Let’s look at the current top of the line off the shelf Mac Pro’s, the 8-core and 12-core systems.
8-Core
Two 2.4GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” processors
6GB (six 1GB) RAM
1TB hard drive
18x double-layer superdrive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB DDR5
12-Core
Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” processors
6GB (six 1GB) RAM
1TB hard drive
18x double-layer superdrive
ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB DDR5
Now let’s look at the proposed Hackintosh.
12-Core
Two 2.66GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon “Westmere” processors
16GB (eight 2GB) RAM
5 x 1TB hard drive RAID 0
1 x 1TB system drive
1 x 1TB swap drive
2 x NVIDIA GTX285
Okay, lets break that down. We’re not going to get into component prices yet, just identify the components we need.
12-Core CPU specs:
Intel Xeon X5650 Six-Core 2.66GHz 12M Cache, 6.4GT/s QPI, 95W, 32nm
Motherboard:
*Intel S5520SCR
*I’m choosing the more expensive S5520SCR because it provides 12 DIMM slots, 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, 1 x PCI Express x 4 slot and 1 x PCI Express x 1 slot. Note, the two x16 slots will support the two double width graphics cards.
Memory:
8 x Kingston 2GB 1333MHz DDR3 ECC CL9 DIMM with Thermal Sensor (16GB total)
Graphics:
2 x Nvidia GeForce GTX285 512bit GDDR5
HDD:
7 x 1TB Seagate Constellation ES (3.0Gb/s, 7.2K RPM, 32MB Cache) 3.5” SATAII
Optical:
25x DVD-RW Drive
Now from ServersDirect our shopping basket comes to $4231.58 without the graphics cards, those are tough to find and will be dealt with separately. From Apple, the same machine with only 6GB RAM and a single 1TB hard drive is $4,999 (granted it includes the Radeon HD 5770 graphics card which they charge $250 for), and with 16GB RAM and only four drives instead of 7 we’re already at $6,199
From Newegg the internals (they don’t have the chassis) come to $3874.81 compared to ServersDirect’s $3629.61 so ServersDirect is cheaper.
Now lets look at finding those Nvidia GTX 285′s. I can source them new here in South Africa (for now) at ZAR R3,761 each, which is $520 or I’ve been tracking them on E-Bay from $250 each. So let’s add $500 for two of them.
That means we can put together a killer 12-Core Mac Pro clone with 16GB RAM, 5TB RAID0, 2 x 1TB system drives (one OS, one swap) and two GTX 285′s and OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard for $4,760 (ZAR R34,619.28 as of today) plus shipping via air freight to Cape Town! It’s in a 3U rack mount chassis with the 5 RAID drives in hot swappable caddy’s (although configured RAID 0 you wouldn’t want to pull one out).
All it needs is assembly!
Additional Items:
Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme – $999 (occupies 1 x PCI-X x4 slot (x8 physical))
Da Vinci Resolve – $999
Apple Final Cut Studio – $999
Notes on expansion:
This system will be optimized for Da Vinci Resolve and Final Cut Studio, the choice of the now discontinued Nvidia GTX285 is that it is still to date the most high performance card with full OSX compatibility. “Upgrading” to newer GTX400 series or 500 series cards is dependent on drivers and official Resolve support.
In this system configuration there are no more available slots for a Red Rocket. I plan to install a Red Rocket in the second Windows workstation. Redcode RAW workflow in Resolve would then depend on having previously transcoded Redcode RAW media to DPX on the SAN.
Notes on compatibility:
The new Apple motherboards are based on the Intel 5520 chipset from what I can deduce, which should make the combo I have chosen relatively straightforward.
This is not guaranteed to work! This is an experiment and there isn’t much out there on the net about dual Xeon hackintosh builds.
Notes on networking:
I’m foreseeing a problem with installing a 10gE adapter in this system. The small tree adapters need a 8 lane PCI-Express slot and there aren’t any open when configured with two GTX285′s. A 4 port gigabit adapter for an aggregated link may be an option in a x4 slot as long as there is OSX driver support.
The systems looks great on paper. Have you already assembled it? Is it working fine? How silent is it? Have you thought of the HD5779 1GB to replace the other card (see http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC742ZM/A)
thanks
I will hopefully order the parts soon. It’s looking like I’ll be building a SAN server for a client soon and if that job comes in I will be able to build the Hackintosh. It’s an experiment and I know that, so I’m not expecting any miracles, I’ve found such little information online about “Hackintosh” builds at this kind of level… most seem to build single CPU Core i7 or i5 boxes. Saying that, I think it has a good chance of working… we will see!
