Anyone build a hackintosh for music related stuff?

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Anyone build a hackintosh for music related stuff?
Posted on: 29.01.2012 by Romelia Stankard
I was debating building a new desktop since mine is older and meomory/cpu go through the roof if I have too many VSTs open or kits loaded into maschine and it doesn't even really make sense to dump any money into this thing.

I have no experience with building hackintoshes and it seems like they can be a pain in the ass but promising with good planning and buying the right parts there may not be any issues. Windows is also really starting to annoy me so the prospect of building a $5000 mac pro for $1000 is very appealing.

I just wonder would there be any particular issues with building a hackintosh for music related stuff? I mean I believe the hardware restrictions would only apply to system components right? Once all the drivers work on the desktop could there be any unforseen issues with software, soundcards, midi controllers, and other basic studio devices?
Chasidy Heckenbach
21.04.2012
Originally Posted by jonicrecis
Just saying but hackintosh won't give you the full power of your hardware,I already have mine one and reinstalled Windows because the hackintosh sucks
how can u get less power out of the hardware than with something like windows7??? ofc a lean linux install would give u the best bang for your buck but not an option for stuff like traktor or ableton (tho i do run them both under wine sometimes)
Letha Orrantia
21.04.2012		Just saying but hackintosh won't give you the full power of your hardware,I already have mine one and reinstalled Windows because the hackintosh sucks

but,if you want to know more,just go on tonymacx86.com
Romelia Stankard
20.04.2012		thanks i'm just trying to figure out the deal with dual monitors- seems some video cards are weird about it and you have to use one DVI port and one displayport with an active adapter otherwise it won't work. Once I find out I'm ready to order.
Branden Wentler
20.04.2012		That's pretty nice case. I'll wager you'll end up retro-fitting some dampening material on the side to keep the rattle down but really just a minor annoyance for an all AL case? It's uses the same latching system as my old one which drove me to rage but I eventually tamed it. I eventuallt had to get rubber washers for my intake and rear fans to keep the noise down. It's a little smaller than my LL which a big plus though.
can't wait to see you start getting the parts in for the build. When I return stateside I'll likely be doing the same build as yours. Good luck and keep this updated.
Cheers
Romelia Stankard
20.04.2012
Originally Posted by space monkey
Silverstone makes some nice stuff...maybe a tad out of your budget though but the Fortress FT01 and FT02 come in natural aluminum. I have the black FT01 and it's better than any Lian Li I've owned--all of which have had serious rattling issues at some point.

EDIT:
Link
http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...id=242&area=en
silverstone looks nice but out of what I'm willing to spend. Looking to keep it around $100

This lian li looks decent

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112304
Branden Wentler
20.04.2012		Silverstone makes some nice stuff...maybe a tad out of your budget though but the Fortress FT01 and FT02 come in natural aluminum. I have the black FT01 and it's better than any Lian Li I've owned--all of which have had serious rattling issues at some point.

EDIT:
Link
http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...id=242&area=en
Rolanda Clodfelder
20.04.2012
I really don't know why Lian Li stopped making normal silver mid towers, strange... They started making a lot of ugly cases too.
Feckin gamers :P
Romelia Stankard
20.04.2012		Yeah and to really get it to look good is a lot of work which I just don't feel like hassling with right now- I used to be into case modding and that kind of stuff but I have enough DIY projects I just want to make this simple.

I really don't know why Lian Li stopped making normal silver mid towers, strange... They started making a lot of ugly cases too.
Rolanda Clodfelder
20.04.2012
Originally Posted by Xonetacular
I'm torn on cases, $1300 is more than I wanted to spend but I just love that case and it seems lian li stopped making silver cases with a couple exceptions. I'll probably switch to a $100 lian li case since that is kind of excessive even if it is pretty cool looking.
Would you not believe about a standard Actual Mac Pro case - quite a few on Ebay for around $100 - and the build of them is pretty gorgeous, would certainly complete the aesthetics

edit* just saw that quite a bit of hacking of the case needs to be done - but wow it looks good

http://aquamac.proboards.com/index.c...ay&thread=1163
Romelia Stankard
20.04.2012		almost ready to pull the trigger, here is my current build

