Hello guys/girls.

I'm planing on building a hackintosh pc ( following tonymacx86 buyers guide) to make it my "studio" pc ( or should I say mac xD ?) Now the question is, because I hardly find anything audio production related on hackintosh's.
Is it reliable enough to run logic well ?
Is everything running like it should or is there any increased cpu processing because well its not mac essentialy ?

Thanks! I might have some more questions in future.

 

Hello,

I use Hackintosh everyday (I have mounted 4 Hackintosh these last 7 years). It works like a charm.
I have followed the tonymac recommendations and all is ok.
Install and upgrade are a bit scary but i always succeeded to get a very stable system without any issue.
I use Logic Pro X inside el capitan.

 

Very nice decision! Especially after NVIDIA announced their support for Pascal GPUs, so at least you won't face problems related to this topic. At first you should clarify, which Intel chipset you'd like to use, because the X99 and C612 sets won't really work, if you do not plan to spend at least three days in configuring.
I personally use the X99 platform in a Gigabyte X99-UD3 board and a Xeon E5-2686v3, which is pretty rough to set up (still doesn't run perfectly, at least 90% perfect), X99-i7's are a bit easier to set up, because plenty of people use them. Xeon only with the X79 platform!
If you rather want more clock speed instead of cores, I'd recommend to stick with the 6700K or 6600K (Kaby-Lake also works easily, but don't put your trust in the iGPU, buy an external one if you need) and the Z170 platform.
When you are a first time Hackintosher, carefully select your Hardware and if you did already, you can post it here, I think others (including me) can help you with your setup. Also don't just stick to tonymacx86. Go to other forums, read their rules and gather as much information as possible, because you will face so many problems, that tonymac doesn't mention in his guides.

My personal experience with Hackintosh is very pleasing and OSX gives a lot for the usual demanding audio producer. Problems are 90% user related (or NVIDIA WebDriver related), bugs happen but the overall stability is on par with Windows 7/10. I recommend getting along with the clover bootloader and how everything is set up, and with getting along I mean really understanding what it does and how to configure it (keyword clover configurator). Also don't forget that you actually need a real Mac to get your stuff set up, otherwise you need have the patience of a 100 tibetan monks.

 

Last edited: Apr 16, 2017

Thanks guys!

Yes I'm planing on using i7 6700K ( Was thinking about 7700K but I think its not fully supported yet or so)
Anyway here is the full configuration I was planning on getting, well there is still room for improvment I guess.

I alredy have some 4tb hdd so I guess I won't be getting those.
So what do you guys think about that setup? What I also need is a wifi/bluetooth adapter that would work well with apple mouse/keyboard ( I don't really like wires)

 

If you're well aware of what's building hackintosh is all about then I would go for it. You'll get great performance and customizable and upgradable platform to work on that can't be really achieved on MacPro. I personally has a bit of hassle with my first Hackintosh and after couple of years I bought 2nd hand dual cpu mid 2012 MacPro and upgraded to 3.33Ghz Xenons with 48GB Ram. It's works like a breeze now, I have not to worry about any issues with system update or drivers, problems with sleep, weird leak of performance etc. You can get one very cheap atm and upgrade it up to your wish. Otherwise if you know what you're doing you can really build a beast hackitosh that will work flawlessly. Really up to you and your time you can spend on it!

 

I run a hackingtosh as main studio pc, i7 860. 14gb DDR , MOTU 828. and Acer touch screen plus HDMI to hd tv. No issues . As long as you are willing to investigate to find the right KEXT you'll be fine

 

Hackintosh build is rugged.. Go for it

 

i7-4790k here and before i3-550. Never had any issues with logic at all. Once setuped properly it should work. Downside are update, it's quite complex to update some hackintosh, since updates would break the hackintosh so you need to be careful when and how update. I'm actually sticking to the same version so no problem for me. Logic is a great daw.