I’ll be posting regularly about the build and then setup of OSX, Final Cut Studio and Da Vinci Resolve as soon as I get the parts ordered. I’m in Cape Town, South Africa but will order components from the U.S., so it may take a couple weeks to ship and clear customs.
Please keep an eye on things though. I’ll pop you a email directly once this project starts.
Thanks for the comment!
Oh, I just noticed I don’t have your email address on your comment. Oh well, keep an eye out for updates every so often if you are interested!
It’s me again. The card I was referring to is the Powerplay Silent HD 5770. Also you may want to take a look to this link: http://www.matthewmintun.com/hackintosh-build-for-the-professional/
Wow, very cool. Is this your blog?
The reason for going Nvidia is that Da Vinci Resolve relies on CUDA. The system needs two graphics cards, and only one must be a GTX285 or QuadroFX4000 / 4800, the GUI card can be a Radeon.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/downloads/davinci/pdf/DaVinciResolveMacConfigGuide.pdf
So glad I found this blog. You’re doing exactly what I’m hoping to do. I’m a film/video editor who work mainly on Avid but would love to improve on FCP and its related software. I’m not saavy enough to experiment on my own, so thanks for doing this. Please keep us posted.
Nick
Hi Nick,
Thanks, I’m awaiting another SAN server build for a client that will let me build this system, so right now I am just waiting. I will keep you posted!
You can subscribe to the RSS feed, then when I post an update it will come into your email inbox.
Thanks for the support!
Rich
Except for the link posted by another comment, there arnt any examples of people building workstation level Hackintoshes. And documenting it during use.
If the set up becomes buggy and unworkable, you still have a super fast PC.
But I would love it to work. Good luck.
Good luck
i’m going to do something similar; i bought used BOXX machine which i’ll rebuild maybe this weekend as hackintosh using that same mobo. but it only has 4 core CPUs on it.
i was hoping you would’ve already found out how hard it will be.
one comment, why are you planning to put on 4 DIMMs per bank? you do know this is triple-channel, not dual channel; right? i think you will lose some memory bandwidth by installing 4, meaning it hardly will do triple channel, depending how you plug in the DIMMs you might even lose dual channeling… this could be significant slowdown on memory intensive work due lost bandwidth.
Hi, awesome!
Please let me know how it goes, I’d love to post your findings on this blog as it will shed a lot of light on whether this build of mine will work. What memory configuration would you recommend?
my build got side-tracked because of physical case issues and my cpu coolers (cooler master 212+) couldnt be mounted without some extra bits because S5520SCR comes whith cpu backplate glued to the board. i’ve now solved that and will proceed. it was a bit pain to find 8mm spacers with M3 thread on both sides!
for the memory, populate the banks as per instructions on the Intel manual found on their website:
http://download.intel.com/support/motherboards/server/s5520sc/sb/e39530010_s5520sc_tps_r1_7.pdf
i got my board with 3 2GB ECC modules on each bank on blue sockets. i might replace these with non ECC if ECC does not overclock (should i choose to OC, have not yet decided…)
Sounds good. Thanks for the advice with the memory and the link to that pdf, I will adjust my configuration.
I’m close to ordering my major parts now… but I am going to have to break the whole build down into smaller steps than I had hoped for cash-flow reasons. I wanted to build mine into a rackmount Chenbro RM31300 chassis with a zippy redundant PSU but I’m not going to have enough cash to do that right away.
So first I’ll get motherboard, processors, ram and maybe a video card… and leave the RAID array for now since I have the SAN server to plug into, but I’m undecided about video cards. To begin with I’ll build it into a cheaper Antec Titan chassis for now with a Antec 850W PSU or something.
The whole point of my build is to run Da Vinci Resolve, and that needs two graphics cards, one for the GUI and one for GPU processing. I was originally going to put in two GTX 285′s (now discontinued) which offer fantastic performance for the price, but now I’m considering two QuadroFX 4800′s but that’s big bucks. The GUI card can be something cheaper though… so maybe I find a used GTX 285 or a Radeon HD 5770 for the GUI card… or I’ll buy two used GTX 285′s on ebay as originally planned. I actually want a new QuadroFX card for my Windows box as my QuadroFX 3500 is pre-CUDA and is showing it’s age now. So maybe it’s better to stick with two GTX285′s in this machine and get one QuadroFX 4800 for the Windows machine where Adobe CS5′s Mercury engine can take advantage of it.