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks


CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H60 74.4 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($54.99 @ CompUSA)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($134.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($96.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Lian-Li PC-V1020A ATX Mid Tower Case ($249.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: OCZ 600W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($43.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1018.91
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-04-20 14:53 EDT-0400)

plus one OWC 120gb Electra for $207
http://www.amazon.com/120GB-OWC-Merc.../dp/B005NIP07C

I'm torn on cases, $1300 is more than I wanted to spend but I just love that case and it seems lian li stopped making silver cases with a couple exceptions. I'll probably switch to a $100 lian li case since that is kind of excessive even if it is pretty cool looking.
Rolanda Clodfelder
21.04.2012
Originally Posted by mostapha
Weird. My kingston started noticeably slowing down within a week or so. Oh, wait. Windows. AFAIK, OS X doesn't support TRIM, which means that you have to choose the controller chips more precisely, and the ones that perform well after 2-weeks of use without TRIM don't top out at the same speeds.
You can enable trim support for any SSD on Lion - not out of the box, but a few terminal commands will do it.

http://gdgt.com/question/in-os-x-lio...-for-ssds-f16/

20.04.2012
Originally Posted by keeb
+1
Mac software is bound to mac hardware by default for a reason. It's easily within your budget and may well work significantly better than your hackintosh, even with lower specs.
Originally Posted by keeb
Yes, but from what I've read you're not getting perfect performance out of a hackintosh. I suspect you're not going to be able to take advantage of the specs "as advertised." And at that point, with the prices being similar I'd avoid the hassle of getting a hackintosh up and running. I see what you're saying though, just keep what I said in mind; it might not turn out in practice to be what it is on paper.
All due respect and that but you're talking utter rubbish.

Romelia Stankard
20.04.2012		For SSD I'm looking at an OWC Mercury Electra at $207- looks pretty close to the extreme for a bit cheaper and according to this review there isn't a huge difference.

http://www.mactrast.com/2011/07/mact...ry-electra-6g/

http://www.amazon.com/120GB-OWC-Merc...7C/ref=lh_ni_t
Romelia Stankard
20.04.2012		Alright, finally ready to build this thing.

I've got other things I would rather spend my money on like a desk, monitors, and sound treatment but my desktop is the biggest thing holding me back now. I can only run like 2 waves plugins at a time before getting drop outs and have to close everything else when rendering a track not to get drop outs so this is long overdue.

Need to decide on a cheap video card, I only need dual dvi out and full compatibility. Going to go with an i7 2600k and now I need to pick a gigabyte mobo, dunno how much the extra features of each matter.
Dorie Scelzo
22.03.2012		Weird. My kingston started noticeably slowing down within a week or so. Oh, wait. Windows. AFAIK, OS X doesn't support TRIM, which means that you have to choose the controller chips more precisely, and the ones that perform well after 2-weeks of use without TRIM don't top out at the same speeds.

It's one of the downsides of OS X that I'll admit, but a dozen or two Mbit/s in writing speed isn't significant to my computer usage. They're fast enough to write >24 tracks of digital audio at once, and that's about the most demanding thing I do.

@Xone. I'd probably still buy Apple laptops if the OS wasn't tied to the hardware, but if it were actually released to the PC platform, I'd actually considering building a desktop again. As it stands, my MBP does everything I currently need for production. I might do it for convenience if I wind up with a lot of money and want to play with a Hackintosh, but I doubt I'll build another desktop/rack computer unless I find myself in the market for PT HDX……and that's expensive enough on its own, if I were, I'd just buy the Mac Pro. When I start accumulating rack gear, though, I might throw in a Linux box along side it just because it feels weird not to be running a server……and OS X understands NFS and OpenDirectory, so it might actually simplify my life.
Trista Karle
21.03.2012		Work with lots of solid states so far the fastest write speed I've found was on a Kingston. I have an 2 intels 4 ocz and 1 Kingston in different systems. There is alot of complaints on ocz but I've only had one intel replaced since running ssd.

