Hackintosh builds for audio

[arv_foh]

I had some people express interest in hearing about my build from the GAS thread so here goes...

I based my build on this one. It is a "vanilla" build which uses an unmodified version of the OSX kernel (most stable).

http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=23350&sid=5804f741f52ba80f7b14b99320df4b1a

I used all the same parts except I used a Corsair Force 80GB SSD and an Asus Geforce 8400GS (which I would NOT recommend, it required quite a bit of tweaking to get it to work, I only bought because it was the cheapest and was listed as 100% compatible, which it is but takes some extra work).

My processor is overclocked to 4.2ghz. I'm using a Coolermaster Hyper 212 which keeps my cpu at less than 50 degrees C under heavy load. I used this firewire card and this bluetooth USB dongle.

I'm happy to report that everything works perfectly (after I took care of the video card driver issue). No kernel panics or freezing, and this computer seems worlds faster than what I upgraded from. I haven't recorded any bands yet (I did test a 16 track recording sesh for 5 minutes and had no issues) and I have mastered several sessions with my Apogee Duet with zero issues. My iLok works fine and I have no plugin issues of those that I've tested so far.

My Geekbench score was 11548. I used Evan's Logic Pro multicore benchmark test here and was able to do 60 tracks before I had a CPU overload. For comparison my 2nd gen Mac Pro was able to do 23 tracks and scored 6050 on Geekbench (quad core 2.66/600GB Velociraptor RAID0 OS drive/7GB RAM).

My built was just shy of $1000.

 

[C_F_H_13]

Great info man thanks. I'm still doing research into doing this so thanks alot!

 

[JeffTD]

Cheers for this, will probably end up doing this myself, in the next year or so, especially if they make mini displayport PCI cards.

 

[Jan [MTW]]

Wow, that's a very nice Hackintosh build!
I just installed Snow Leopard 10.6.5 on the PC I owned already! It's an AMD Phenom x4 945 and because of that the installation wasn't that easy and I had alot of problems 'til i finally got it right...
But I am happy with the result and I have to say that I absolutely love Mac Osx! Next month i am going to buy a new motherboard + a nice intel processor and new 16GB RAM! It's going to be a fucking awesome machine just like yours!
I imagine it as a great thing if you don't have to worry about lag when you use many tracks in a session!
I am so excited! :Spin:

 

[arv_foh]

Cheers for this, will probably end up doing this myself, in the next year or so, especially if they make mini displayport PCI cards.

You could always buy an adapter or this video card (5770 ATI Radeon HD HD-577X-ZMF3) which comes with mini displayport built in.

via the tonymacx86 graphics card database

It should be noted too that if you wanted to do a stronger build that you can use i7 CPUs too.

 

[sprack]

I've had good luck with the 200 and 400 series nvidia cards, the 500 series are not working though.

Core i7 920 here, 142 compressors in DAWBench for me.

 

[RichMinerva]

I was thinking of doing this instead of buying a mac pro. Wonder if there's any 8 core builds

 

[::XeS::]

It's not that easy to find a dual cpu motherboard. I'll go with a 6 core

 

[arv_foh]

I was thinking of doing this instead of buying a mac pro. Wonder if there's any 8 core builds

I did some research into this and it's pretty much cheaper to buy a mac pro because the server grade motherboards are so goddamn expensive. You could do an i7 build with hyperthreading which would be 4 true cores and 4 virtual cores

 

[arv_foh]

Tracked my first band a few days ago. Solid as fuck, Logic and PT9

 

[John_C]

I did some research into this and it's pretty much cheaper to buy a mac pro because the server grade motherboards are so goddamn expensive. You could do an i7 build with hyperthreading which would be 4 true cores and 4 virtual cores

Or go the 6 core route of course.

Glad to hear it works well in the field, I plan to do the same with my i5-760 PC soon

 

[DigitalMetal]

Glad it worked out for you !
Viva la Hackintosh