HP 8300 Elite w/ Intel i5-3470 Quad Core at Newegg

[Lonelytanker]

What has been your experience installing El Capitan on the 8300 ? Have you attempted it yet ?

My plan is to finally attempt it tonight. Just got a deal on a 90W MSI GTX 9500 graphics card with 3 DisplayPort outs, which arrived a couple days ago. Going to try to power it with 2 SATA power ports. Will let you know how that goes. Also got a 16GB RAM kit to upgrade to 20GB and a 960GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD.

Still need to get a Bluetooth adapter for my Magic Trackpad and a USB sound adapter (if I can't get HDMI sound working). Will be ordering and adding those after I get the system up and running (or is it better to do everything all at once?).

Will let you know how things go.

 

[trs96]

My plan is to finally attempt it tonight. Just got a deal on a 90W MSI GTX 9500 graphics card with 3 DisplayPort outs, which arrived a couple days ago. Going to try to power it with 2 SATA power ports. Will let you know how that goes. Also got a 16GB RAM kit to upgrade to 20GB and a 960GB Sandisk Ultra II SSD.

Still need to get a Bluetooth adapter for my Magic Trackpad and a USB sound adapter (if I can't get HDMI sound working). Will be ordering and adding those after I get the system up and running (or is it better to do everything all at once?).

Will let you know how things go.

Great, take notes of what you do so that you can post an Elite 8300 User build guide later on. You'll probably want to use a wired keyboard and mouse to do the setup anyway. Audio is also not needed for the initial install that can wait too. I would install with just the original 4GB of ram and then try adding the 16GB kit later on. Also best to try the install with HD4000 gfx instead of the GTX 950. Makes it less complicated.

 

[Lonelytanker]

Great, take notes of what you do so that you can post an Elite 8300 User build guide later on. You'll probably want to use a wired keyboard and mouse to do the setup anyway. Audio is also not needed for the initial install that can wait too. I would install with just the original 4GB of ram and then try adding the 16GB kit later on. Also best to try the install with HD4000 gfx instead of the GTX 950. Makes it less complicated.

Makes sense to install with just the integrated graphics first and to wait on the Bluetooth and sound card installs. I'll definitely do that. And I'll be sure to take notes.

Thanks.

 

[trs96]

Makes sense to install with just the integrated graphics first and to wait on the Bluetooth and sound card installs. I'll definitely do that. And I'll be sure to take notes.
Thanks.

Any updates on this 8300 system yet ? Did you get the graphics card to work with the 2x sata power to 6 pin connector ?

 

[pastrychef]

After reading this thread, I couldn't help myself and landed an HP 8300 with an i7 3770 for $200. I honestly don't have a use for it but I guess I can use it to experiment and learn more about hackintoshing...

I do have a question though... Other than maybe a Firewire card, is there any other practical use for the old PCI slot?

 

[trs96]

After reading this thread, I couldn't help myself and landed an HP 8300 with an i7 3770 for $200. I honestly don't have a use for it but I guess I can use it to experiment and learn more about hackintoshing...

I do have a question though... Other than maybe a Firewire card, is there any other practical use for the old PCI slot?

There are some older sound cards that will work in the PCI slot. I think Jack B. mentioned he was using a Sound Blaster.
If you get the 8300/3770 running write up a brief guide to help some other folks that are also buying these pre-built budget builds. Should be a fairly simple install.

 

[pastrychef]

There are some older sound cards that will work in the PCI slot. I think Jack B. mentioned he was using a Sound Blaster.
If you get the 8300/3770 running write up a brief guide to help some other folks that are also buying these pre-built budget builds. Should be a fairly simple install.

Thanks!

And will do!

 

[VioletDragon]

There are some older sound cards that will work in the PCI slot. I think Jack B. mentioned he was using a Sound Blaster.
If you get the 8300/3770 running write up a brief guide to help some other folks that are also buying these pre-built budget builds. Should be a fairly simple install.

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 works but it's not low profile.

 

[pastrychef]

Well, I received my HP 8300 today. I have to say, the installation process for OS X using UniBeast was ridiculously easy. I was on El Capitan desktop within half an hour of plugging it in! Of course, I still had a bit of post installation tweaking to do but that was quite simple as well. As of this moment, the only thing I have to figure out is how to enable audio.

This machine would make an absolutely wonderful first time hackintosh for many people. A quick run of Geekbench 3 got me about 3200 single core and 13200 multi core scores. Very respectable and competitive to single CPU Mac Pro 4,1-5,1s.

 

[pastrychef]

Thanks for the info!

I'm currently using HDMI audio but it would be nice to enable the on board audio too.