2 intels and 1 ocz I have in service laptops and take massive abuse from road dust and such. 1 ocz in a laptop that's mostly stays in the office 1 ocz in a x6 amd desktop 8gb ram another desktop with the Kingston that is same x6 amd. So far the Kingston hands down out performs all the others
Romelia Stankard
21.03.2012
Originally Posted by keeb
Yes, but from what I've read you're not getting perfect performance out of a hackintosh. I suspect you're not going to be able to take advantage of the specs "as advertised." And at that point, with the prices being similar I'd avoid the hassle of getting a hackintosh up and running. I see what you're saying though, just keep what I said in mind; it might not turn out in practice to be what it is on paper.
If you do it right and buy the right video card and gigabyte board you get full functionality...
Ok Moroski
21.03.2012		Yes, but from what I've read you're not getting perfect performance out of a hackintosh. I suspect you're not going to be able to take advantage of the specs "as advertised." And at that point, with the prices being similar I'd avoid the hassle of getting a hackintosh up and running. I see what you're saying though, just keep what I said in mind; it might not turn out in practice to be what it is on paper.
Romelia Stankard
21.03.2012
Originally Posted by keeb
+1
Mac software is bound to mac hardware by default for a reason. It's easily within your budget and may well work significantly better than your hackintosh, even with lower specs.
The reason it's bound to mac hardware so apple can sell mac hardware.... There is no way I would buy a Mac Mini with low specs compared to a proper desktop when I could build the equivalent of a nice mac pro for cheaper, and yes it will be much faster than a topped out mini considering you can't get one close to the specs I'm looking at and a topped out (slower) mini is $1600 and has a much slower cpu and 8gb ram. And to get a dual core i5 with 4gb of ram wouldn't really be a huge upgrade and my laptop is faster.
Ok Moroski
21.03.2012
Originally Posted by JesC
the QUO computer store was blocks away from my pad and I always wanted to roll thru. and the day that I did go, looks like the door were close. Looks like Steve and his mafia didnt like bootleggers.

Xone if your budget is 1k, take a serious look at the MacMini & Server.
+1
Mac software is bound to mac hardware by default for a reason. It's easily within your budget and may well work significantly better than your hackintosh, even with lower specs.
Cristian Carmona
21.03.2012		the QUO computer store was blocks away from my pad and I always wanted to roll thru. and the day that I did go, looks like the door were close. Looks like Steve and his mafia didnt like bootleggers.

Xone if your budget is 1k, take a serious look at the MacMini & Server.
Ok Moroski
21.03.2012
Originally Posted by Xonetacular
I can't even render audio from maschine and the virus without crackles...


I'm believeing about going to rack mount route. Case is expensive ($180 shipped) but I believe it would be cool to have it in my future desk's rack space.

I pretty much have to get a lian li, I've never used anything else...
1) That's pretty normal for rack-mount cases that I've seen.
2) Of course you'd be a Lian Li fan, Xone. Mr. "I want the best of everything"
Dorie Scelzo
21.03.2012		That one and the OCZ are blazing fast and supposdly don't have the "writes blocks; only deletes pages" flaw that most controllers do.
Romelia Stankard
21.03.2012
Originally Posted by mostapha
Doesn't exist. http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMX6G120T/ is one of–IMHO–about 2 drives worth using. Maybe you could go smaller……?
$260 is fine I'll probably just go with that then if the others suck...
Dorie Scelzo
21.03.2012
Originally Posted by Xonetacular
then I still need to do research into and pick the best SSD for $200 or less.
Doesn't exist. http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDMX6G120T/ is one of–IMHO–about 2 drives worth using. Maybe you could go smaller……?
Romelia Stankard
21.03.2012
Originally Posted by ekwipt
Lian Li make the best cases, comparable to MacPros, I've looked into hackingtosh before, if you're happy with single CPU computers they work out cheaper, if you don't factor in your own times worth into the equation. If you want to build anything dual CPU you might as well buy a macpro.

Stick to the parts that Apple have in their machines, video cards etc.

Gigabyte boards have been the easiest to get a hack working quickly, forget about the latest or cheapest video cards.

