Andrew
09-04-2009, 07:48 AM
So after checking eBay / CL + others for a week or so looking for a more powerful computer than my 1.66CD Mac Mini that has been acting as a Leopard server for the last few months I have decided to go ahead and piece together a Hackintosh that is far more powerful that any current Mac except for the Mac Pro, and I did it at less than $600 shipped, so here's what I got:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB)
XFX HD-487A-ZHFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB
Xigmatek MIDGARD-W Black
Thermaltake TR2 430W
LG DVD Burner Black
Arctic Silver 5
Firewire PCI Express Card
I currently have the same exact graphics card in my Mac Pro, and it's WONDERFUL, a very powerful / capable card, I flashed the card to work in my Mac Pro, and I'm hoping that I can do the same thing for this computer, that way no hacks / drivers are necessary, I don't see why it wouldn't because the card in my Mac Pro works under Windows as well, so if someone knows something I don't, please stop me before I flash it.
Other than that does anyone see any big issues? I pretty much picked all of the components that are known to work very well together, because I need this computer to be rock solid, it will be replacing a Mac Mini, and picking up some other tasks such as VPN / Media server (2 AppleTVs) / File Server / Time Machine / Torrents / as well as taking some of the HD video encoding load off of my Mac Pro, I have already purchased all of this stuff, but now that I think about it, I may just go ahead and upgrade the CPU to the Intel C2Q Q9550S so I can save some power seeing as this is going to be on 24/7, I don't really care if audio works, nor do I care if it goes to sleep.
Also, I have a retail copy of Leopard Server that I will be using, does the installation for the most part go exactly the same for OS X Server as it does for plain OS X ?
It's been a long time since I switched from PC to Mac, but with the current offerings from Apple, I can't justify spending another $2500+ for a Mac Pro just to be a home server...
I currently have a 13" uMBP, Mac Mini, 2 x AppleTVs, 8-Core Mac Pro, 2.2ghz SR 15" MBP, and basically a whole slew of Apple accessories like Time Capsule, AEBS, Airport Express, iPhone(s) etc etc.
I appreciate everyones input on this matter!
Thanks,
Andrew
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz
GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L
OCZ SLI-Ready Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB)
XFX HD-487A-ZHFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB
Xigmatek MIDGARD-W Black
Thermaltake TR2 430W
LG DVD Burner Black
Arctic Silver 5
Firewire PCI Express Card
I currently have the same exact graphics card in my Mac Pro, and it's WONDERFUL, a very powerful / capable card, I flashed the card to work in my Mac Pro, and I'm hoping that I can do the same thing for this computer, that way no hacks / drivers are necessary, I don't see why it wouldn't because the card in my Mac Pro works under Windows as well, so if someone knows something I don't, please stop me before I flash it.
Other than that does anyone see any big issues? I pretty much picked all of the components that are known to work very well together, because I need this computer to be rock solid, it will be replacing a Mac Mini, and picking up some other tasks such as VPN / Media server (2 AppleTVs) / File Server / Time Machine / Torrents / as well as taking some of the HD video encoding load off of my Mac Pro, I have already purchased all of this stuff, but now that I think about it, I may just go ahead and upgrade the CPU to the Intel C2Q Q9550S so I can save some power seeing as this is going to be on 24/7, I don't really care if audio works, nor do I care if it goes to sleep.
Also, I have a retail copy of Leopard Server that I will be using, does the installation for the most part go exactly the same for OS X Server as it does for plain OS X ?
It's been a long time since I switched from PC to Mac, but with the current offerings from Apple, I can't justify spending another $2500+ for a Mac Pro just to be a home server...
I currently have a 13" uMBP, Mac Mini, 2 x AppleTVs, 8-Core Mac Pro, 2.2ghz SR 15" MBP, and basically a whole slew of Apple accessories like Time Capsule, AEBS, Airport Express, iPhone(s) etc etc.
I appreciate everyones input on this matter!
Thanks,
Andrew