Er...

Well the mac pro worked and it was not very hard to set up... but as soon as I got it working I started on my first iOS application and from there everything snowballed and now I am running a company in Austin,  Texas called Ironclad Mobile.  I should be blogging over there once the rush dies down and I have more than one moment to thing.  We should be launching our first major commercial project soon.

Shipped.

Looks like everything I ordered has shipped.  Newegg is very fast, My order was placed before buisness hours on the 7th of April and was shipped later that day.  I have already received my bluetooth and camera and I expect to get the rest tomorrow.  Two days with standard shipping is very impressive, but definitely typical of Newegg.

The Start.

Intro:
I start out with a simple question: Can Snow Leopard(10.6.3) be installed and run with 100% compatibility and be used as a professional machine to do iPhone OS development? My old AMD–based hackintosh was thrown together from the spare parts bin that is my closet. I have become fed up with never knowing how long it will take to boot my unreliable 10.5.8 based hackintosh or if it will crash when I try to compile some code or run the iPad simulator.

WARNING! Don’t make the same mistake I did. Sometimes its just easier/cheaper to get more compatible hardware. I spent many countless hours trying to get my AMD processor based system to work like a real mac and my results were less than satisfactory. Sell your old hardware on craigslist or ebay if you have any components that are completely incompatible or poorly supported by the osx86 project.

My goal is simple. I want to not be able to tell the difference in terms of usability between my hack pro and a real mac pro. With stability in mind I will start laying out my machine.

PS. I plan on explaining my install and research in such a way that will allow you to make informed decisions about your hardware, you can follow my guide and vary from my hardware slightly.

Specifications:
Bluetooth
Webcam (Hopefully iSight Quality)
Dual Boot Windows 7 or VMWare Fusion if OSX turns out to be very stable
Full system Compatability (or as close as I can get to a real mac pro)
1400$ Price Tag for full system.
Large format IPS or Dual 19 inch viewsonics ( IPS to double as tv while in bed, about 10’ from monitor to head of my bed.)
Ergonomic keyboard and mouse
Quiet Case

Research:

1. $89.99 GA-EP45-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P45

I started out looking for a motherboard that would work out of the box, but many of the of the ones I could find were simply too expensive or would work 99% and not have sleep functionality which is something I would really like on a machine that will be in my bedroom. I scoured Insanely Mac and came across this blog in a post ,Catri's Mac Bios Project It was just what I was looking for. What Catri has been doing is rewriting the bios for a range of gigabyte boards that share the same north/southbridge configuration. Recoding the BIOS provides the opporunity for stability that cannot be achieved from simply using “.kext” to get your mobo to play nice.


2. $169.99 Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Yorkfield 2.66GHz


Next I had to pick a processor virtually any lga775 will do with this board. My choice was influenced by performance per $. I could not bring myself to pay core i7 prices for the top of the line Core 2 Quad(Xeon) so I settled for this lovely processor which apparently has a fair amount of OC potential which I most likely will never explore due to any possible stability issues.



3. $139.99 EVGA 9800GT 1GB GDDR3
Next I decided to nail down what video card would work very well for my 10.6.3 machine and after doing some searching in the compatibility list @ http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.6.2 I found a card listed as working out-of-the-box and it was within my price range.

Note: If my card is not working out of the box it should be a simple EFI patch to fix it. Also if you would like to pick a different card from the list do so and follow the guides posted in the notes section or read up about video card compatibility on insanelymac.com


4. $124.99 Geil Black Dragon 2x2GB (4GB) DDR2 1066

I chose this ram because I have had only positive experiences with GEIL memory and I have another 4GB of this laying around so I can put 8GB in my final machine but with only 4GB it would still run very well, but you might want to go with more ram if you are doing video/music editing. I could have gone with DDR2 1300 with this board but it involves overclocking which has potential for effecting stability. With OSX86 installs, in my opinion, there is already enough room for instability to throw in overclocking.

5. $84.99 Antec Sonata Elite Black
I chose this case after doing some research via google and customer reviews on newegg and other online retails and found that this case is cheap, well built, and most of all quiet. Antec has some more expensive Sonata cases like the 500 which may be more quiet. The sonata 500 was around 130$ with a power supply, I have a 585 Watt power supply left over from another machine so I will use that as my psu.

6. $24.99 LG DVD Burner

Just grabbed a random special from newegg, optical drives don't have many compatibility issues. If you will be installing with a USB then you may not need an optical drive.



7. $69.98 Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000+Arc Mouse Combo


Found this bundle on new egg and it was perfect. I have used an Arc Mouse at Best Buy and I thought it was a pretty cool little pointer. I have been using Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboards for years and I know for a fact that they completely stopped a developing case of carpel tunnel from bad hand position and hardcore coding and gaming. Throw in a nice Ergonomic mousepad with a Wrist rest and you will be set for comfort.


8. $89.99 Samsung Spinpoint 1TB


Most people may not agree with me here or you may have had bad experiences with Samsung but I have never lost a samsung drive. I have lost over 10 other hard drives from various big name manufacturers like WD and Seagate. I may just be lucky. Pick any storage you would like the faster the better however for coding I didn't need a Raptor. I really wanted to snag one but I am trying to keep it on a budget otherwise I would have spent 2,000 dollars on a crazy core i7 machine and still not have a monitor or a stable setup. Use any HDD you see fit.

9. $39.99 HP Webcam KQ246AA

I looked at the OSX86wiki and found a compatible web cam. Simple. Easy. Cheap. If you skype alot or just want a better camera the Logitech 9000


10. $19.99 Belkin F8T016 USB Bluetooth Adapter


I found this on the wiki too under compatible hardware.


11. $515.45 Dell U2410 Ultrasharp IPS Display



This choice may be different than yours but I also use my computer to watch DVD/TV/iTunesU from bed. A Standard LCD or LED backlit LCD do not have the best viewing angle. This display has 180 degrees (Theoretically) and will suit me for my needs. Also Apple Cinema Displays are IPS so I would not want to miss that part of the mac pro experience. I have also learned from sitting infront of a computer for a large portion of my life(not a bad thing!) that your monitor is one of the most important pieces of hardware you can buy. You stare at it the whole time you are at the PC. I will let you know my thoughts when the monitor arrives. I ordered from ProVantage* to save some money.

* I have never used provantage and do not yet endorse them. I do however endorse newegg and buy most of my hardware from them if at all possible. I will edit this once I have completed my transaction with provantage.


My final cost for everything is $1,386.89 for everything, however I am using a power supply I had extra so to be fair I will add 75$ for a good power supply bringing us to
$1461.89

If you have a monitor, case, hdd, psu, optical and do not need bluetooth or a camera you could follow this guide and skip those parts and use my same cpu/ram/mobo/vga for only $524.96


I purchased all of my hardware except for the monitor from newegg and I am expecting it to arrive friday or monday. I will update my status and continue the guide as I go. Let me know if you have any questions!