Yes, I am aware that I have committed the ultimate PC heresy. Please forgive me. But I went and built a Hackintosh.
Background you can skip if you don't care:
I do Windows desktop support for a living and generally know what I'm doing with computers. I actually have *fun* tweaking stuff (my Nintendo DS runs Linux), so I figured I'd have a good time building this PC. I'm a student working a part-time IT internship, so I don't have a ton of money. I bought a MacBook a couple of years back (Core Duo), and I switched my whole family over to Macs and we've purchased numerous Apple laptops over the years. I haven't purchased a new desktop in over five years- still running my old Pentium 4 machine. I hardly have the money to get a low-end iMac, and that thing won't have nearly the level of performance I would want out of it.
The PC cost me about $900. In total I spent about $950 after some extras.
Specs:
2.4 GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600
4 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM
Geforce 8800GT, 256 MB GDDR3 VRAM
1x 500 GB HDD
1x 160 GB HDD
DVD-RW
500W power supply
Antec Sonata III case
That ran me $900. On top of that, I purchased a HD-DVD drive on clearance for $20 and a webcam for $30. Add in the cost of a Leopard DVD as well (I got mine a while ago).
I installed Vista on the 160 GB drive, and OS X on the 500 GB drive. Plus, I have a 250 GB external firewire drive. Even then, I'm worried about running out of space, but I think I still have one more internal SATA port available.
So how'd it go? Well, for starters, I would NEVER recommend this for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. I was unable to install it off of the HD-DVD drive because a controller chip for Parallel ATA in the motherboard was not recognized by the installer. I didn't know this as the error was too generic- I eventually discovered it worked fine if I used the DVD-RW drive (which was SATA). After I got it installed, I've got almost everything working, except Audio and the built-in WiFi. I don't care about the WiFi (PCs running wired), and I know people have gotten audio working on this motherboard so I'll get it going at some point.
Next problem is that every time I boot, I'm warned I have an unknown processor and About This Mac says I have a 2.4 GHz Unknown. Looks like it's due to an out of date motherboard BIOS that doesn't recognize the Core 2 Quad. I'll have to update it.
The last problem is an odd one. Every time I click on Desktop & Screen Saver, I get a kernel panic.
So I can't change my Desktop, have no audio, and it says unknown processor. Those are my current issues, but I'll get them fixed.
Those are the downsides at the moment.
But how does it run?
Incredibly. I was running two 1080p videos while surfing the web and my CPU was idling. I'm currently running iMovie, typing this post and installing Windows XP and Windows 2003 in two separate Parallels VMs. CPU is 70% idle. This is by the snappiest thing i've ever used- the Mac Pros in stores only have 1 GB of RAM.
I adore this machine.
For those of you considering building a Hackintosh, carefully research and choose parts that have been tested for maximum compatibility. I highly recommend them. But be prepared for having to deal with a lot of initial problems. Once you get everything running smoothly, it'll be great- but expect to be ironing out bugs that first week.
If you're not technically savvy and don't enjoy tweaking, don't try, you'll pound your head against the wall and get frustrated. If you want it to "just work", buy an iMac. If you want maximum performance, minimal price, with a great OS in exchange for troubleshooting headaches feel free to build it. I think most will opt for the iMac, as it should be. Hackintoshes will not threaten Apple's market share- I could never have afforded the Mac Pro I wanted, and the iMac wouldn't have done what I needed, so I would have simply gone without.
Oh yes, and don't buy XFX graphics cards. That Geforce 8800GT I got works fine, but the fan is louder than everything else in the PC put together.
I should note that dual booting this with Vista x64 was my first experience with that OS. I was amazed to find I hate it more than I ever imagined I would.
Background you can skip if you don't care:
I do Windows desktop support for a living and generally know what I'm doing with computers. I actually have *fun* tweaking stuff (my Nintendo DS runs Linux), so I figured I'd have a good time building this PC. I'm a student working a part-time IT internship, so I don't have a ton of money. I bought a MacBook a couple of years back (Core Duo), and I switched my whole family over to Macs and we've purchased numerous Apple laptops over the years. I haven't purchased a new desktop in over five years- still running my old Pentium 4 machine. I hardly have the money to get a low-end iMac, and that thing won't have nearly the level of performance I would want out of it.
The PC cost me about $900. In total I spent about $950 after some extras.
Specs:
2.4 GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600
4 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM
Geforce 8800GT, 256 MB GDDR3 VRAM
1x 500 GB HDD
1x 160 GB HDD
DVD-RW
500W power supply
Antec Sonata III case
That ran me $900. On top of that, I purchased a HD-DVD drive on clearance for $20 and a webcam for $30. Add in the cost of a Leopard DVD as well (I got mine a while ago).
I installed Vista on the 160 GB drive, and OS X on the 500 GB drive. Plus, I have a 250 GB external firewire drive. Even then, I'm worried about running out of space, but I think I still have one more internal SATA port available.
So how'd it go? Well, for starters, I would NEVER recommend this for someone who doesn't know what they're doing. I was unable to install it off of the HD-DVD drive because a controller chip for Parallel ATA in the motherboard was not recognized by the installer. I didn't know this as the error was too generic- I eventually discovered it worked fine if I used the DVD-RW drive (which was SATA). After I got it installed, I've got almost everything working, except Audio and the built-in WiFi. I don't care about the WiFi (PCs running wired), and I know people have gotten audio working on this motherboard so I'll get it going at some point.
Next problem is that every time I boot, I'm warned I have an unknown processor and About This Mac says I have a 2.4 GHz Unknown. Looks like it's due to an out of date motherboard BIOS that doesn't recognize the Core 2 Quad. I'll have to update it.
The last problem is an odd one. Every time I click on Desktop & Screen Saver, I get a kernel panic.
So I can't change my Desktop, have no audio, and it says unknown processor. Those are my current issues, but I'll get them fixed.
Those are the downsides at the moment.But how does it run?
Incredibly. I was running two 1080p videos while surfing the web and my CPU was idling. I'm currently running iMovie, typing this post and installing Windows XP and Windows 2003 in two separate Parallels VMs. CPU is 70% idle. This is by the snappiest thing i've ever used- the Mac Pros in stores only have 1 GB of RAM.
I adore this machine.
For those of you considering building a Hackintosh, carefully research and choose parts that have been tested for maximum compatibility. I highly recommend them. But be prepared for having to deal with a lot of initial problems. Once you get everything running smoothly, it'll be great- but expect to be ironing out bugs that first week.
If you're not technically savvy and don't enjoy tweaking, don't try, you'll pound your head against the wall and get frustrated. If you want it to "just work", buy an iMac. If you want maximum performance, minimal price, with a great OS in exchange for troubleshooting headaches feel free to build it. I think most will opt for the iMac, as it should be. Hackintoshes will not threaten Apple's market share- I could never have afforded the Mac Pro I wanted, and the iMac wouldn't have done what I needed, so I would have simply gone without.
Oh yes, and don't buy XFX graphics cards. That Geforce 8800GT I got works fine, but the fan is louder than everything else in the PC put together.
I should note that dual booting this with Vista x64 was my first experience with that OS. I was amazed to find I hate it more than I ever imagined I would.
