have no wifi

[shoarthing]

@shoarthing

does wireless work on p5w dh? I have a deluxe on my main windows rig and getting a bad axe for my hackintosh which will have no wifi

. . for me, it didn't work properly with WPA encryption. The Realtek utility was clunky & obtrusive; but the thing did sortof work in OSX if you were desperate.

[BJMoose]

Stop buying 975X already! P35 supports Penryn, is cheaper, is just as compatible with OS X with a couple of plist edits, overclocks better, is faster at the same clocks due to a more advanced memory controller, and unless you want to use ECC RAM there is no advantage whatsoever to buying a board with a 2 year old chipset.

Azurael, why take a rock solid choice away from someone? It just works and works well. There's nothing wrong with you simply promoting what you think might be another good choice...but this adversarial approach of putting down someone else's choice as 'antiquated' is beneath you. I would put my system up against anyone else's (other than my choice of gfx cards) as far as ease of setup, reliability, speed (not including those who choose to OC) and stability. What more could one want out of a system?

 

Neither you nor I will be making the ultimate buying decision for someone else's rig. That's up to the buyer. I (and apparently many, many others) are merely adding some real life experience so he/she has more ammunition for making the best possible decision for their circumstances. If you've had a bad experience with the BA2, then by all means share it. But please don't diss it just because it's not as new or the same as your choice. Thanks.

[shoarthing]

. . . & to add to BJMoose's point: 'Antiquated' in Intel-chipset [esp SBridge] terms tends to = supported, or at least a known quantity. Motherboards such as the BA2 or P5WDH are very well understood now, both the good & the bad.

 

Once you're free of the incessant "tomorrow, tomorrow, all the promises'll come true" nonsense of Winworld, you come to value platforms which have been pored over by 'Nix users & developers.

[Azurael]

Yes, but you guys jump on every thread where somebody asks for advice and advocate it like it's the only choice. I feel like I'm repeating myself every week here. All I want is for people to see what they don't need to waste money on 975X boards. In these days of AppleHDA patcher and AHCI, I really don't see ANY advantage WHATSOEVER to choosing 975X over P35. I don't see ICH9 support being any worse in OS X than ICH7, what you're saying just doesn't make sense.

 

There's plenty of threads on this forum where people are reporting P35 boards from lots of different manufacturers as working fully.

 

I'd agree that going for something which may or may not be supported, or may be supported in the future is dodgy, but P35 is here today and supported today. 975X is no more or less reliable, but it is more expensive, it is slower, and it doesn't overclock as well, especially with quads.

 

Also, 975X is EOL'd now. That probably means (especially with a board made by Intel themselves) an end to BIOS updates, except for fixing major bugs.

 

Why chose a board based on a two year old chipset for £128 (cheapest I can currently find for the D975XBX2) or a board with a couple of month old chipset that's old enough to have its bugs worked out, yet faster, just as well supported, and better clocking for £65 (the cheapest I can see a Gigabyte P35-DS3R for - and there are cheaper P35 boards, but they use the ICH9 rather than ICH9R.) That's nearly double the cost. For worse performance. WHY?!

 

Come to think of it, you can pick up B-Grade P965 (which is also a newer, faster chipset than 975X, which was a parallel release to 945) boards for peanuts now (I paid £40 for my 965P-DQ6, which is a really flash board with features like poly caps and 12-phase VRM the D975XBX2 can only dream of having) and even they're faster and just as well supported...

[BJMoose]

I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree. My only argument with what you say in all your threads is how you say it. You choose to "put down" other people's choices rather than merely lifting up your own...in other words...you're right and everyone else is wrong. BTW, I give you credit for being consistent, because you came across the same way in not understanding why someone else might like KDE when you don't. Meanwhile, the world is big enough for a plethora of opinions. Yours and mine are microscopic in the realm of possibilities.

[gandralf]

Right...

 

Why can't we build (and maintain) a reference configuration set, specially for newbies? A noobintosh machine!

