Building a Hackintosh: Part 1 – Parts to buy

I have been extremely happy with my mid-2009 Macbook Pro, it runs almost 12 hours each day and has always been a faithful servant. Recently however I have started to notice a significant slowdown in Mavericks, and that was when I decided it was time to look for a new setup. At first I was looking to buy a new Macbook Pro with Retina display, but honestly my Mac pretty much lives at home, and when I am traveling I always bring two laptops anyways.

That was when I decided to build my own Hackintosh. I will share the building process with you guys in case anyone else is toying with the idea of building their own. The first website you should bookmark when looking to build your own machine is TonyMacx86.com. If ever there was a community I would recommend to everyone interested in bulding their own machine, then this would without a doubt be it.

The first thing I need to do is decide which parts to purchase, I wanted to build something fast but still reasonably priced. After having spent weeks searching through different forums I ended up with the following build. Of course there are thousands of different configurations and you can easily build something that fits your needs, my suggestion would be to look through the Building a CustoMac: Buyer’s Guide

Check back next week when we look at the actual building process.

CustoMac mATX

Motherboard : 

Gigabyte GA-Z87MX-D3H mATX Motherboard with HDMI, DVI, D-SUB, DisplayPort. Gigabit LAN
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CU4L4XG/
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128601

CPU :

Intel Core i7-4770k Quad-core/8-thread 3.5GHz/3.9GHz Processor
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CO8TBQ0/
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116901

CPU Cooler (Optional) :

Cooler Master Seidon 120M Liquid CPU Water Cooling System with Copper Heatsink and 120mm Radiator
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Cooling-Heatsink-Radiator/dp/B009SJR3GS/
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103179

RAM :

Crucial Ballistix Tactical Low Profile 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3-1600 1.35V Memory Modules BLT2C8G3D1608ET3LX0
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A14ZTRO/
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148657

Drives :

Samsung 840 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal Solid State Drive MZ-7TE250BW
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3W1726/
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147248

Case :

Bitfenix Prodigy-M Micro-ATX Midnight Black Steel/Plastic Mini Tower Computer Case BFC-PRM-300-KKXSK-RP
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00G489XDW/
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811345030

Power Supply :

Corsair RM Series 650 Watt ATX/EPS 80PLUS Gold-Certified Power Supply – CP-9020054-NA RM650
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EB7UIRS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=tonymacx86com-20
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=%20N82E16817139054

Wifi Card :

TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless N900 PCI Express Adapter
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007GMPZ0A/
Newegg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704133