I also believe the most favourable thing o hackingtosh is the ability to overclock
Yeah budget is about $1100-$1200. i7 2600k, gigabyte mobo, cheapest video card that is known to work, 16gb corsair ddr3, then I still need to do research into and pick the best SSD for $200 or less.

As far as mobos there are a bunch of gigabyte boards that work, just have to choose what I need, I don't really plan to overclock this one- I've done it in the past but really I would just rather not deal with it- maybe just a very small stable overclock. I'll have to go through the gigabyte boards and see which features I want- really just want a lot of USB ports/bandwidth. Video card I really don't care, it's just for production really so as long as I have two DVI outs and it works.

SSD is still the most difficult to decide on with so many and hearing so many different things about issues and trim.
Rochel Gleese
21.03.2012		Lian Li make the best cases, comparable to MacPros, I've looked into hackingtosh before, if you're happy with single CPU computers they work out cheaper, if you don't factor in your own times worth into the equation. If you want to build anything dual CPU you might as well buy a macpro.

Stick to the parts that Apple have in their machines, video cards etc.

Gigabyte boards have been the easiest to get a hack working quickly, forget about the latest or cheapest video cards.

I also believe the most favourable thing o hackingtosh is the ability to overclock
Romelia Stankard
20.03.2012		I can't even render audio from maschine and the virus without crackles...


I'm believeing about going to rack mount route. Case is expensive ($180 shipped) but I believe it would be cool to have it in my future desk's rack space.



I pretty much have to get a lian li, I've never used anything else...
Romelia Stankard
20.03.2012		Damn I can't put off upgrading my computer much longer

Just running ableton with maschine as a vst and the virus (virus does all processing) cpu usage goes from like 55%-90% with ram up to 70% used. this is an old dell core 2 duo desktop with 4gb of ram... I keep getting audio glitches and stuttering and ableton lags up during playback. I would rather spend money on more fun stuff but oh well.
Dorie Scelzo
13.03.2012		Definitely going to be paying attention to this. Depending on what we all can figure out…mostly because I'd love to actually have a rackable OS X machine at some point.
Romelia Stankard
12.03.2012		Hmm I may be revisiting this soon- will be looking to piece together a build for $1000 or under.
Dorie Scelzo
06.02.2012		Bad idea

Originally Posted by the first review of the Samsung I saw
The Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD has some very strong features going for it. The drive is capable of delivering very good read performance, something you want in a consumer drive. The write performance on the other hand still has some issues that we simply can't overlook.

When we test SSDs we run all of our benchmarks in a particular order. This order doesn't change no matter what results we see. Our first set of tests are ran with HD Tune Pro and there are six of them. The seventh test is HD Tach, the read / write test. In the image above we see the results of that seventh test. You can clearly see that the write performance was already affected by the previous six tests and in several places the drive wrote data at around 50MB/s. This is a very large drop off from the near 350MB/s peak we see when the drive is writing data at a high rate. The average write speed throughout the test drops to 226.4MB/s, but just like when you are playing a video game and measuring frames per second, it's the low points that make the experience less enjoyable.
That's what I was talking about when I said that the Mercury and OWC drives don't need trim.

I promise you the slower writes were in writing 4kb files quickly to random parts of the drive. You have no idea how often your computer does things like that.

The controllers on the Samsung and Crucial (as well as JMicron, Intel, and most other SSDs) write in blocks but can only delete in pages, which means that drive performance drastically decreases as you fill up the drive. As soon as you write to the entire drive once (sooner in some cases), even if you've deleted data, the controller has to move stuff around the drive (essentially defragmenting it during a write operation) so that it can delete a full page of flash ram before it can write whatever you're trying to save.

If the controller fucks up badly enough, it might not be able to do that and it just gives write fails.

