@inqb8tr As I said, tonymacx86.com is your best bet for researching specific builds and parts.

An i7 isn't always the most appropriate overall CPU for all use cases. I know most here see themselves as needing Apollo 13 under their ass just to render those sixteen layers of grading on that spec rap video, but most of them would never notice the difference between an i7-3770K and an i5-3570K, aside from perhaps a few seconds and I mean literally a few seconds of final output render. In the meantime, you've saved a hundred bucks and you'll save on electric bills. But yeah, I know, you've got Spielberg on line one, Myrna Loy on line 2, and you can't spare the extra 10 seconds of render because godammit time is money and a CPU's like an assault weapon, hippie. Hyperthread Free Or Die.

hahahah, lol.

I think you have a point there, but, when I compare my current computer with the i5 builds from that period, there is a big difference, in usability and in price used. Also, I will not have the money for any major upgrades anytime soon, and right now it does not make so much difference for me that 100$ more or less. But I will think about it, thanks for your advices!

Naaah, I need the fkn i7. :)

i have 9 Mac Pros currently in use on various systems and the only difference between my personal hackintosh and them is the hackytosh is faster - zero difference in quality or reliability of the actual box running the software, just buying the Apple dream (and ECC RAM) costs a whole lot more.

Aye lovely easy install with that board - have fun!

@Shaveblog Already using it as a imac 13,1. Yeah, I know about the higher specc'ed the model is set in smbios the more you can overclock, faster gfx, and the ability to utilise the hackintosh closer to vanilla Mac features. No issues with sleep, sppedstep, etc... dream setup :-)

Render speeds are insane!

@Shaveblog +1 on the 212. Wonderful piece of equipment.

@driftwood A fiver cheaper, you kill me.

RE smbios.plist - I did the same as you initially, going straight for iMac13,1, but at least with my HD5870 I wasn't seeing the GPU performance I should have. The system worked, but FCPX didn't fly as the hardware in place would suggest. I went through MacPro defs and then finally hit upon iMac12,2 as being the magic def for my system. Curious whether yours shows the same difference. Try both with Cinebench and see what FPS they give you. With the HD5870, iMac13,1 got me in the mid30s while 12,2 got me 57.

I agree the jury's still out on Fusion. I'm leery of any drive arrangement that spreads imminent failure around multiple drives so if any one of them tanks it's goodnight Irene. At least with SSD boot and HD user individual drive failure is sandboxed. I'm also unconvinced of any performance advantages Fusion has vs. an SSD/HD setup like ours. I've played with new Macs which have Fusion drives and the only advantage I can see is cosmetic, there's only one drive icon. I have great respect for Apple's hardware engineers but so far I don't see the point of Fusion aside from just visually hiding the 2-drive arrangement from users who've grown up with single drive environments.

RE mSATA - I don't know if there are any speed benefits vs. 2.5" form factor, I just got a good deal on the Mushkin and since the Gigabyte board had mSATA I thought I'd try it. As it turns out the mSATA slot is only 3GB, so I put the Mushkin in a Syba mSATA-to-SATA adapter and now it's hooked up like a normal 2.5" SSD to one of the board's 6GB SATA ports. Not sure I've ever noticed a performance difference between 3GB and 6GB but the adapter was 12 bucks. I know it's killing you I spent a twelver on that.

I haven't touched TH yet. Have you? A. my board doesn't have TH ports, and B. I don't have any TH peripherals. Honestly, I don't see TH in my needhouse. I'm a simple guy, thanks to you and Vitaliy. IV2-filled SD card goes in the slot, Private copies to the desktop, 5DtoRGB transcodes to ProResHQ, FCPX copies the pre-optimized files over. Hacked GH2 and i7 Hackintosh are a match made in heaven.

I'm using one TB port as a display adapter port and got a Apogee Symphony on the other one, working a treat so far.

Only wierdigan had was turning off wake on TB in the Bios to stop the constant reboots (a la Wake On Lan) other than that performs same as my other Macs speed wise - be aware one of the TB ports is for drives and the other for displays on that board .

@ninetto No SSDT file is needed if you're using an Ivy Bridge CPU. SSDT is only for earlier Sandy Bridge chips.

MacPro3,1 is the system definition for an early 2008 Mac Pro. It's the most generic of the smbios.plists, so it tends to "just work" with most combinations of board, CPU, and GPU.

The downside to using MacPro3,1 with a modern set of parts is Apple has continually updated their OS to optimize performance for certain CPUs and GPUs that came later than 2008, and often you'll get a faster machine with a more current system definition like iMac12,2, iMac13,1, or even some of the later MacPro models.

My advice would be to take the tonymac user builds with a grain of salt. They're starting points, not the last word.

@ninetto I know all about that SSDT generator on tonymac. I tried it, tweaked it, got it as perfect as the terminal edits allow, and I didn't see any performance difference whatsoever vs. no SSDT at all.

I think that forum is a valuable resource but it does have its pockets of fringe tweakery that chase things that don't really matter. Building a successful Hackintosh is all about adding extra code to trick PC parts into booting OSX, and then behaving just like an Apple only faster. I prefer to add only the bare minimum to vanilla OSX to get everything working properly and nothing more. I try new developments like SSDT, but sometimes they fall into the category of things that only help incomplete installations. If you choose your hardware wisely and add the right kexts and plists, you don't need little bits of gum and twine all over the place. I remember the days when Hackintosh meant fake kernels and distros and all kinds of Apple code blocking. The resulting machines were touchy and prone to failure every software update, completely unfit for a work machine. That's a proof of concept game, not a professional tool.

If you see better performance with SSDT, more power to you. I didn't, and the more I read that thread the more I feel they're chasing something that's more of a bandaid for suboptimal builds than necessary part of a fully optimized Hackintosh.

@ninneto No need to worry so much about smbios.plist, it's a pretty harmless choice as long as you stay with the MacPro and iMac plists. As I said, MacPro3,1 is the most generic, but won't optimize performance for more modern GPUs and CPUs. One of the later MacPro or iMac plists will get you faster benchmarks and rendering times. And I'm not definitively saying SSDT is a scam, just that it had zero effect on my i7-3770K/Gigabyte Z77/Radeon HD5870 system properly set up and OC'd in the bios. YMMV.