My cousin has asked me to look into building him a MAC (Hackintosh) tower, being out of the loop and no experience what so ever with mac's I'm looking for some suggestions to get me started.

He's looking for quite a power full machine from what I can gather these are some requirements he has:
- Stylish non fussy case - we both thought the silverstone TJ09b was a nice looking case
- Intel cpu - possible six cores (very pricey compared to quad) - Noctua NH-D14 heatsink?
- Min 16gigs of ram (I had a look and found some 24gig tripple channel for ok-ihs money, not sure if it would work with which ever mobo is chosen)
- SSD drive & probably 2x 2tb in RAID (I've suggested something like a Seagate or WD Sata3 "Green" drive which should be plenty and fast enough)
- GFX I'm not sure what to go for, the few mac related site I've looked at all seem to use nVidia cards so possible a 560ti if there's a decent cooler available for them (or a decently quiet stock card)
- Mobo, not sure on either, something compatible with a 4/6core intel cpu and tripple channel ram (if I want to use 24gigs)
- Fans depending on what the case needs, no idea what brands are good these days. I'm running a Noctua or Nexus in my solo which I'm happy with.

His intended use will be for photography editing, he does a lot of timelapse and started getting into video editing as well. He basically wants a very good machine which is better than is macbook.

I'm also thinking if it's possible to build something with enough room for 2x additional harddrives if he choses to add more and still fit in to a midi tower or something smaller than the above case, maybe even a m-atx board?

--- edit ---

Just realised I never thought of a PSU!

Have also just found a site with suggested hardware here and it looks like ati gfx cards are just as compatible, just need to be a little cautious as not everything is.

Also, if it matters, he will be using his tv as a monitor via a hdmi port.

Hello
Tonymac is the place to start.... regarding hardware and the rest, they will guide you the whole way...
about the 6 core, SandyE are not fully compatible yet with lion, so you are going to have to work around it alot...
my sugestion is going with a 2500k or 2700k, a gigabyte z77 or h77 as you won't need dsdt with these boards (GA-Z77-DS3Hor GA-H77-DS3H), and get yourself a 6870 so QE works out of the box...
If you want to get everything working without any hiccups, don't buy anything that is not on the list of tonymac...

Yeah, I'll second that. Your hardware list should be based around what has been tested compatible on a Hackintosh install, rather than what is fastest or cheapest or whatnot.

Yeah that site looks like a good place to start. I'll need to read up on all the jargon and what those no's mean in your post

Re 6 cores, I showed him the prive of them and I think he'll settle for a quad core! As of right now he changed his mind on a case after I showed him this

I'll spend a few evenings looking through stuff and post up a more definitive system for commenting.

The equipment on the tonymac site is a year old. Sandybridge and not Ivybridge CPUs, Z68 and not Z77, HD 6xxx and not HD 7xxx, etc. I'd look for a Hackintosh site with newer info.

Do you have a $ budget in mind for this build? Is this a hobby or a profession for your cousin?

While the $300 cheapest 6 core SNB-E CPU (i7-3820) is a bit faster than the current i7-3770K ($340) for video processing, it's slower for Photoshop even with the added memory channels. I'd lean toward the i7-3770K.

video card: interesting minefield...
- what video cards work with Lion? What video cards will work with Mountain Lion (due sometime later this month)

SSD/HDD: I'd lean toward more SSDs for OS/Apps/scratch disk and use an HDD for storage rather than mess with RAID.

Case: I don't have a feel for high end cases. Perhaps the Silverstone FT-02. Mid-range, there is the Antec Solo II, Corsair 550D.

PSU: Kingwin LZP-550 or -650, Seasonic x560 or x660.

TonyMac's hardware list are true and tested... as you said the hardware list is a year old, but remember, MAC have just recently updated there hardware on the new macbook, so ivybridge is recently (more or less a month ago), Z77 or H77 work perfectly in lion 10.7.4, if you follow the recommendations....
HD68XX series is the card that has drivers in MAC OS X at the moment, so for a Out of the Box experience, this is the fastest card you should buy, kepler(geforce 6XX) is supposed to be compatible in 10.7.5, but those are just rumors...
I7-3820 is not a 6 core CPU, its a quad core, and as stated before, SandyE (socket 2011) is not compatible Out of the Box... there are threads in tonymac that have made a SandyE work, but if this is not a Hackintosh that you will be fiddling around with, go for the most stable and compatible hardware possible...
Again, the graphics card recommended for 10.7 at the moment is either a HD6870 or a GTX580 (if your program needs cuda).
A SSD is really a good option if you got the cash, as you will notice the speed, whether its Windows or Mac...
Case and Powersupply go with the recommended at silentpcreview.com, as you will appreciate hearing your own thoughts over PC noise!!!
Again, read Tonymac threads... look at the goldenBuilds that they got there, and go with the recomended hardware if you don't want to play around with kext that might work in 10.7.3 but not on 10.7.4....
and above all, have fun!!!

Appears that tonymac has been updated:
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/search/label/CustoMac