720p Small Form Factor Rig

I need some Ideas for a Small form factor gaming rig for playing games maxed at 720p

Needs Wifi

Preferably Hackintosh-able so Intel

Black case is also Preferable 

budget $700-$1,000

Types of games I play are Source engine games and mods, Battlefield, Call of Duty,Skyrim,Crysis series and indie games.

I plan on puting this on my bedroom tv which is 720p @60hrz

Hmm, look at the Hackintosh webpage for hardware suggestions, as not all hardware is so readily compatible, but you shouldn't really have any major issues with building a relatively cheap hackintosh-ready PC. Also, a 650 or 650 Ti will be able to handle just about everything at 720p, and an i3 would be plenty of processor for that kind of machine. After that, you just have to see what is compatible.

Here is what I came up with:

[url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/J9cC]PCPartPicker part list[/url] / [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/J9cC/by_merchant/]Price breakdown by merchant[/url] / [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/J9cC/benchmarks/]Benchmarks[/url]


[b]CPU:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80637i53570k]Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor[/url]  ($219.99 @ Newegg)

[b]CPU Cooler:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/zalman-cpu-cooler-cnps8900extreme]Zalman CNPS8900 Extreme  CPU Cooler[/url]  ($41.18 @ Amazon)

[b]Motherboard:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-z77pro4m]ASRock Z77 Pro4-M Micro ATX  LGA1155 Motherboard[/url]  ($117.55 @ Newegg)

[b]Memory:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-memory-cmz8gx3m2x1600c8b]Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory[/url]  ($54.98 @ NCIX US)

[b]Storage:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7td250bw]Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk[/url]  ($169.99 @ Amazon)

[b]Video Card:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-1003551gocl]Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 1GB Video Card[/url]  ($169.99 @ Newegg)

[b]Wireless Network Adapter:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/rosewill-wireless-network-card-rnxn250pce]Rosewill RNX-N250PCe 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter[/url]  ($21.90 @ Amazon)

[b]Case:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/silverstone-case-gd06b]Silverstone GD06B HTPC Case[/url]  ($104.99 @ Amazon)

[b]Power Supply:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-cx500m]Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply[/url]  ($66.99 @ Amazon)

[b]Optical Drive:[/b]  [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-optical-drive-drw24b1stblkbas]Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer[/url]  ($19.97 @ Amazon)

[b]Total:[/b] $974.53

[i](Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)[/i]
[i](Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-12 01:08 EDT-0400)[/i]

Just a few things to note:

  1. I assumed overclocking, which means I spent extra in cooling, CPU, and power supply. If you will NOT be overclocking, I can signficantly cut back on cost (more than $60 in savings)
  2. Storage capacity is limited to 250GB. I'm 100% sure of storage capacity, but 250GB is usually enough for a few games. I can more than up to storage capacity (and possibly cut costs) at the expense of speed, and noise with a mechanical HDD. Or I can add a storage drive, which will also drive up costs, but will not sacrifice speed.
  3. Windows is NOT included. If you need a copy, it will drive up cost by ~$100, or more, depending on version (OEM/Retail, home, 7 or 8, etc)

Let me know if you are or are not overclocking, and whether or not you're happy with the price. I can definitely tweak a few things.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/J9Ab

It is a tad difficult to actually build a mini-itx computer with a graphics card that is hackintosh-able... Also, you'll need a different mini-pci-e half card wireless adapter.

http://www.amazon.com/Wireless-AR5BHB92-Dual-band-802-11b-Toshiba/dp/B009HN63QQ/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1363067387&sr=1-3&keywords=AR9380

Get that one, follow the directions here:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/network/58146-guide-airport-half-mini-pcie.html

Getting the the GPU working under OS X isnt too impotant, the hd 4000 with the i5 would be enough for what i'd be using it for general purpose computing not gaming thats for the windows side. I have a few 1TB laptop hdd's laying about so storage shouldnt be an issue.

I'm not sure how making a hackintosh works, because I've never actually looked into it before, but it looks like you're going to want to go with a Gigabyte board. They're supposed to be more compatible with Mac OS than any other brand. I don't know what specific model to go with though.

It was also more along the lines of, to get a GPU that will work in Mac OS X, you have to go with Nvidia, and they also don't support all the cards, so you have to check and see which ones don't require modified drivers to function. Typically Asus ones work though. The main problem I ran into was just cramming it all into a really cheap and small and attractive looking case. Also, just because you don't need the dedicated graphics on the OSX side does not mean that you still don't need it to work, making a hackintosh can throw up some really peculiar error messages when you try to run OSX with incompatible hardware installed. At best, the incompatible hardware simply doesn't work, at the worst, it makes it so that your whole system doesn't work. Now I haven't tried building a hackintosh since the old OS X 10.4 x86 days, so some things may have been worked out since then. And you still DONT NEED AN i5 for gaming at 720p. You would be throwing money at a problem whose solution is far simpler than that. Get an i3, the 3225 is the only one suitable for hackintoshing, according to said website for hackintoshing. It will be plenty powerful enough for just about everything you could ever need it to do as an HTPC.