# New Hackintosh build



## fritzmartinbass (Mar 23, 2014)

Hi Guys,
I am getting ready to do a Hackintosh build and would greatly appreciate any advice you may have. These are the specs:

CustoMac mATX

Motherboard GA-Z87MX-D3H

Intel Core i7-4770K

Graphics Card
(Optional)	GeForce GTX 760

32GB 1600Mhz DDR3 (8x4)	

SATA 6Gb/s 250GB SSD

SATA 6Gb/s 1TB SSD

Corsair CS 550 Watt Modular

Case	Fractal Design Core 1000

Wifi Card	TP-Link PCI Express

StarTech Firewire adapter PCI

I have verified my Apogee Duet firewire will work, M-Audio midi interface (not a huge deal).

My questions are:

1. Is such an expensive ($269.00) graphics card necessary for an audio setup? I'm not a gamer. I only use 1 monitor, at the present time. If not, what would you suggest?

2. Does this "recommended" build seem to be a good choice for audio? And does it seem fairly straight forward as to getting it up and running? I'm an Apple certified technician, so I am familiar with the steps involved on the tonymac86 website.

I primarily write orchestral scores using Logic X and Reaper. My templates are not huge, maybe 30 -40 tracks. I currently have a quad i5 2011 iMac with 16gb of ram. I have a chance to sell it while it is still worth something, so I thought I could upgrade to something a bit faster. My iMac would help fund the new Hackintosh.

On a side note, I have toyed around with getting Cubase going on a Win partition.

Thanks for any help you can give me! :D


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## kitekrazy (Mar 23, 2014)

> s such an expensive ($269.00) graphics card necessary for an audio setup? I'm not a gamer. I only use 1 monitor, at the present time. If not, what would you suggest?



Definitely not. You could always check Tom's Hardware Guide. Anything under $150 will do. Before you buy check and see of it requires a minimum of watt in the power supply.


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## jaeroe (Mar 23, 2014)

kitekrazy @ Sun Mar 23 said:


> > s such an expensive ($269.00) graphics card necessary for an audio setup? I'm not a gamer. I only use 1 monitor, at the present time. If not, what would you suggest?
> 
> 
> 
> Definitely not. You could always check Tom's Hardware Guide. Anything under $150 will do. Before you buy check and see of it requires a minimum of watt in the power supply.



this is not good advice for building a hack, at all. not just anything under $150 will do. video card is most crucial part after Mobo. but, you certainly shouldn't have to sped $200+ for a video card.

you really want to go with a vid card with confirmed success on your chosen combo of:
a) your mobo
b) your processor
c) the OS you want to run.

if you're making a 10.8 build (which i would highly suggest you do for audio), see if you can't get a vid card that also has confirmed success on 10.9. but, this isn't imperative at the moment.

check compatibility on tonymac for A, B, and C and see what vid cards people have working on it, aside from the expensive one you mention.

if you post or PM me a link to the build you're thinking of doing i can look it over for you. the main thing is, shoot for a DSDT free build. getting into kext stuff is way more of a drag and more time consuming. plug and play is best if you can do it, and with an GA or Asus motherboard, you really should be able to find a good build DSDT free.

the Startech cards i've installed all installed plugin and play, that's the good news there. the USB 3 card i once used was crap for power, so just confirm that people have success with the FW card with full functionality.

question for you - is there a reason you're going mATX? you will probably find more builds that are ATX and thus, have more options from confirmed successful builds.

you might even find someone using the Duet.


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## fritzmartinbass (Mar 23, 2014)

Here is a link to the build:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/416-building- ... -2014.html

It is the CustoMac mATX. I would go with these exact components, only adding the StarTech firewire and 1 more SSD. I CAN go with this graphics card, just was wondering about fan noise.
Also, I'm not set on mATX either. It was just cheaper. I was just trying to stay away from Thunderbolt for the moment. Actually, I want a 250 gb SSD for my system and 2 1 tb SSD for Kontakt libraries. But, I'm OK with just one monitor for now as it fits my workflow.

The reason I wanted this exact system is because it is a proven hack system and I want as little grief as possible. :D 

Thanks everyone for your help, and please give me more examples/options for this build.
I am open to changing form factors for sure!

u guys are awesome o-[][]-o [/url]


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## jaeroe (Mar 23, 2014)

that is their basic buying page. but, you can look in the forums and find confirmed builds with other components, and often with other hardware/software you might use (like Logic and Duet).

what features do you really want? you mentioned dual boot and FW. anything else?
do you have the Duet or the Duet 2?


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## jaeroe (Mar 23, 2014)

if you do some searches on tonymac you can see a lot of builds. here's one of a guy with an i7 4770k running logic and using an apogee duet

http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-builds/1 ... d4600.html

it's a recent build, so parts should still be available. this is an ATX build.

i searched "apogee duet logic i7 4770k" and it was the first one that came up. but, there are a lot of things that come up.

seems like people are having good success with that mobo and the Duet, though.

looks like that guy is using integrated graphics, so wouldn't need to shell out for a video card.


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## fritzmartinbass (Mar 23, 2014)

Hi Again,
I have a Duet 1 (firewire), an M-Audio 4x4 midi interface, MPK 49, Maschine, and a Casio 88 key controller. Everything is USB except the Duet. I will upgrade at some point to either RME or an Apollo. I do have some Focal twins, though. Anyway, I 'll read up on the links you sent and get back.

Thanks, Fritz


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## fritzmartinbass (Mar 23, 2014)

Hi,
After reading this guys build, I think I could go with the CustoMac Pro build and the mobo this guy used, onboard graphics, and get that really cool corsair case! 
Or, just do what he did and add more ram and drives. 


thank you!