I’ll need a Blackmagic Decklink HD card too, that will have to come later.
Fun times… just not cheap. At least I make my living with all this kit.
Have you got OSX installed and running already?
Are you documenting your build anywhere. I would love to see some pictures?
Finally! Someone running a ‘proper’ hackintosh build blog! Seems like the perfect setup, very interested to see how this turns out.
Hi, I see you’re ordering everything from overseas… The components are obviously a lot cheaper but don’t you get smacked for shipping and import duties? I’m building an i7 rig this month, so I’m also looking into supplier options. Look forward to seeing how your setup works out..
Yeah, I’m ordering from ServersDirect. Shipping costs are not small, I was just quoted R16,000 to ship 250kg air cargo from L.A. but still works out cheaper than what I’ve found from local suppliers, some of whom mark up 100% compared to U.S. prices. There are no import duties. VAT is however payable on the value of the shipment and shipping cost.
To some the saving is probably not worth it, but I’m busy with a large shipment from them in any case for a client, so I can throw mine in the same shipment and pay the difference.
Rich
ok, i got mine running finally. most part was just to put it together. macosx installed easily using tonymac boot image on dvd and retail snow leopard. i was actually expecting lot more hassle, but it was quick OS installation. nvidia 480 works out of the box too, i thought it’d also give a bit working out.
few notes:
- remember to put SATA into AHCI mode!
- initial boot disk is 32bit; i removed all but one 2GB mem module from each bank; after installation and upgrading to 64bit i put modules back and it works fine.
- for now the onboard intel network chips are not recognized. i will have to work this out either by finding suitable kext or getting addon card. docos indicate the chip used should be macosx suitable, but my machine just does not see these; except when probed directly it tells the hardware and chip info. so i’m fairly sure i can make these to work with a bit of digging around.
for PSU, remember that each CPU requires separate 8 pin power feed. you likely will need to use 4to8 expanders. be sure you do not overload the PSU 12V circuits. (i dont think this is major issue)
it’s fast.
=)
“for now the onboard intel network chips are not recognized.”
Did you find a suitable kext?
I’m looking for it within several days. Any luck.
Has anyone successfully had a GTX 285 and another GFX card work in a Hackntosh? I’m running a single GTX 285 with Resolve but I want the performance increase of having the other card but need to know if its even possible first.
If so, what exact cars and drivers etc?
Thanks,
Toby
The same, I’m planning to put a 285 for GPU and a 9600/9800 gt for GUI.
Anyone know it is a good idea?
I’ve seen peole who says it could run better in just one 480!!
could be?
I could ask what motherboard are you using?
The motherboard is the Intel S5520SCR.
I would stick with the Resolve approved and recommended graphics cards both both GPU and GUI, but that’s just me.
I’m using a GA-EX58-UD5 Rev 1.0
Hi Toby please tell me how does the resolve works for you with just one card? It playbacks smothly HD and 2k? What should be a Resolve recomended card for GUI. I´ve seen the 9500 is the GT120 (mac) refurbished… But would the 9xx series be the same? Thanks Im just buying some stuf tio mount my Hack for davinci
Hi,
Check the configuration guide here – http://www.blackmagic-design.com/support/detail/?sid=3948&pid=4448&os=mac&leg=0
I hope that link works.
Rich
Hi guys,
I’ve got an Intel i7 @ 4.0Ghz on an EX58-UD5 mobo with 12GB DDR3 RAM and an Nvidia GTX 285 running DaVinci. I’ve got a 9800GT coming tomorrow and I’m going to try and set up as a GUI card for DaVinci (can anyone reccommend which PCI port to use and kexts/drivers to install?).
First I will do performance testing with just the GTX 285 however I also have a Blackmagic Extreme 3D+ arriving tomorrow, so should I wait until I install that? Will that effect performance in DaVinci like video output in Color does??
Also, for testing I was thinking 4.5K red MX and different playback options and also full res 2K DPX scans (I don’t have I/O for 4K yet), and then seeing how many 100% blur nodes I can use and maintain playback? Or is there a better test?
