I have had some time to do some research and I can build a hackintosh with the specs of a mac pro for about £600! Should I do it?
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Build a hackintosh?
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What are the downsides to building and, ultimately, using a Hackintosh (apart from aesthetics and authentic 'apple feel', etc.)? Are there software compatibility issues? Hardware restrictions? I vaguely remember hearing something about continual maintenance but I'm not sure exactly what that means.
I don't know. I'm too much of an Apple fan boy to consider building a Hackintosh, but I'm curious all the same.
I don't know. I'm too much of an Apple fan boy to consider building a Hackintosh, but I'm curious all the same.
Depending on how you install OSX onto the hardware will dictate any future issues. That is, if you use hacked kexts then any update will potentially break the OS. If you use custom kexts that are not over-writing existing kexts then you're pretty much all set.
No software compatibility issues once the OS is up and running.
Hardware compatbility is a major hurdle. In building a hackintosh you need to be very careful in choosing the correct, CPU, motherboard, and GPU.
No software compatibility issues once the OS is up and running.
Hardware compatbility is a major hurdle. In building a hackintosh you need to be very careful in choosing the correct, CPU, motherboard, and GPU.
The only reason I care about apple is because I need to use Xcode. I've just read a thread on insanely mac where someone buit a hacintosh with the same specs as the top end iMac (last years model) for about £500! That's very attractive and with the ivy bridge releases it's going to get even more cheaper.
Hmmmm
Hmmmm
Hackintoshes are nice for those that want to try OSX, test against OSX, or for those which require hardware that is simply unavailable from apple. The hardware specifications are pretty tight, but you end up with something that pretty closely resembles the real thing, and often performs better on almost any budget. There are some pretty huge drawbacks though.
First is that it is a violation of the EULA. You lose the license and all of the support that goes along with it. With the exception of the community based support on the toby/insanely/osx86 forums, you're pretty much on your own.
Second is that there are no assurances that trivial updates won't be issue free. Just because 10.7.3 ran fine, there is no assurance that upgrading to 10.7.4 will be immediately or eventually possible. Apple could effectively put an end to the Hackintosh, either intentionally or unintentionally, at any time.
Last is that trivial things will annoy you. Sleep/hibernate may or may not work at all or occasionally. Cold restarts may not work. Hard resets many not work the first time. Your clock may drift, etc etc, etc. Audio overdriven when the volume set to 100%. The little things are annoying over time.
Looking at the OPs situation, I'd advise against a Hackintosh for development. It's not a mac. I would not advise against it if the OP were developing on another platform and wanted to test cross platform (Mac) compatibility.
F
First is that it is a violation of the EULA. You lose the license and all of the support that goes along with it. With the exception of the community based support on the toby/insanely/osx86 forums, you're pretty much on your own.
Second is that there are no assurances that trivial updates won't be issue free. Just because 10.7.3 ran fine, there is no assurance that upgrading to 10.7.4 will be immediately or eventually possible. Apple could effectively put an end to the Hackintosh, either intentionally or unintentionally, at any time.
Last is that trivial things will annoy you. Sleep/hibernate may or may not work at all or occasionally. Cold restarts may not work. Hard resets many not work the first time. Your clock may drift, etc etc, etc. Audio overdriven when the volume set to 100%. The little things are annoying over time.
Looking at the OPs situation, I'd advise against a Hackintosh for development. It's not a mac. I would not advise against it if the OP were developing on another platform and wanted to test cross platform (Mac) compatibility.
F
Read tonymacx86.com they release the best hackintoshing software along with the greatest forum on the web about it. They also periodically release "CustoMac Recommended Builds" which are pretty much fully working, fully compatible hackintoshes. Check it out!
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Also watch cpukid00's playlist on YouTube who walks you through the entire thing, him and TonyMac are what swayed me to hack intstead of buy a Mac.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCED7EB31338F57A9&feature=plcp
As long as you install it right, and there isn't any problems like compatibility issues with hardware like nvidia graphics cards (not that there is or anything...) and add a mac keyboard and mouse/trackpad to take full advantage of the gestures and the software within and on lion.
Its definitely a time vs $ tradeoff. You can always build a PC cheaper, though you'll need to be careful with which hardware if you want to run OSX on it.
I vastly prefer OSX over Windows or Linux, and had set up my old desktop PC with OSX (my macbook pro didn't have the graphics oomph to satisfy me).
But even with a relatively good motherboard, there was a lot of time getting things working reasonably, and OSX updates generally broke things. I never had sleep working reliably, though the rest of the hardware was pretty good.
When the 2011 iMac came out, I decided that was good enough, and have appreciated not having to screw around maintain things anymore.
