Ya. Already upgrade to 10.8.3. Got some hiccup after upgrade. Cant boot and stuck on Apple logo. After some troubleshooting, make to get it from by disable vt-d in BIOS. My system is as per my signature below.

You should be able to instal ML straight.
Guide: http://www.tonymacx86.com/61-unibeast-inst...l-based-pc.html

What is your budget?
What the purpose of this Hackintosh?
Need Bluetooth?
Need External VGA card?

There are a lot:
Paragon NTFS: Paid and 1 of the best
Tuxera NTFS: Paid and good. I using now

There are also couple of free one which is not that good.

Hi,
I think most of the people who build hackintosh had some geekiness on them. Geek are all about tweaking, solving bugs/problem along the build process.
Also, hackintosh are about customization. You can swap your graphic card to a latest model (Nvidia 7series), Add new SSD, dual/triple boot, Watercooled or even now add in super high speed wireless AC (Asus PCE-AC66 PCie card which confirmed work using 10.8.5 beta kext).

That are all the fun about and not about how it match your hi-so furniture. My hackintosh is no where look like a Mac. I used dual 27" LCD, Logitech M570 trackball mouse. I had odd looking mechanical keyboard like Kinesis Advantage (Photo) and now more weird looking custom made keyboard Ergodox (Photo). I used trackball mouse and etc. What I want to said is Hackintosh are about customization.

By the way, I love my Macbook Pro 13" After close to 2 years, still working well and look great.

This post has been edited by mikelanding: Jul 31 2013, 07:45 PM

With No new iMac launch with Haswell and also Marverick OSX still in Beta. I would suggest on hold on new Hackintosh with Z87 chipset motherboard. The Hackintosh community like Insanelymac and tonymac still dont have official tools for Haswell build. But to answer your current question at this stage.

1) if your OS is OSX ML and windows 7. You can install on 1HDD/2partition. But to make life easier, I would recommend 1OS on 1 HDD. Just did my dualboot on current Hackintosh with 2 HDD
2) thereis no best method and Installation guide can be found on the mentioned 2 websites. Do take a look. Choose the one you can understand more.

3) At this stage is OSX Mountain Lion since got a lot of installation tools, guide and support. But installation is 1 things. You need to pair with correct hardware. Z87 still not officially supported. Z77 is well documented and supported.

4) RM500 can get decent mobo with PCi and Coaxial SPDIF out. I would recommend Gigabyte Mobo. But you need to check the Audio Chipset that support. Your motherboard should have Realtex ALC8XXX audio chipset. If you use Audigy card. Try to google see if it support Mac. But I think this site got provide the proper kext for Audigy card: http://kxproject.com/down.php?language=en

5) http://www.tonymacx86.com/installation/ or http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/

By the way, Dota2 had Mac Supported from Steam. So you dont need to boot into Win7 to play it.
Info: http://store.steampowered.com/news/11109/

This post has been edited by mikelanding: Aug 6 2013, 03:14 PM

You will have some sort of Boot Manager just like WinPC. You will need to install Chameleon or Clover or Chimera bootloader. (This step already included when you setup your hackintosh).

There are few method to install the bootloader. I used Chameloen Wizard which allow me to select what option to install. Look at below photos. For 2 OS on 2 separate HDD. Choose Boot0md. Then select which HDD to 1st boot.

I think will be about the same if using same Software (After Effect in this case).

OSX 10.8.5 is up! BUT DO NOT update it!
It broke a lot of things like Bluetooth no working, USB3, Sound and cause problems like stuck at Apple logo bootscreen.

Lucky you.
What I want to say it. This 10.8.5 will most likely cause more trouble than previous ML update..
Update at own risk as alway.

The USB3 problem had solve with updated kext. See below reply from stork (From tonymac86). I might test on my clone drive first



Source: See post #2 http://www.tonymacx86.com/articles/108809-...html#post661592

Just finish updated to 10.8.5 on my Main HDD.

So far all work well: Audio (ALC887), Bluetooth (Belkin), USB2.0/3.0, Sleep, Nvidia gtx770 all worked.

