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Mac or Hackintosh
- Thread starter hab.786
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Cost analysis
At my company, we've run every type of Mac and we've played with three hacks. Just remember to look at long term cost and risk analysis before going to the trouble of building a hack. I recommend looking at the two year operational costs. Assume the hack will be worthless at the end of the period, where a Mac will retain 70% of its value.
We find iMacs to be the most cost effective solutions. We've typically paid under $15 per month for life of operation. The hacks are far more expensive in the long run. And this doesn't count support...we've never had either go seriously bad.
At my company, we've run every type of Mac and we've played with three hacks. Just remember to look at long term cost and risk analysis before going to the trouble of building a hack. I recommend looking at the two year operational costs. Assume the hack will be worthless at the end of the period, where a Mac will retain 70% of its value.
We find iMacs to be the most cost effective solutions. We've typically paid under $15 per month for life of operation. The hacks are far more expensive in the long run. And this doesn't count support...we've never had either go seriously bad.
For what it's worth, my current experience with Hacks has been very positive.
- You don't have to do a full install every time there's an OS update. I just run the usual Apple updaters and it works fine.
- I've had no problems with sleep.
- Audio works the same as on a real mac, as does iCloud.
I've used it for professional work and I trust it as much as I've trusted any computer. (More so than the two real iMacs I owned that suffered catastrophic motherboard failures.)
- You don't have to do a full install every time there's an OS update. I just run the usual Apple updaters and it works fine.
- I've had no problems with sleep.
- Audio works the same as on a real mac, as does iCloud.
I've used it for professional work and I trust it as much as I've trusted any computer. (More so than the two real iMacs I owned that suffered catastrophic motherboard failures.)
On the contrary, my hackintosh, and 20 plus hackintosh's i have build are very stable, and work just as well as the real thing, and I also upgraded them , all and everyone of them.
NOTHING is guaranteed to have "zero issue" with an update. The tonymac update for 10.10.2 is available now, complete with new audio drivers. There are probably other solutions as well.
My experience with hackintoshes:
I was tempted to get a new Mac Pro, but just could NOT motivate the extremely high cost. So I ended up building a hackintosh in the end.
Basically, it boils down to this (in my opinion):
- It's awesome to get to chose your own hardware from what you need
- It's really a LOT cheaper. I got a setup matching the entry level Mac Pro for about a third of the cost. Sure, it's not as good looking, but with good design cases and such it's certainly good enough for me.
- You should do some research (tonymacx86 forums are great) what hardware works with OS X and what hardware doesn't. You can save yourself a world of pain by choosing the right setup.
- It's very rarely plug and play. You likely need to install drivers for ethernet, sound, tweak settings for your graphics card and such. It's not very complicated, but you should be a "tinkerer" to appreciate it. Even thought I chose hardware that's pretty much "install and go" I've had to spend a couple of hours googling how to do some stuff and what settings to use.
- Updates are usually fine, but if you have custom network and sound drivers you probably have to reinstall those when you perform an OS X update. No biggie, but worth considering.
- Updating to a new OS version (like mavericks -> yosemite) can be tricky. Advisable to wait a while until there are some simple installer to use.
- Peripherals and minor things can take some effort to get to work. Say for example built-in wifi/bluetooth on the montherboard, HDMI audio, multi-monitor (ofc this depends on the graphics card used) and such.
- Updates to OS X, driver updates and such CAN break stuff. It's usually not that hard to fix (might have to reinstall an older driver, overwrite an OS X driver with a custom one and such), but be aware of it.
Overall I'm very happy with my hackintosh - it's rock stable, I use it for gaming and get better performance than any current Mac hardware can deliver, and the pure CPU speed is also awesome. BUT, updates can break stuff. If you use it for work, having to spend an hour or two fixing stuff that broke because you happened to install the new OS X update isn't always that fun. For a home user that likes to tinker I'd recommed it warmly, for a professional that use it 8+ hours per day for work I'd say it's a lot of work to get going, and once you're up and running there _might_ be times when you have to spend an afternoon tinkering with the computer instead of working, so it's a "so-so" solution. But you sure get a lot of mac for your money.
I was tempted to get a new Mac Pro, but just could NOT motivate the extremely high cost. So I ended up building a hackintosh in the end.
Basically, it boils down to this (in my opinion):
- It's awesome to get to chose your own hardware from what you need
- It's really a LOT cheaper. I got a setup matching the entry level Mac Pro for about a third of the cost. Sure, it's not as good looking, but with good design cases and such it's certainly good enough for me.
- You should do some research (tonymacx86 forums are great) what hardware works with OS X and what hardware doesn't. You can save yourself a world of pain by choosing the right setup.
