Hackintosh or Mac-mini with a tv?

[actripxl]

Ok guys I have a slight dilemma going on, I gave my mother my 1 yr old mac book since she now lives in South America and her little netbook though adequate for her use was missing features (dvd player).

Being Macless for the first time since 2002 is a bit annoying especially since I bought Lion right before she left and tried it out. I'm using her old netbook in the mean time, but I would like to get back to my OSX.

I love OSX but I am also a gamer who has been mostly doing it through consoles with an itch to return to PC gaming. My reason for considering on building a Hackintosh is that I can return to playing PC games and used OSX for everything else at a relatively low price. The Mac-mini is more than enough for me but I can't see myself paying $600 for something that not only doesn't pay Blu-rays but not even dvd's either. Going all windows is not an option since as nice as Windows 7 is I prefer to use the Mac OS.

The downside for the Hackintosh is getting everything ready and then maintaining it to run properly and the other option being its price with its lack of keyboard and blu ray player.

Finally which ever route I take I will be hooking it up to a 42" tv that is in the living room but I'm hoping it will be adequate enough to use as a monitor once I upgrade. If anyone has hooked up to a tv near that size I would like your opinion on the matter.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hellhammer]

Do you want a problem free and easy to use computer? Hackintosh is nice but nowhere near as easy as a real Mac, you must be ready to spend some time tweaking it. Once you get it running, it should be okay though, just don't upgrade too early.

If your games aren't very heavy though, the Mini with AMD 6630M might be adequate since your TV is either 720p or 1080p (i.e. not too intensive).

 

[TheSuperSteve]

I would go with the Mac Mini. Hackintoshes are a complete nightmare. I thought Linux was unstable, then i tried a Hackintosh and learned a completely new meaning to that word.

 

[VeganHipster]

Hackintosh's are fine, if you follow builds that people have already done or are recommended by people then you will be fine.

Your options are pretty limited because no Mac besides the Mac Mini will connect to your TV, but doesn't play games as well as you would hope to. Depending on the games though, it should run fine on the top Mac Mini. You could always get the base mac mini and then build a cheap gaming pc in a couple of months.

 

[actripxl]

Thanks for the advice so far guys. I'll let this run a bit longer but I'm guessing building a Hackintosh seems to be the better option for me. I game mostly on my PS3 but after seeing the visuals from the PC version of BF3 caught my eye. Also I have been collecting blu rays and building a pc will allow me to rip them and stream them to a second set.

So has anyone seen a computer hooked up to a tv to play games and watch movies? I want to use it on my 42" tv but I'm wondering how well things will look especially with games.

 

[brendu]

So has anyone seen a computer hooked up to a tv to play games and watch movies? I want to use it on my 42" tv but I'm wondering how well things will look especially with games.

I built myself a HTPC a few years ago to do just that, but I used windows 7 because the hackintosh route is just too aggravating everytime apple puts out an update having to worry what might stop working. I have all my mac products for computing and then the HTPC for Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, web browsing and games.

EDIT: By doing it this way I was able to keep the total build cost under $600 and its easily upgradable. (also at the time Microsoft was offering windows 7 for $30 to teachers)

 

[VeganHipster]

I built myself a HTPC a few years ago to do just that, but I used windows 7 because the hackintosh route is just too aggravating everytime apple puts out an update having to worry what might stop working. I have all my mac products for computing and then the HTPC for Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, web browsing and games.

EDIT: By doing it this way I was able to keep the total build cost under $600 and its easily upgradable. (also at the time Microsoft was offering windows 7 for $30 to teachers)

Care to share your HTPC build with us? Would like to see it as I am planning on building a HTPC that can play games decently.

 

[actripxl]

I built myself a HTPC a few years ago to do just that, but I used windows 7 because the hackintosh route is just too aggravating everytime apple puts out an update having to worry what might stop working. I have all my mac products for computing and then the HTPC for Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, web browsing and games.

EDIT: By doing it this way I was able to keep the total build cost under $600 and its easily upgradable. (also at the time Microsoft was offering windows 7 for $30 to teachers)

I was thinking of doing the exact same thing but was considering the cost of such a set up. It will take me some time for such a thing since I planning a trip to S. America next year and I'm thinking of going to the Asia in November.

 

[brendu]

I dont do any serious gaming on it really since I have all the consoles and use Xbox the most. I do however use it for media every day. I'll look up all the parts and try to post them later on to let you know... I can tell you I used a Thermaltake media center case with front display, an Asus motherboard, an AMD Athalon dual core processor, 4GB ram, and a 500GB HDD. And I use a wireless keyboard with built in trackpad from the couch. All of that was pretty standard 2 years ago when I built it. Like I said I never did too much serious gaming on it so I always used the integrated graphics card, never actually went and got a dedicated one like I originally planned. If your gonna game a lot, you have to get a dedicated card.