It's not that big of a deal if you're willing to occasionally clone the drive onto a backup, overwrite the whole thing with zeros, and restore from your backup. But you have to do that. Otherwise, you have a couple months (in my experience) of constantly decreasing performance that eventually winds up slower than normal hard drives for anything involving disk writes
Jenae Hensarling
04.02.2012		I'd stay away from the sand force controllers they are plagued with problems, although those could be windows related only, I'm not sure. If it was my money I'd buy a Crucial M4 or Samsung 830 SSD.
Romelia Stankard
04.02.2012
Originally Posted by mostapha
The vertex 3 is a much better drive. 3 refers to generations, and the 3rd gen are the first ones that don't suck (good controller chips that reportedly don't need trim). Other than that Vertex >> Agility > Solid.
]
Ok cool good to know I'll probably do that

Originally Posted by Rukks
You can buy my lian li off of me

I'm gonna be moving around next year for work so I can't have this tower anymore

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product...ndex=62&g=spec

I modded it so it can fit 3 fans in the front but still the best looking case ever made IMO
That's a funky looking case, it looks pretty sweet. I've never owned anything except Lian Lis- this will also be my first non water cooled build. I may be interested but not sure if I will have access the the side optical drive like that where I was planning to put it. Not that I ever really use optical drives anyway.

Sounds like your decisions are pretty good atleast to me. I don't believe you need 16gb of ram but it has come down in price lately. Just get a reliable PSU, last thing you want is replacing that. video cards eat up the most power so if your going lowend video card then go with like a 500watt or so...anything over that is only needed for dual cards.

If you spec it all out you may believe you need more power than you actually do...just an fyi.
Yeah I don't believe I will need too much power. I don't really see any reason not to get 16gb of ram since it's $89. One of the motivations for me to consider this was I was going to upgrade the ddr2 in my pc and it would cost $100 to get 8gb of ddr2, and then that still wouldn't solve the cpu problems I'm having and it being generally not as fast as I want.

500watt should be fine I guess. I'll have to look around for cases, I would like something with at least 5 hdd bays since I have four drives I would want to use not including the ssd.
Golden Faubert
04.02.2012		i took the vertex over the agility, was a little more expensive but thought i might as well have the model up whilst i had the cash. its blisteringly quick. i only took the 60gb but with running windows i was able to save 8gb as you no longer need the page file on the computer. not sure if this applies to a mac but worth a look, thats a lot of space to save. my hackintosh samsung nc10 arrived the other day and i love it, tempted to do the same to my main hp.
Dorie Scelzo
04.02.2012
Originally Posted by Xonetacular
not really sure the difference in all these ocz models that are so close
The vertex 3 is a much better drive. 3 refers to generations, and the 3rd gen are the first ones that don't suck (good controller chips that reportedly don't need trim). Other than that Vertex >> Agility > Solid.

When I was shopping the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G beat it out, but they were also the same price back then. I'd probably buy a vertex 3 today.
Lang Abriel
04.02.2012		You can buy my lian li off of me

I'm gonna be moving around next year for work so I can't have this tower anymore

http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/product...ndex=62&g=spec

I modded it so it can fit 3 fans in the front but still the best looking case ever made IMO

Sounds like your decisions are pretty good atleast to me. I don't believe you need 16gb of ram but it has come down in price lately. Just get a reliable PSU, last thing you want is replacing that. video cards eat up the most power so if your going lowend video card then go with like a 500watt or so...anything over that is only needed for dual cards.

If you spec it all out you may believe you need more power than you actually do...just an fyi.
Romelia Stankard
04.02.2012
Originally Posted by mostapha
What SSD are you getting for $150?
One of the OCZs, not sure which

$135 after rebate http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227726

this is $170 with rebate http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227706


not really sure the difference in all these ocz models that are so close
Dorie Scelzo
03.02.2012		What SSD are you getting for $150?
Romelia Stankard
03.02.2012		Well if the rumor that the CDJ-2000 is being discontinued and replaced with a CDJ 2000 Nexus in April then I may just go ahead and build a hackintosh.

I wonder what the best I can do for $1000 or less is. Video card doesn't really matter so I would go for a card that is known to work but cheap- will have to do some research but if I can get something for around $100 that would be ideal. Intel 2600k CPU for $299, gigabyte mobo $130-$160, 16gb corsair DDR3 $90, SSD $150. Case and PSU- I'm picky about cases and normally I would go for a nice Lian Li but maybe I'll look at something cheaper or more practical on this build. I'll see if I can find a decent PSU for like $50. CPU cooler $30.

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