I’ve been looking at the AMD hardware for the past couple of days. Hackintosh building looks to be a lot pickier about hardware and config than for an Intel build.
On the plus side, going AMD would save me about 10% for a similar specced build. Tempting.
We will see what eventuates. I should know by the end of the year… (As if I didn’t have enough crap to deal with right now.)
Then there’s this:
For those who are undecided between a laptop and desktop.
“I have no idea what that pink port is.” Picture me angrily shaking a parallel port printer cable with a male DB25 connector on one end at the author who also said, “Oh, ye of little knowledge!”
If anyone wants it, I have a spare Gigabyte Z97N-WIFI Motherboard I just want to get rid of. Cost of shipping only. Probably not worth shipping outside the US.
Semi-related, but now I want to build another RetroPi box:
http://retroflag.com/nespi-4-case.html
Big feature is the ‘cartridge’ can hold an SSD!
I’m at the point where I’m almost ready to start putting together a new Windows computer. I have a couple of spare cases now that two older computers have died so I just need to see what connectors they have on them.
The one thing I need advice on is monitor support. The previous setup was two 22" monitors connected with 1 DVI and the other HDMI-to-DVI and two 19" with the D-SUB VGA analog input. Since I wasn’t doing any serious gaming with it, that worked. I had the Linux computer hooked up through an HDMI switch to share one monitor.
When the Windows 7 computer died and the Linux became my primary computer, I moved one of the video cards into it to get back to a multiple monitor setup. The two DVI monitors connected was good. When I plugged in one of the 19" monitors, the Linux computer slowed way down any time I had to move a program between monitors. It didn’t like dealing with the transition from a digital monitor to an analog monitor. I think I fixed that by swapping in a more powerful video card.
What I would like to get on the new computer is enough digital video outputs so I can do the following:
Spending a little bit more on the motherboard and whatever video card I pick to get me there lets me defer the HDMI monitor purchases until later. I may do a little bit of gaming on this system and watching movies, but I don’t need Ultra 4K support. Its primary purpose is things like video and audio editing and giving me enough screen real estate so I have the information I need visible without having to ALT-Tab to bring up a program sitting in the background. I write a lot of documentation relating to my job, so often I have two browser windows open so I can compare info between the two, plus the document I’m working on and other text files/Word documents/GIMP open with other notes and graphics.
For the overall computer, it’s not going to be a super-expensive system, but something in the middle pretty-good level without being so inexpensive I’m kicking myself later on for settling for “it’s good enough”. Eventually, I’ll add more DVI and HDMI switches so all monitors are shared between the computers. There’s a pretty nice HDMI KVM switch on Amazon at a reasonable cost.
As an update to my system build a few months ago: I have no complaints. The 200mm case fan is basically silent and more than adequate; it’s sitting under the desk, but I have literally never heard this computer. The ONLY issue at all is my own fault; I mounted the control panel on the top for convenience, but it’s now a convenient location for the kittens to spring off of to get to the window sill, with the net result that they turned off my PC three times in one day last week. I need to move the panel to the side.
This may be simpler than I thought. I can get cables that change Display Port back to VGA, DVI or HDMI. That covers my existing monitor setup and allows for the monitor upgrades in the future I’m preparing for.
If something like a EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 XC has two DP ports and an HDMI port, and an ASUS PRIME B450-PLUS Ryzen has an HDMI port and a DVI port, that’s enough to drive four monitors. There shouldn’t be a noticeable performance hit if one or two of them are driving VGA monitors.
Yes. I’ve recently realized that due to my crippling RaspPi addiction I have a bundle of weird HDMI adapters. My ‘workbench’ at my desk is based around a DVI KVM, so I need to convert everything to DVI at some point. So I have HDMI to DVI, then mini HDMI to DVI, and just got in micro HDMI to DVI. I didn’t know the last one existed.
I haven’t looked up that specific model of video card, but an issue we ran into at work was a video card hitting the max available resolution because it had too many (4) large and [slightly higher than typical resolution] monitors plugged in. If we unplugged one and connected an old 15" or 17" through a [whatever digital output] to VGA adapter, it would work, but it wasn’t thrilled about it. (your problem dragging a window to another monitor reminded me of this setup)
We experience a similar problem when the boss ordered a ~40" 4K screen (I’m not convinced it wasn’t a model that started out as a TV but had the tuner removed). At first, his video card didn’t have the cajones to drive it, and it was pretty horrible at 1920x1024 or whatever HDish resolution that his video card refused to go above. This was several years ago, and we couldn’t find a better compatible video card at Best Buy or Fry’s, so we had to order one that cost around as much as the monitor. (Could have been more - I don’t think I ever saw the invoices, but it was a chunk of money.) Once we finally got the beefy card installed and playing nice with the rest of the system, everything on the screen was so small that he would have needed a magnifying glass to read anything. Bumping up Windows’ basic font size setting to blind man compatible didn’t help as much as we had hoped, but as I recall, it was enough to make it mostly usable. But there were still some software packages that had fixed font settings or would not scale, so the whole fiasco turned out to be less helpful than originally hoped. I think he now has something like nine 27" screens and one 36" ultrawide screen running on three or four computers and several UPSs. His office gets real loud when the building AC goes out.
That 36" ultrawide Dell screen is the shit, though. They got one for each of us at work. I did not think I would like the gentle curve expanse, but when working on huge spreadsheets, I LOVE it.
I have moved the control panel to the side, which is less convenient but will prevent the kittens from turning off my computer 3x a day while I’m trying to work. It only took about 15 minutes, and much of that was figuring out the best way to reroute the cables. I’m REALLY impressed with this case.
I have now turned off my own computer by bumping it with my foot. No kittens were present.
So basically you need a cover over the access panel?
That’s the logical next step, yes. Or I could be better about not tapping my foot against the desktop. But probably the first thing.
Sounds like you need a ‘Molly Guard’.
Adding the word ‘frobbed’ into the lexicon.
Back at OldJob when they opened the shiny new Data Center back in… 98? They had an e-stop that did not have molly guard on it. Also, right next to the ramp to the double doors to exit the DC…
It was, predictably, a bad idea and someone had to fabricate a guard after a boss hit the ‘exit door’ button.
I’ve been researching parts and prices for my Hackintosh. The price difference between Intel and AMD is next to nothing, so it’s going to be an Intel rig - simply because there’s less messing around when it comes to assembling it all.
The only issue is that whilst I can afford it, I can’t justify the expense so I can do video and photo work on the Mac side a bit quicker, and play Elite:Dangerous on the Win10 side at high quality and with a decent frame rate…
Let us know if you’d decide to go ahead with it. I keep considering rebuilding mine with the current recommendation of OpenCore: I have a recurring issue with Sleep not working, and some USB ports are wonky. This would probably be fixed if I was using newer, cleaner drivers and such.