I vastly prefer OSX over Windows or Linux, and had set up my old desktop PC with OSX (my macbook pro didn't have the graphics oomph to satisfy me).
But even with a relatively good motherboard, there was a lot of time getting things working reasonably, and OSX updates generally broke things. I never had sleep working reliably, though the rest of the hardware was pretty good.
When the 2011 iMac came out, I decided that was good enough, and have appreciated not having to screw around maintain things anymore.
I built a Hackintosh using these parts:
CPU: Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5 GHz LGA 1155 Processor BX80623I72700K
MB: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3
Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 6870 (http://www.amazon.com/XFX-Radeon-HD6.../dp/B005FPT37Q)
SSD: 120GB OCZ Nocti Series SATA 3Gb/s
Case: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055Q7BR4 (cheap)
RAM: 16GB Corsair 1600Mhz DDR3 (the blue one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...nymacx86com-20 )
PSU: Corsair 750watt (already had)
It was crazy fast but I'm a VFX student and had to install Maya 2012. It turns out I shouldn't have updated to Lion because Lion breaks the Maya 2012 installer. But it took so many hours to configure the Hackintosh correctly that I just didn't have the patience to roll back to Snow Leopard and installed Windows 7 on it instead. It would have been too much work and I was too exhausted.
CPU: Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5 GHz LGA 1155 Processor BX80623I72700K
MB: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3
Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 6870 (http://www.amazon.com/XFX-Radeon-HD6.../dp/B005FPT37Q)
SSD: 120GB OCZ Nocti Series SATA 3Gb/s
Case: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055Q7BR4 (cheap)
RAM: 16GB Corsair 1600Mhz DDR3 (the blue one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...nymacx86com-20 )
PSU: Corsair 750watt (already had)
It was crazy fast but I'm a VFX student and had to install Maya 2012. It turns out I shouldn't have updated to Lion because Lion breaks the Maya 2012 installer. But it took so many hours to configure the Hackintosh correctly that I just didn't have the patience to roll back to Snow Leopard and installed Windows 7 on it instead. It would have been too much work and I was too exhausted.
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I enjoyed building my hackintosh and seeing it up and running. But as a day to day machine it just had a ton of annoying issues, like sometimes the sound wouldn't work, or Ethernet wasn't being detected. Updates are just annoying, having to worry if it might mess up something.
At the end of the day I realised life is too short to **** around with hackintosh, I'd rather have the real deal.
At the end of the day I realised life is too short to **** around with hackintosh, I'd rather have the real deal.
It might be educational to build one. You'd learn about hardware and software. To me though, the OS and the hardware should go together. They're built as they are to make your life easier. Hacking one together isn't easy, it's a pain I.T.A.
If you want to learn a lot, get some older hardware and build a Linux desktop. You can create a very useful machine for not much money this way and learn a lot doing it.
If you want to learn a lot, get some older hardware and build a Linux desktop. You can create a very useful machine for not much money this way and learn a lot doing it.
I looked into building one as well, but in the end, I have decided against it (I used to own one a year and a half ago, so I do have some experience). Basically, my final configuration was not that much cheaper (if you consider a decent case/display) than the iMac, and you always have minor incompatibilities/possible future issues. Economy of few hundred euros just didn't occur to me as a reasonable tradeoff in this case...
Yeah, while I loved the experience of building my own Hackintosh I think I should've saved more money, even if it meant waiting a few months longer, and bought one of the 12-core Mac Pros that are SUPPOSEDLY coming out.
Never going this route again, Apple can shut up and just take my money!
Never going this route again, Apple can shut up and just take my money!
I have had some time to do some research and I can build a hackintosh with the specs of a mac pro for about £600! Should I do it?
Exactly which Mac Pro? Please post the exact parts since I am curious what CPU, mobo and GPU you're planning to use.
I don't want to be a pr*ck, but if you can't afford a Mac, surely your efforts are better spent working to get a better job?
Perhaps you can and just want one a Hackintosh as a test-bench and I can understand that. But across computing, design and all sorts, I've never understood people who put hours and hours into projects they could pay someone else to do; or on products that work instantly to 'save money' doing it themselves for an inferior project, when that productivity could have been applied to increasing their income.
I'm saying this from the perspective of having had a few Windows-geek guys I was at college with who - for one reason or another - don't seem to be doing so well in their careers who make ******* comments about why I waste my money on Macs.
There's no nice way of saying 'Because I can afford to and my time is worth far more than fiddling around fixing things', but that's what I think!
That said, it's Monday morning and I'm on a forum! Time to crack on!
Perhaps you can and just want one a Hackintosh as a test-bench and I can understand that. But across computing, design and all sorts, I've never understood people who put hours and hours into projects they could pay someone else to do; or on products that work instantly to 'save money' doing it themselves for an inferior project, when that productivity could have been applied to increasing their income.