What I did:
Download the 10.8.5 combo file
Backup some of the current kexts: AppleACPIPlatform.kext, AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext, FakeSMC.kext, IOUSBFamily.kext. Just in case need to roll back.
Repair permission
Remove GenericUSBXHCI.kext
Remove npci=0x3000 kernel flag on existing org.chameleon.Boot.plist
Install the combo file. DONT restart yet.
Optional step: Rollback some kext. For my case, I rollback AppleACPIPlatform.kext since it gave me KP on my previous attempt
Repair permission again.
Reboot.

I can boot up without any problem. Once make sure everything is ok and worked. I ran multibeast 5.4.3 and install the audio kext.
reboot. All worked.

New nvidia web driver just update. Now is version: 313.01.03f01. Auto prompt up after first reboot, download, install, repair permission. Reboot.

This post has been edited by mikelanding: Sep 17 2013, 03:46 PM

I did some search on your mobo model. It seem no problem on install Lion or even ML.
Suggest ML since the VGA compatibility are better compare to Lion for older card.

64gb is not really enough to dual booting. Also, dual booting 2 OS on 1 HDD/SSD will make the hackintosh harder to stable. Would suggest 1OS on 1 HDD/SSD if you got extra HDD.

Gaming on virtual software? I dont think you will get smooth, optimized experience even on older game.
I setup dual booting (2 OS on 2 SSD). Window for gaming, OSX for daily PC usage. Found this way to be easier to maintain and troubleshoot if problem arise.

If iMac can swap out any component beside Ram, SSD and HDD. I would have brought one myself.
Also, hackintosh is all about customization. If someone is worried about KP or incompatiblities. They would have not ask C&C in hackintosh section.

Back to topic,
You can goes for more budget Mobo like GA-Z87P-D3 or GA-Z87-D3HP which used Realtek chip for Audio and Network LAN.
Also, lower PSU wattage if you dont plan to run more than 1 VGA. 500-550ish should be enough.
For monitor, you can get those Korean IPS 27" monitor. You can save up to RM500. I have both Dell and Korean IPS. I still prefer the image quality on the Korean IPS panel.

I am using Crossover. Model: 27Q-P LED. I brought it from eBay
This site have good guide: http://www.swiftworld.net/2012/04/14/budge...dels/#27Q-P_LED

Mountain Lion still in Mac App Store. Here the US store link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-mounta...537386512?mt=12

I also manage to upgrade to Maverick from 10.8.5. Using Unibeast, install on top of current ML drive.
Only need to install Audio kext and re-enable TRIM for SSD. Easy and simple.

Some app like Carbon Copy Cloner, TotalFinder do need to update to newer version.

Nvidia drive also not compatible now. Using OSX Maverick driver now.

I didn’t use Mail.app. So ok for me. I used Sparrow.
I using Brother printer too. Model: MFC-J415W. No problem.

You need a Mac OS PC or laptop to create a bootable Maverick Installation disk.
Do read few time to understand the guide. It might be overwhelm for 1st timer to try out hackintosh.

For really power user, a Hackintosh DIY build is more expensive that Mac Pro.
There is an blog post on BGR about comparing Mac Pro with Window PC equivalent. Mac Pro might had certain disadvantage like expandability. But price is definitely not as expensive as one's think.

The link to the article: http://bgr.com/2013/12/26/mac-pro-windows-diy-cost/

Some conclusion from the analysis:
“After tabulating all the major component costs (plus another $99.99 US for Windows 8 Pro), we are at a total of around $11,530.54 US using today’s prices at retailers that actually stock the hardware,” he wrote. “I’m not afraid to admit that compared to the asking price of $9,599 US, the new Mac Pro seems like one heckuva deal for these components.”

Fung’s match to Apple’s $2,999 Mac Pro ended up costing $3,994.65 in parts, a whopping 33% more expensive than the Mac Pro. And once again, that price does not include labor. The comparison isn’t quite as direct as it was the first time around though, as Fung noted that his DIY Windows machine has slightly better specs than the Apple box, and there were some other benefits over the Mac Pro as well.