Such configuration set:

1. Describes the EASYEST configuration to install AND UPDATE a well known and easy to download distro. A new distro could be even created! The newbie doesn't even know what is a kext to get something working.
   
2. Has everything working: sound (with microphone!), net (and wireless), sleep, QE/CI, 3D, dual display...
   
3. Has absolutely no performance or stability problems.
   
4. Focus on MB and graphics (they are the most problematic, anyway... right?). Sure, we can list some other options if they follow the other rules, like a budget set, a mainstream set and a leave-a-mac-pro-eating-dust set.
   
5. Should be constantly updated, so there will be no outdated (and confusing) information.
   
6. And finally... is small, easy to read, to understand and memorize. Yes, that's right! A long list with a lot of options and remarks, like the wiki's HCL doesn't fit here. Believe me: it's confusing!
   

Bonus: no more generic "what should I buy?" posts. I guess...

 

[]'s

 

PS: my former hackintosh: Asus P5W DH deluxe and a MSI GeForce 6600GT 128M. And JaS 10.4.8 (only check NV40 option).

Not working:

- 10.4.10 update: unstable. I couldn't find a nice-and-easy update that has worked for me.

- Boot Camp + Parallels

- Some SATA ports (JMicron or something like that).

- Sound: only left and right channels working. 5.1 was kinda useless .

- Sleep.

 

Annoying:

- Sound didn't work, after some updates. I had to do something that I can't remember now.

- CD: I had to disable HD sleep, otherwise it just disappears! I had to do some voodoo with diskmanager all the time...

 

Unknown:

- Dual display

- Digital audio out

- WiFi

 

Working: as far as I know, everything else.

 

PS/2: sorry about my poor English. I'm Brazilian and reeeally tired right now. :'(

[shoarthing]

gandralf - Hi - thank you, this is becoming an interesting thread - I hope OP doesn't mind that things have strayed a bit from his buying-plans.

 

. . as regards the Intel-chipset argument; at the moment [& until DDR3 reaches the same price-levels as DDR2] I can see little if any reason to go for the P35/P38.

 

Performance-wise, there is next to no improvement.

 

. . & quite a few i965/i975X mobos can/will/do have BIOS updates to support the 45nm 'Penryn' CPUs.

 

Realworld OSX86 arguments for the i975X/ICH7 include it having onboard fully-working PATA [for those without SATA DVD-devices, or USB enclosures for their PATA devices] . . the P35/P38s have no SBridge PATA & rely upon versions of the iffy/partially supported jmicron 36x family for such PATA support as they have. Native SBridge PATA makes OSX86 installation for those without a SATA DVD-device much, much easier.

 

. . & AFAIK (I have tried the Pioneer 112, Plextor 716, Sony/NEC Uniarc 7170, & BenQ 1640) only the (PATA-only) Pioneer DVR-111 can be relied on to work inaudibly in OSX when playing DVDs. Again, this is a realworld OSX86 argument & mebbe unimportant to those primarily interested in overclocking the bejasus out of their C2Ds to play Wingames amid a hubbub of whirring fans.

[krowten]

I have a Bad Axe 2 and use XxX iso. After install I replaced the IONetworkingFamily.kext

[Tikakan]

Hi people,

 

first post here

 

I would really love to see a "Noobintosh" Hardware list.

 

Greets, Tika

[candykane]

LoL there is a noob hardware list www.osx86project.org or have you all forgotten how insanely started?

 

Reasons why the i975X board are recommended?

Its well documented! Step for step documentation and guides what to do . For every question asked there is an ans to be found.

on the forum . Great for noobs that don't know what to do.

Duh problem with those new boards how many of you have them? Or are willing to spend a lot of money and time on a board trying it out to find it dont work 100% good?

Load of people on this forum have the Asus P5W board and some of them regualy check the asusP5W threat and ansor the questons on it . Thats why you buy an old board. the support you get! Hackintosh is a risky busnis if you have a nice cheap new board and it does not quite work like it sould who are you going to turn 2?