 

already build like 10 hackintosh in the last 6 years for myself,friends and customers,most of the time the mac updates only break the audio,but always do a backup with Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper,im still on El Capitan but im building a new hackintosh in the next weeks so im thinking to install Sierra.

 

All I would say is expect complications. Though the process is explained thoroughly its rare to not have any problems. Most problems can be eventually resolved and I would go in with the mindset that it might be be a grind. Thinking everything will go smoothly is just unrealistic. Its not hugely difficult but its just frustrating when you inevitably run in to issues and have to patiently work to resolve them. Good luck!

 

6700k & 7700k are pretty much the same, 5-6% difference in general.
the 7700k shines in better overclocking and native supporting ddr 2400
the 6700k officially does not support ddr4 2400.
this mainboard should work with them anyway, but i would go for ddr4 2133 to be sure.
or even just take the 7700k, apple is using this cpu in the iMac lineup so this cpu should work well?
don't nail me down on this one because im not in the hackintosh world but seems logical to me.

i strongly suggest you to get a 500 GB samsung evo instead of 256 GB. its only about 50/60 bucks more
and its substantially faster and 250 GB disks get full pretty fast nowadays.
you should always have a nice chunk of free space on your main disk to ensure good performance of your system.
you wont regret this one for sure!

overall this looks like a nice set of very well balanced components for a decent rig in every regard for roundabout 1300 bucks.

 

@Riansky Your setup is perfect for a bloody beginner. If you'd like to get that extra bump I can also suggest getting the 7700K, but stick with the Z170, I think the Z270 chipset isn't as supported as it's predecessor.

Edit: The thing with WIFI and Bluetooth should be handled seriously with care. Some stuff works and is compatible, others isn't. Stick with Tonys buyers guide and look under 'accessories', you can see a list with compatible bluetooth sticks and wifi cards.

 

Last edited: Apr 16, 2017

Another thing you should consider is that you match your desired hardware to the one Apple uses in it's products. If there're Macs with the i7 6700K, you can flawlessly use this CPU and all it's supported chipsets = you can use every other CPU that runs with this chipset (i7-7700K and every other Kaby Lake generation CPU aswell).
A different story would be the X99 platform: Apple stopped developing the Mac Pro after the Xeon E5 v2 (Ivy Bridge-E, or i7-49xx). The Xeons and I7's compatible with a X99 Motherboard (Xeon E5 v3/v4, Hassell-E or i7-58xx) have never seen the interior of a Mac Pro, so it's very hard to get these beasts to run on OS X.

My suggestion would be to wait until WWDC in June, because Apple will (90% chance) announce their new iMac lineup with new CPU's and new platform compatibility. There're even rumors about Xeons in iMacs, because for a long time Apple couldn't provide a computer for the demanding user. But, don't switch to X99, because I think Apple totally ignores this platform and skips the X99 for X299 (Skylake-X).

 

then there's intels x299 Ryzen response in the pipeline, as-well this june

 

I would use them but I'm going to be super famous and I'm afraid of watermarks

 

Read and study like there is no tomorrow and NEVER update until you have backed up and read a little more.
As others have said - keep those "KEXT" files for YOUR hardware and you can be fine.

Hackintosh is great for those of us who have OSX only software and can not live without it !

For others - many titles are cross platform - so it may cost the average joe more time than they expect.

NOTE: My first HACKINTOSH was when Apple unofficially "SUPPORTED" the hackintosh community and freely sold the ROMS to use in your physical units that had names such as AMAX. The Hackintosh community remains in my bookmarks till this day - even as I do not use it on production systems - theres always that ONE person you know ... and having this tool will save the day for collaborations !

 

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Last edited: Jun 8, 2017

The main issue with Custom Macs is, when you like to report crash reports to the developer.
RME for example totally refuse to help when they know that you are running an Custom Mac.
Others might get confused when you have an iMac with a GTX1080

 

Last edited: May 1, 2019

Huh?

 

Look up the Golden Builds on tonymacx86 and you will see that many of them are studio and music production systems.