I'm saying this from the perspective of having had a few Windows-geek guys I was at college with who - for one reason or another - don't seem to be doing so well in their careers who make ******* comments about why I waste my money on Macs.
There's no nice way of saying 'Because I can afford to and my time is worth far more than fiddling around fixing things', but that's what I think!
That said, it's Monday morning and I'm on a forum! Time to crack on!
You don't need a brand new machine to compile for xcode. Why not get a 2nd hand one that's a couple of years old?
I recently bought an old white macbook 4,1 (£330) upgraded to 4gb ram (£60) and upgraded the OS to Lion (£20). I contacted Apple and they said the setup would be good for a few years.
It won't however allow an upgrade to Mountain Lion. So any new iOS stuff that I might want access to in the Mountain Lion-only iOS SDK may be out of my reach. However, I make games with a 3rd Party engine (ShiVa3d) so I don't think I'll have any problems for what I want to do.
I've read that Mountain Lion is BLOCKING legitimate hardware (pretty disgusting if you ask me), so I'd imagine it will block all Hackintosh hardware as well. I'm sure someone else will confirm whether or not this is the case though.
I recently bought an old white macbook 4,1 (£330) upgraded to 4gb ram (£60) and upgraded the OS to Lion (£20). I contacted Apple and they said the setup would be good for a few years.
It won't however allow an upgrade to Mountain Lion. So any new iOS stuff that I might want access to in the Mountain Lion-only iOS SDK may be out of my reach. However, I make games with a 3rd Party engine (ShiVa3d) so I don't think I'll have any problems for what I want to do.
I've read that Mountain Lion is BLOCKING legitimate hardware (pretty disgusting if you ask me), so I'd imagine it will block all Hackintosh hardware as well. I'm sure someone else will confirm whether or not this is the case though.
Now where did you get this from? BTW, there are lots of people out there running hackintoshes with 10.8
Actually, hackintosh Mac OS install tools got Mountain Lion support working during the first developer preview. Its supposed to have more support than Lion hardware wise.
Ok, let's go, but bear in mind I am just using any old cheap and comparable parts and I cannot guarantee that the particular mother board and wifi card will definitely work in a hackintosh build so that's something to consider. You may need to get a more expensive mother board that is easier to use in a hackintosh.
Intel CPU Core i5 2400 Sandy Bridge Quad Core Processor £148.98
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel-core-i5-2400-s1155-sdy-bridge-quad-
31ghz-hd2000-igp-850mhz-6mb-cache-95w-retail
The iMacs use the Z68 Chipset so I am going to use the cheapest possible motherboard. It does not have n wifi so we'll have to take care of that later
MSI Z68A-G43 (G3) Intel Z68 Socket 1155 Motherboard £69.22
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...-sata-raid-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-(vga)-dvi-d-at
The 6970M is based on the 6850
MSI HD 6850 OC AMD Radeon Graphics Card - 1GB £84.95
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-...u-820mhz-960-stream-processors-2x-dvi-hdmi-dp
1 TB 7200 RPM Drive - Seagate ST31000524AS 1TB Hard Drive - HDD £80
Memory 4 GB £18
Case + Power Supply - a multitude of options but let's go budget - £120 about for both
Wireless Keyboard and mouse?
Let's go with some budget stuff £40 about for both
Wireless - 3 antennae N
D-link DWA-556 Wireless PCI-E Adapter £61.80
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/d-link-dwa-556-wireless-n-pci-e-desktop-adapter
So that's £622.95
But hold on… this does not match the specs of iMac exactly at all. There is a vital component missing… a 27" 2560x1440 monitor with a similar panel
Ahh, that would be the dell 27" u2711 £567.92
So the total is now: £1,190.87
Cost of the iMac £1,649.00
There is also the fact that end up with a different mouse/keyboard/trackpad, but I get the impression you're the kind of person that does not care about that.
You can add the cost of OSX (£25) since you're planning to hackintosh.
What about the cost of building this? My time isn't free and I can make more money than I would save in the same time it would take me to build this
What about the warranty? I get various warranties on the separate parts, but if this thing packs out, then I am on my own - that's not really great if I am making money from this computer. You can also run into issues when there is an OSX software update, but I see other posters have already mentioned this.
When I am trying to make money on a computer, tinkering and mucking about is the last thing I want to do.
Damn, you're right.
720p web camera £15.47
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/kworld-ultimate-webcam-v2000-720p-8mp-webcam
Unfortunately Apple does not update their prices throughout the life cycle of the product so buying as soon as it’s updated presents the best value. These components cost a lot more last year when the iMac came out.
Very nice, thank you. I was all do quick to accept a post on another forum without totally looking into the 'nitty gritty'