Best,
Toby
p.s. how would you like results posted?
p.p.s I’m getting realtime 1/2 res (2K) playback of 4.5K MX in COLOR with 720p monitoring (18fps 1080p) (MXO2 Mini) with this machine at the moment, so I’m optimistic (-;
Toby, could you run both cards, the 9800 and the 285? In my hack, it runs only one of both (in my case 9500 + gtx 285) …
no, i have not found kext for the network chips on S5520SCR. i bought 300Mbps usb wifi dongle but it’s not been installed yet.
also, i havent yet tried more than single GPU; but i did manage to have the BlackMagic Decklink running along both 285 and 480. it has funny issue, i need to physically remove the card and then it gets recognized on next boot. i havent yet tried what happens if i try to use 480 for GPU and 285 for GUI. unsure if it’s useful as 480 gets REALLY hot, and there’d be no space in between those two so i’m somewhat concerned it’d fry either or both…
I don’t have the 9800GT anymore (It was being used in a friend’s build).
I now have a GTX 480 which is working well, but I want to get it working with my GTX 285 (for GUI), but this is harder than it sounds!
For multi GPU help, I’d strongly suggest you all check out;
http://aquamac.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=hack1&action=display&thread=569
Dual/Triple GPU seems to be the way to go in most cases;
http://reduser.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-51940.html
Good luck everyone. If anyone get’s a 2xx series and 4xx series working together PLEASE let me know.
Toby
Worth reading;
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1010704
I just edited the plist, can’t tell if it’s increased performance yet
Hey Rich, i was looking on internet and finally i found your post, souds great your hackintoch because i want to build a similar machine, with two intel xeon westmere” processor just 8 cores but i didn’t find the asnwer if it works or not, so if you did that post and comment if it really works i wonderin to know.
Thanks,
B-to Luevano
GAP PRODUCCIONES
Guadalajara Jal. Mex.
So did you get this thing running?
I’m planning on building something similar… would love to know which parts to get.
Thanks!
I doubt this is going to work. shame really
Looking forward to updates on this! I really want to see a stable multi core build. Can’t wait until 12 cores are stable.
This sounds like exactly the kind of machine I’m aiming to build for compute-intensive tasks. Most hackintosh-devoted sites (understandably) focus on i7-based machines but those are hardly comparable to dual-hexacore-Xeon-style builds. I’m planning on building a similar machine for the sake of running Mathematica.
Have there been any updates, did it work as advertised, does the motherboard and dual CPU combination function under Lion 10.7.2 or are there compromises involved?
Hi James,
I never found out as the contract I was planning on paying for the build fell through. Now that Da Vinci have released Resolve on Windows and I’m no longer interested in Final Cut Pro, I’d rather not go the hackintosh route at all.
It’s a shame though, I would have loved to build this machine, I had big plans for it and I wanted it all to be public.
Rich
Thank you all for your interesting post and specially “Rich Lackey”
What is the result guys? is there anyone who could assembled parts together and make them work properly? if yes share the latest components specs so I can go ahead and make my own Hackintosh pro (for video editing, animation and 3d)
Regards
Sad to see this one didn’t get built! I would like to build a dual-Xeon Hackintosh for overclocking purposes — apparently the Xeons can really take quite a clock.
If anyone has a link to a good modern Hackintosh “Pro” build with Xeons, please post a link, the information is scarce on this topic!
In the process of building one sadly I abandoned the hackintosh and went with Ubuntu. Got Mac OS X 10.6 running but was adding unnecessary cost to the build without true benefit. Example my mobo had 2 gig-e LAN adapters from Marvell but are not supported by Apple so I had to go out and buy a USB to Ethernet adapter to network a 6K box. It was a cool experiment and I finally got it working but after realized that it would require to much maintenance for it to be practical. Was up and running with Ubuntu 11.10 within 2 hours a little tweaking of the nvidia drivers and was off.
Hint to get the install to work on this setup put this command in for your i
boot options
-x -v PCIRootUID=1 arch=i386 cpus=6 busratio=20
My build is a
EVGA SR-2 Motherboard
2xX5650 Xeon CPU 2.67ghz over-clocked to 3.8ghz
Water cooled
Samsung 256 SSD Sata 3
Hitachi 2TB Sata 3
Planning on adding 4xSLI Nvidia GTX 580
water cooled
Good Luck!!
Oh yeah I forgot.
48gb Corsair Dominator RAM
hello, i have a similar config of You
You have a native speedstep?
Let me know
Thanx
GG
Hi People.
I just got a used board, tyan s5396 with two xeon 5420s on it. Would like to hackmac it but do not even know where to start. Could somebody point me in the right direction?
I am a newbie to the hackintosh world and realize this may not be a begginer system to build, but since I dont have a deadline y suppose with some patience it can be done.
Thanks a lot in advance and hope to be able to share my experience in the near future.
Pepo