- It's very rarely plug and play. You likely need to install drivers for ethernet, sound, tweak settings for your graphics card and such. It's not very complicated, but you should be a "tinkerer" to appreciate it. Even thought I chose hardware that's pretty much "install and go" I've had to spend a couple of hours googling how to do some stuff and what settings to use.
- Updates are usually fine, but if you have custom network and sound drivers you probably have to reinstall those when you perform an OS X update. No biggie, but worth considering.
- Updating to a new OS version (like mavericks -> yosemite) can be tricky. Advisable to wait a while until there are some simple installer to use.
- Peripherals and minor things can take some effort to get to work. Say for example built-in wifi/bluetooth on the montherboard, HDMI audio, multi-monitor (ofc this depends on the graphics card used) and such.
- Updates to OS X, driver updates and such CAN break stuff. It's usually not that hard to fix (might have to reinstall an older driver, overwrite an OS X driver with a custom one and such), but be aware of it.
Overall I'm very happy with my hackintosh - it's rock stable, I use it for gaming and get better performance than any current Mac hardware can deliver, and the pure CPU speed is also awesome. BUT, updates can break stuff. If you use it for work, having to spend an hour or two fixing stuff that broke because you happened to install the new OS X update isn't always that fun. For a home user that likes to tinker I'd recommed it warmly, for a professional that use it 8+ hours per day for work I'd say it's a lot of work to get going, and once you're up and running there _might_ be times when you have to spend an afternoon tinkering with the computer instead of working, so it's a "so-so" solution. But you sure get a lot of mac for your money.
I've been working on high end hackintoshes for years. Right now my main work machine is a 6 core i7-4930K 64gb powerhouse... I also have a Quad Core i7-3930K at home that runs well. Both on Asus Mobos. They have treated me well for the most part. However, I am now thinking about a nMp.
Upgrading hackintoshes is a real nightmare for me. I am savvy but it's usually a lot of trial and error to reinstall, and I have to mentally prepare myself! I haven't even upgraded to Yosemite yet, as I cannot afford any down time. I tried, but I had initital problems with boot drive and before I knew it 3 hours had already passed. I just got frustrated. I will probably force myself to do it when 10.10.3 comes out because I really want the Photos App. For this reason I'm considering a new Mac Pro... Being able to easily apply updates is growing increasingly more important for me.
Don't get me wrong, the machines are rock stable and do what they are supposed to do for the most part. But it's just not worth the effort for me because I just don't have the time or patience to mess around on this kind of stuff, and I would much rather have a real nMP at this point. Plus, I have ongoing issues with Sleep and iMessage that really bother me. I am not able to use those features at all unline on my rMBP.
I want a seamless experience across all my devices, and the only way to do this is to have proper hardware that can update across the board. My advice would be to get a real Mac now if you are serious about Macs and Apple in general. It's an investment and you'll be happier in the long run. I invested in my Hackintoshes 2-3 years ago, and I am now stuck with all this great PC equipment, but no "real" macs.
Upgrading hackintoshes is a real nightmare for me. I am savvy but it's usually a lot of trial and error to reinstall, and I have to mentally prepare myself! I haven't even upgraded to Yosemite yet, as I cannot afford any down time. I tried, but I had initital problems with boot drive and before I knew it 3 hours had already passed. I just got frustrated. I will probably force myself to do it when 10.10.3 comes out because I really want the Photos App. For this reason I'm considering a new Mac Pro... Being able to easily apply updates is growing increasingly more important for me.
Don't get me wrong, the machines are rock stable and do what they are supposed to do for the most part. But it's just not worth the effort for me because I just don't have the time or patience to mess around on this kind of stuff, and I would much rather have a real nMP at this point. Plus, I have ongoing issues with Sleep and iMessage that really bother me. I am not able to use those features at all unline on my rMBP.
I want a seamless experience across all my devices, and the only way to do this is to have proper hardware that can update across the board. My advice would be to get a real Mac now if you are serious about Macs and Apple in general. It's an investment and you'll be happier in the long run. I invested in my Hackintoshes 2-3 years ago, and I am now stuck with all this great PC equipment, but no "real" macs.
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Bingo! Go with
Was using hacks for over 3 years. Stopped 4 month ago. Never looked back.
I have a hack that dual boots Windows. I enjoy the tinkering and the issues that may come up with it. It's not my main machine though. If I didn't have an laptop, I'm not sure I would run a hackintosh only. It's fun to have but it might be a pain if it was my only system and I relied on it for work.
laptop, I'm not sure I would run a hackintosh only. It's fun to have but it might be a pain if it was my only system and I relied on it for work.
Why not?
I had a hackintosh years ago, and all of the software that could run a mac was able to run on my hackintosh.
