Need suggestions for building a Mac/Linux machine for college

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1

Hello Everyone!
Since I am going to live in the college dorms, I am planning to building a mini itx computer to bring to college (as long as my roommate is okay with it). I currently live in the US and the college I am going to is in the US. The goal with this machine is to be able to do video editing and play video games. My plan is to be able to run Mac and Linux on it (and maybe Windows if my roommate needs it). My main concern is getting Mac to run on it since hackintoshes are rather picky when it comes to parts.

So far these are the parts that I have selected:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $0.00)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($140.82 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB Tr-X OC Video Card ($297.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Silverstone RVZ01B Mini ITX Desktop Case
Power Supply: Silverstone 600W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular SFX Power Supply ($117.99 @ Directron)
Other: Wireless PCIe Card BGN AR5BHB92
Total: $556.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-05 11:14 EDT-0400

Some parts are going to be reused from my tower like the CPU and the SSD (not listed). Also for accessories like a monitor, keyboard/mouse, etc, I have all I need so don't worry about that! I have already bought the case.

You may have noticed that I did not list a CPU cooler. I am not sure what CPU cooler I should get that is very good and quiet. To put this in perspective, if you were my roommate, what parts would you want me to get so that my computer does not sound like a vacuum but still performs well. (I also plan to underclock my CPU to help with the noise)

The GPU must be able to to render a 2560x1440 display without problems and play games fairly well (Ideally 60fps but as long as it is above 39fps, it will be fine). So I thought that the Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB Tr-X OC Video Card would be a good choice for the price, although I heard that AMD cards can be somewhat hot (and to add on to the fact that I can not underclock it on Mac, and have to go though additional hoops on Linux). The most graphic intensive game I have is Metro Last Light but keep in mind that I am playing it on Linux (I heard that some features on the Windows version are not in the Linux version). For video editing I am mostly only going to use iMovie, nothing advance. Sadly, I can not reuse the GPU I have in my desktop since my GPU takes up three slots and the case only supports two slots.

In terms of budget, I guess I want to stay below $650-$600. I do not want the initial price for the GPU to be over $300. If you have suggestions for the other parts, try not to go over the price I listed for each part if it is possible as I need to save the leftover money for the CPU cooler. Also with the exception of the GPU, I would like to have the parts be bought from Amazon since I can redeem amazon gift cards from swagbucks and perk to offset the cost.

So far the motherboard is recommended on tonymacx86 site, so that is good!
http://www.tonymacx86.com/building-customac-buyers-guide-may-2015.html#Motherboards

It also seem like the the r9 290x will work out of the box for Yosmite! Although it would be great if anyone here who used this card and run a hackintosh can confirm that.

OSX 10.10 adds support for Radeon R290X

Might be a problem for Linux but hopefully with the development of the AMD drivers, things might improve.

Thank you for taking you time to read this! I appreciate any feedback or suggestions that you all may have. Hopefully I can make this work and get a awesome Mac/Lin machine. Also post any question if there is something that you need to be clarified on,

Thomas A.

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You can't run mac and linux on the same machine, the universe will explode.

Seriously though, why not just run windows/linux? doesn't the creative suite run on windows as well as mac? Then you aren't heavily limited on your hardware choices.

1 Like
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Weird, why hasn't the universe exploded already?

As for why I want to use Mac OS rather then Windows:
I am just use to the apple software on a mac (Keynote, Pages, iMovie, iPhoto) and I really don't want to spend money on other creative suite. I can whip up something last minute with these tool since I have more experience with it.

I will admit though that the hardware can be annoying for the mac part... but I have been able to make it work before, My current rig can actually run it just fine (well except through clover, i have to use unibeast instead)

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Aside from the usual alternative methods for acquiring software(which considering you seem to be running a hackntosh already...) , the creative cloud is only about 10 dollars a month for photoshop access, or there's special student options, and sony vegas goes on sale all the time on newegg at least for fairly cheap.

EDIT: Apparently newegg is totally out of stock on just about any older version of sony vegas.

Though after a quick google search apparently they're just letting anyone download sony vegas 9 for free? Probably just a trail version on the main website though.

Mainly that would let you get away with getting an 8350 build, which should beat out an i5 in any kind of rendering situation.

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I should have stated that I am not doing any serious video renderings. It just for those occasions where I have to create and edit a video for a project. Plus since I already have a i5, it would cheaper to get a motherboard for it then to buy a AMD CPU and also a motherboard, Even if the AMD would run better for rendering situations.

Plus how hard is the learning curve for Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere?

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Sony Vegas is pretty simple to use, but it has a lot of features.

I don't have any experience with Premiere, but it's what everyone likes.

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Okay, I'll consider doing a Windows and Linux dual boot if the mac install fails. But for now I do want to at least try to run mac on this machine (It's a personal joy of mines to do hackintosh installs; It can almost an addiction at times...).

But besides the whole Mac OS X vs Windows issue. Do you have any other suggestions for me about my build?

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Not really you don't have much choice as far as hardware goes.

If you can swap your motherboard this one can be had a fair bit cheaper.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157526

Maybe get a 290, since the 290x is a bit overkill for 1080p

The coolermaster ITX cases are pretty fully featured, unless you really like that case's layout. The elite series is also fairly low cost as well

You can save a good amount on your PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182331

And then with the money saved you could probably jump up to an i7 of some sort, dunno about the compatibility though.

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Just run OSX in a virtual machine if it doesnt work

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You know what would be totally awesome and useless, CPU emulation. Would it even be possible to trick OSX into running on AMD CPUs? Or is it already possible? I've never looked into to much.

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That would be pointless for me... Plus I hate using virtual machines since the OS runs slower then on real hardware.

I think someone was able get mac to run on AMD but you need a custom kernel and apps may need to be patched in order to work (maybe the app issue might of changed but I remember reading it somewhere a while ago).

It seems like it possible since there is a guide for it:

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Yeah... I like the case that I have chosen because it more console like to me. (I actually wanted to get the raven RVZ01 but this case was cheaper and had the same layout, but it still looked nice) Plus I already bought it... so there is no turning back now.

I am not so sure about the Itx cases that coolermaster provide...
http://www.coolermaster.com/product/Lines/mini-itx/
Looking through here, it seem like most of the cases are larger then what I desire and the one case that I would have been interested in, the Mini 110, does not seem to be able to hold a graphics card.

If I were to go with this coolerstone case this would make sense, but the silverstone case only supports standard SFX power supplys so this is a no go.

This one might work: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202143&cm_re=290-_-14-202-143-_-Product

It around 12 inches (13 Inches is the max for the silverstone case) so I believe it will fit. Also just to be clear, I am doing 1440p gaming.

Seems good, but my only concern with the motherboard is the Qualcomm Atheros AR8171 LAN Chipset. I am not sure if the Qualcomm is supported well on Linux.

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qemu can do that

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Ya I dunno what more could be done then, your parts are going to end up being pretty specific. the main advantage of the elite ITX series they have is the ATX PSU support, and support for full sized graphics cards.