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## jaeroe (Mar 23, 2014)

my thing when building a hack is always go with what is proven to work and look for people have have successfully done what you're looking to do.

re apollo interface - i have an apollo and a thunderbolt GA mobo. i highly suggest thunderbolt for Apollo, as you get some pretty good performance gains with latency over FW800. for people like us, who benefit from lower latency, those gains in latency are really helpful. so, you could look at thunderbolt Mobo's now, but it seems like it is in flux at the moment. it's pricey at the moment, as well. you might consider just going ahead getting FW800 working then addressing getting a new Mobo in the future if you do indeed get an Apollo. i think the thunderbolt terrain will likely have changed on the hackintosh front in 6 months. but, who knows?

as far as how long it takes - i've built 3 hacks and each one i had up and running in a single day (but, full day). that included build and chimera, os, and multibeast setup. plus installing music software, etc. but, i researched for probably 10 days to 2 weeks at night before purchasing parts. the key is read up and allow yourself a little bit a time and patience.

if you're using VE Pro, you want to look into how you'll get 2 separate networks going, and obviously the VEP connection has to be 1000T ethernet. i have the TP wifi card you mentioned above and it worked OOB - i use that for internet, non VEP LAN, etc.

the other tricky thing can be installing the CPU cooler if you use the Zalmans (which are awesome, just require some attention when installing). i found my cooler on youtube and there was a great install guide that was really helpful.


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## gsilbers (Mar 23, 2014)

have you hackintosh gurus tried the Quos (run any os) mobo/pc with osx and it worked fine? 

http://quocomputer.com


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## jaeroe (Mar 23, 2014)

gsilbers @ Sun Mar 23 said:


> have you hackintosh gurus tried the Quos (run any os) mobo/pc with osx and it worked fine?
> 
> http://quocomputer.com



there are only a few builds with that board on tonymac, which is the most trusted site/community for hacking. i like to stick with builds that have a decent amount of info on them.

but, that site is run by the guy who opened (or tried to open) an actual shop where they sold hacks. he's been hacking for sometime. if i were looking for a thunderbolt mobo i would consider it. but, it is socket 1155. you'd have to get ivy bridge. but, that isn't the end of the world. if they'll offer you tech support, it would be an interesting temptation.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 23, 2014)

> video card is most crucial part after Mobo



Why is that? My understanding has always been that since we don't care about fast frame processing for video games, the card doesn't matter (beyond a reasonable level).

Or is it a matter of compatibility with Mac OS X Quartz?


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## jaeroe (Mar 23, 2014)

it's a compatibility issue. since mac went intel, macs have been a very particular PC build. the mother board has to be UEFI based and then the mac OS has extensions to address the hardware (one of the great things about compatibility on a mac is apple takes the guessing out of the equation with uniformity of parts - the OS contains all necessary drivers for core components for all supported versions of the OS).

so, in building a hackintosh, you have to get kext's (extensions) that address your (non-apple) hardware so mac OS can access it properly. if you had to do this manually it would be out of most people's reach. but, groups like Tonymac have come up with software designed to install software components that do just that (they also provide a much needed boot loader). and they update this software on a regular basis (including newly adjusted/developed kext's from themselves and the community). but, you have to either use hardware they've gotten working, or you have to manually work out editing the kext's yourself, or find someone who has.

going outside what they've already worked out, video cards are the most troublesome part of the process often. if you don't have video working, it's sort of hard to get in there and start mucking around with extensions. you can adjust your bios and that's about it. if you get integrated graphics working, then you can try to mess with a new video card, but it's time consuming. lot of trial and error.

for those of us who would rather be composing, that is a part of hacking that is not for the faint of heart.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 23, 2014)

Got it. Thanks jaeroe.


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## snattack (Mar 23, 2014)

Hi!

I made a build similar to that one using Mountain Lion. Think of the following:

1. No need for extra graphics, intel HD driver supports the internal graphic card.

2. You have to use manual voltage with 32GB memory. Not difficult, just set it to 1,5v or whatever is standard instead or letting it find 1,5v by itself. There's a hardware bug with 4 memory sticks on some gigabyte boards which will cause random crashes.

3. Make sure you use the z87mX (as you'cw choosen) even though it's a bit more expensive than z87m, since the ethernet adapter is standard intel and not realtek.

Best,
A


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## Dracarys (Jul 17, 2014)

Hackintosh's are very easy to build, stable, and much more versatile than a mac pro.

I hope you went with a x79 build.


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## Greg (Jul 17, 2014)

Casalena @ Thu Jul 17 said:


> Hackintosh's are very easy to build, stable, and much more versatile than a mac pro.
> 
> I hope you went with a x79 build.



Take that with a grain of salt... Only if everything goes right, will that statement hold true. 

I've had lots of experience building multiple Hackintoshs as professional working rigs and random problems have always popped up. I wouldn't recommend relying on one for serious professional work at all unless you're pretty adventurous or very comfortable with Hackintoshing already.


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## Dracarys (Jul 17, 2014)

I have to disagree, although I completely understand. If you're using all the correct components, and use DSDT, the overall outcome should not have any issues. With every issue there is a work around, such as a WIFI card for no wireless, or a M2 adaptor for PCIe SSD support.

Rampage IV Extreme is confirmed working 100%, as well as many other boards.


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## jleckie (Jul 17, 2014)

Greg @ Thu Jul 17 said:


> Casalena @ Thu Jul 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Hackintosh's are very easy to build, stable, and much more versatile than a mac pro.
> ...



Have to agree 100% with this. I've built and been around others who build professionally hacked systems and (mayyybe) 5 years ago I would recommend a Hackintosh to a composer/musician, whatever. But not so much anymore. I've seen problems that are to iffy and stand in the way of productivity and overall stability and relate in part to updating the systems.


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