Strongly considering moving from MacPro 4,1 to Hackintosh. Thoughts?

If you can upgrade the processors for 1200 I'd go that way. Hacks are fine I like mine well enough but that doesn't mean they're for everyone. If you like to futz and customize they're great if you like the integrated Apple experience not so much.

8 gigs of ram hog-ties photoshop, especially if you have anything else running.

have you considered getting a pcie ssd? that owc thing looks great.

as long as you can keep feeding those 16threads data fast enough, I think there's still a ton of life left in the 2.26.

also, a couple of years from now, those 6 core 3.33 and 3.46 chips will come down in price.

i dont think an i7 anything will be much faster, especially if what you're doing in photoshop can make use of all those cores/threads.

drnen said:

So I use my mac mostly for photoshop work, web development, etc- and bootcamp for gaming. Current have the 8 core- 2.26 machine from early 2009. I'm noticing that it's starting to feel a tad slow running the tasks I rely on it for. With all the component sales going on the past few days I've started to slowly buy up pc components thinking it'd be a fun little project to build a hackintosh. I'm thinking of building a rig with a i7-3770K @ 3.5 ghz, 16 gig of ram, a 660ti vid card, etc etc. I'm referencing the tonymacx86 blog for help.
So basically I want your opinions. Is this a mistake? I'm guessing the final cost for this build will be <$1200.. and mac pro has been sort of the bastard step child at apple for years with its outdated tech.
So I'd like to hear what you all think. Should i stick with the mac i have now and just try to upgrade the ram? go forward as planned?

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I had pretty much the same question, and I decided to stay with my MP4.1 because it basically does everything I throw at it. I'm going to upgrade it a little, and keep the Mac experience that I can use every software Update and stuff. A hackintosh is just not a Macintosh.

drnen said:

so far I've only bought some ram and a power supply so it's not a huge deal if i dont immediately follow thru on my plans. Maybe ill just keep the mac for work and play games on the pc. Just wish it wasnt so expensive to upgrade the processors! photoshop is def bumping up against the 8 gigs so maybe throwing in another 8 could settle it

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although i haven't seen a classifieds on here, there has to be a place to find the lidless xeons for a reasonable price (2.66, 2.93) for people that have upgraded theirs.

Keep the CPU!
Rather get 32GB RAM, a GTX 680 (runs fine with Mac) and a few SSDs.
I do the same, photoshop, video editing (usual GD-stuff), and a bit of gaming.
Except when rendering in video editing, I never get my 2.66 Quad past 50% usage, and I get those 50% while gaming. For PS and stuff, you don't really need a superb CPU.

drnen said:

Is this a mistake?

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Running a Hackintosh is a hobby. You do it because you really want to and/or because you want to have a consumer version of a Mac Pro for a lot less money. I've ran several Hackintoshes over the years and while yes it has gotten a lot easier lately they are not fool proof. I would never use one as my main work machine. I need my work machine to just work. I can't be bothered spending time fiddling with it if some software update breaks something.

For a home computer that's only used for entertainment? Sure, a Hackintosh can be cool. My main home PC is a Hackintosh but I hardly ever boot into OSX anymore since it's mainly used for gaming these days (my MacBook Pro is my main work machine).

If I were you, I'd keep the Mac Pro and update it as necessary.

This late in the game with Apple's longtime change to Intel, you shouldn't have any issues and it doesn't take a techie anymore to get it done.

These days, the difference between a Mac and a PC is the OS and some little hardware design preferences where Apple goes the extra mile to make more pleasing cases. But with so much of the aluminum and sleek Mac designs being blatantly ripped off by PC makers, it's pretty much only the OS that is different these days. That being said, while OS X is great, Windows has upped their game and isn't inferior anymore.

Do some research on the processors, RAM, and motherboard, and you will find very little reason to have to use an Apple product to run OS X. Depending on how much horsepower you put into a Hackintosh, it can usually be cheaper but you can also make a supercomputer Hackintosh with OS X and that will cost quite a bit more.

Had you decided to build a Hackintosh during the very first year of Apple's changeover to Intel, and you don't have some techie background, it may be been a little scary but still do-able. There's so much known about this hobby or task that it's no big deal. Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IEWlvb9dEs

there are merits and detractions to going either way - but from what I can see here, you already own the 4,1. upgrading it will be inexpensive (ram, ssd, videocard to a lesser degree $$) vs building a hack (buy everything).

YMMV.