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Actual Mac Mini or $682 Hackintosh?

GameGuru38

GameGuru38

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 7, 2009
148
9
Ohio
I love OS X (now macOS I guess) and have several older systems. I want a more modern one but hate the price and came across this Hackintosh guide I am really intrigued. I have been building PCs for over twenty years so I am have no issues there and would love to build this. For $700 I don't think I can get anywhere near the power I can with the Hackintosh. Think I should do this?

 
GameGuru38 said:
I love OS X (now macOS I guess) and have several older systems. I want a more modern one but hate the price and came across this Hackintosh guide I am really intrigued. I have been building PCs for over twenty years so I am have no issues there and would love to build this. For $700 I don't think I can get anywhere near the power I can with the Hackintosh. Think I should do this?
Click to expand...

Sure and don't forget to report back ;-)
 
It really depends on what you need and appreciate. A Hackintosh is certainly faster, but do you need the extra performance for something (e.g. gaming)? Aside from performance, the major difference between the two is that Mac Mini comes with full warranty and support, whereas you're on your own with the Hackintosh. If you like playing around with things and the machine is not for anything critical, a Hackintosh can be a good option and nice experiment, but be prepared to spend time on troubleshooting as any OS update can break the system.
 
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If you go to Tonymac and take a look at the parts that they describe in the video and what is actually supported, you'd find that the on chip video card is not supported by MacOS and you can't run 1/2 the apps that a real mac mini can. Forget about using it to watch videos off iTunes, not supported. It also is known to panic kernal crash. They are hoping that a new release of an actual mac will add the new intel video drivers into the build making it work.

Its a great play machine but not something that you would want to use for production or as a family computer where you have kids and a spouse who want something that works and not looking for a project to keep it working for them
 
If you're doing any kind of professional work, you're kind of an evil person to run Hackintosh. To me, you're profiting off of Apple's stuff without payment. In some circles that is stealing. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Go with the one that you think will be best for your needs.
 
If it isn't 100% compatible then I don't want it, I want the full macOS experience. I build Windows machines so I don't need to build a Mac, just thought if it worked 100% with everything, was cheaper and faster than it was a no brainer.

Guess I will go for a quad core 2012 instead.
 
GameGuru38 said:
If it isn't 100% compatible then I don't want it, I want the full macOS experience. I build Windows machines so I don't need to build a Mac, just thought if it worked 100% with everything, was cheaper and faster than it was a no brainer.

Guess I will go for a quad core 2012 instead.
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Dial back to cheaper compatible components and 1 it'll work fine and 2 it'll be $100+ cheaper
 
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GameGuru38 said:
If it isn't 100% compatible then I don't want it, I want the full macOS experience. I build Windows machines so I don't need to build a Mac, just thought if it worked 100% with everything, was cheaper and faster than it was a no brainer.

Guess I will go for a quad core 2012 instead.
Click to expand...

If you follow the compatible hardware in Tonymac it will work. Like others said you may not want to rely on it for a work machine.
 
The problem is that there are degrees of compatible hardware. Some parts work but does not make them compatible as the hardware spec is not 100% the same as anything that Apple makes. So you can have a sound card that is a different model number but still works with the drivers that come with OSx until it stops working by some patch or update and requires you to change the Ktext or something else.
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MysticCow said:
If you're doing any kind of professional work, you're kind of an evil person to run Hackintosh. To me, you're profiting off of Apple's stuff without payment. In some circles that is stealing. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

Go with the one that you think will be best for your needs.
Click to expand...

I wonder if you have an original Apple Mac products and change some of the hardware inside of it, if you are now considered a Hackintosh as you are not using the orginal parts that Apple provided. Things like people who replace the CPU to a different one, like upgrade to a newer Core2 or put in a newer i7 when it was sold as an i5? Or how about replace the video card and it might be an Nvidea card but its not the standard one that shipped with the machine.

Effectively you are Hacking the original, so is it called a Hackintosh?
 
Apple could throw a monkey on the screen for Hackintosh anytime they want to. They haven't in the past but doesn't mean they won't in the future.

This is why you want dual boot to a separate drive so it doesn't render your machine useless.

I going with my own build this year with Hackintoshable components but I will have a Linux and Windows 10 drives before and if I do OS X.

All the apps I use are interchangeable so it doesn't matter if OS X breaks.
 
roadkill401 said:
I wonder if you have an original Apple Mac products and change some of the hardware inside of it, if you are now considered a Hackintosh as you are not using the orginal parts that Apple provided. Things like people who replace the CPU to a different one, like upgrade to a newer Core2 or put in a newer i7 when it was sold as an i5? Or how about replace the video card and it might be an Nvidea card but its not the standard one that shipped with the machine.

Effectively you are Hacking the original, so is it called a Hackintosh?
Click to expand...

There's a big difference between upgrading an existing Mac as opposed to building a system and then installing OS X. So no, it is not a Hack.

If that were the case, we'd all have Hacks the moment we added a stick of RAM.
 
I was playing with hackintosh for a bit but I don't think it is stable enough to be a full-time working machine. Sleep or wifi could break in the next update even if you have a golden build now. For that peace of mind, I would rather pay $1000 to get a fully compatible machine than a cheaper faster hackintosh.
 
Perhaps, Apple will someday offer macOS as for-purchase-software, particularly so as Apple does not seem to want to maintain up-to-date macOS-based hardware. Understandable, though, as macOS is dwarfed by its other endeavors, such as IOS devices. If you need the power now then it seems you have little alternative other than to do a conversion.
 
Juggar said:
Considering this guy accepted my $600 offer id just buy this and call it a day.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Mac-M...8GB-256GB-SSD-AppleCare-8-2018-/182172404317?

The genuine article and lots of warranty + PCIe SSD speed.
Click to expand...

Got a similar deal, thanks for posting. Considering new this would be $899 or refurb ~$760 (and less warranty) I think it's a good bet. I have a 4TB external USB3 drive that I'll use for iTunes and other big stuff, and a second external for Time Machine.
 
What do you want CPU or GPU performance. I just got my i7 2012 Mac mini running a gtx1070.....very impressed right now. And VR Ready ;)
 
A lot of us came to the Mac side with the appeal of "it just works" and a Hackintosh puts thing back in the Windows mindset. Having to track down drivers every time you do an install or upgrade is possible but aggravating.
 
saulinpa said:
A lot of us came to the Mac side with the appeal of "it just works" and a Hackintosh puts thing back in the Windows mindset. Having to track down drivers every time you do an install or upgrade is possible but aggravating.
Click to expand...
Hackintosh is a hobbyist machine. Not a good idea for a work machine. macOS is only totally reliable on a Mac.
Most people that Hackintosh have a fallback OS (Windows/Linux) to dual boot to.
If a person follows the recommended systems on Tonymac it can be a very reliable system. When Apple issues an update they are tested on Tonymac and will recommend when it safe to do the Apple update.
 
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