Legit vs Hackintosh ?

N

nStyle

macrumors 68000
Ultimately, will there be any difference? I am thinking not. I buy the OS, build a fast Hackintosh, what could be the difference between this and one I buy from the Apple store besides screen?
 
I own a MBP. Love my MBP. There is no argument in the portable scene: buying a MBP is the way to go.

I was just curious on thoughts about the desktop scene.
 
You can pick your parts with a hackintosh, and it's much cheaper. I have both a 2006 Mac Pro and a hackintosh I built about a month ago, and I doubt I'll ever buy a real desktop Mac again.

Differences are that you can overclock your CPU to get much faster speeds, you can have many more USB ports, you pick your own case, you've got a desktop processor instead of a server processor… and… it's not supported by Apple. If you choose the right parts, installation will be smooth. If not, you'll have no end of headaches. I chose well, and I was up and running with OS X in about the same time it took to install OS X on my Mac Pro.
 
This prospect interests me as well... what would the greatest obstacles be? That is, if I get a hackintosh up and running, provided I dont do OS updates, what can go wrong?
 
If you use hardware thats tried and true with the hackintosh scene, it'll be pretty easy. I have a desktop and a Dell m1530 that are both hackintosh machines and they both do quite well for themselves. Just make sure you do your research on different hardware before you buy ;)
 
Ravich said:
This prospect interests me as well... what would the greatest obstacles be? That is, if I get a hackintosh up and running, provided I dont do OS updates, what can go wrong?
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If you don't mind jumping through hoops every now and then, it's fine. If you don't depend on that machine for a living, then it's fine.

The advantage of the Mac Pro comes from the fact that everything was designed and specified to work perfectly. With a hackintosh, you've got to find drivers for all of your stuff, makes sure what you're buying isn't just a slight bit different than what you really need, etc.

It's cheaper sure, but is it worth it? It's only cheaper if your time is worthless, IMO.
 
nStyle said:
Ultimately, will there be any difference? I am thinking not. I buy the OS, build a fast Hackintosh, what could be the difference between this and one I buy from the Apple store besides screen?
Click to expand...

You can't buy MacOS X. Don't bother paying $30 for Snow Leopard; it makes installing the OS on a "Hackintosh" not one bit more legal. It is an upgrade, and it isn't licensed for installation on a non-Apple computer anyway. If you want to go illegal, at least don't be a hypocrite trying to pretend you do something legal.
 
maintenance.


a hackintosh does not "just work". you have to manage kexts, read on hackintosh forums before you can perform OS updates, etc etc... Tinkering is fun but not in the long run. I got tired when waking up in the morning, hoping to get work done, just to realise I had made my system unbootable last night when trying to install latest bootloader.


it's the reason I sold my hack.



gnasher729 said:
You can't buy MacOS X. Don't bother paying $30 for Snow Leopard; it makes installing the OS on a "Hackintosh" not one bit more legal. It is an upgrade, and it isn't licensed for installation on a non-Apple computer anyway. If you want to go illegal, at least don't be a hypocrite trying to pretend you do something legal.
Click to expand...

there is no law, only apples EULA agreement. which is not valid in my country, Sweden. making hackintosh perfectly legal. i'm sure it's fun spewing hate on hackintoshers, but please keep your facts straight ;)
 
jshbckr said:
If you don't mind jumping through hoops every now and then, it's fine. If you don't depend on that machine for a living, then it's fine.

The advantage of the Mac Pro comes from the fact that everything was designed and specified to work perfectly. With a hackintosh, you've got to find drivers for all of your stuff, makes sure what you're buying isn't just a slight bit different than what you really need, etc.

It's cheaper sure, but is it worth it? It's only cheaper if your time is worthless, IMO.
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You've never built a hackintosh, have you?

Minor differences between hardware are generally very easy to get around. When I built my hackintosh, I didn't have to find any drivers – they were all automatically installed.

Also, my time is far from worthless, and my hackintosh was less than a third of the price of my Mac Pro. Well worth it, in my opinion.
 
I put os x on a dell 9, which is known as the easiest netbook to covert to a Mac. I found it ok, but still a pain the the butt when system updates occurred and broke things, then having to wait for the programmers to figure out what was wrong and make a new version.

At the end of the day I installed windows xp back on the netbook and gave it away to my brother as a gift.

A year later and now I am much happier with my iPad.

I wouldn't recommend a hackintosh unless you are a computer whiz, and I would never, ever give one to a noncomputer person.
 
jshbckr said:
The advantage of the Mac Pro comes from the fact that everything was designed and specified to work perfectly. With a hackintosh, you've got to find drivers for all of your stuff, makes sure what you're buying isn't just a slight bit different than what you really need, etc.
Click to expand...

This is what drove me to Apple in the first place. I used to build 3 or 4 custom pc systems per year including sub zero phase cooled systems and sure they could be wildly overclocked and components may or may not cost less, but you end up on an endless upgrade cycle that costs way more than any MP even if you buy one at every refresh. In addition, the actual use as opposed to fix, tweak or benchmark factor is not even close. If Apple opened up licensing to PC's, I'd probably bite, but for now I'll stick with mac pros, but if they don't release an update soon, I may go awol regardless. The overly slow upgrade cycle is nice to the extent of about a year or so, but the latest upgrade is taking way too long.
 
gnasher729 said:
You can't buy MacOS X. Don't bother paying $30 for Snow Leopard; it makes installing the OS on a "Hackintosh" not one bit more legal. It is an upgrade, and it isn't licensed for installation on a non-Apple computer anyway. If you want to go illegal, at least don't be a hypocrite trying to pretend you do something legal.
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Didn't you write that hacking iPhones are illegal in the iPhone Hacks forum? You just don't understand what legal means.
 
If you have to ask the question "Legit or Hackintosh" in the first place...

The smart, nice, looking out for your best interests answer: Legit!

I (being cruel and mischievous) say:
Go ahead and learn the hard way.

Have Fun,
Good Luck with that one,
Keri
 
Hmm... mixed opinions.

So, what is the importance of system updates? What do the updates really matter?

Why does there have to be specific hardware capabilities? Is this because OS X uses "special" instructions that only certain processors can read?

If nothing else, its more fun to tinker and try to get around Apple's closed-minded philosophy than give in immediately (though this line of thought didn't work with me for the iPad).
 
Updates can be important, though they're not really necessary if the software you're going to be using changes slowly or not at all. Though Steam more or less requires 10.6.3, so if you need that you'll have to do a little more work.

We use specific hardware because either Apple uses it or it's similar to what Apple uses. For example, Apple uses the Core i5-750 and the Core i7-860, but in my hackintosh I have a Core i7-930.
 
Cindori said:
maintenance.


a hackintosh does not "just work". you have to manage kexts, read on hackintosh forums before you can perform OS updates, etc etc... Tinkering is fun but not in the long run. I got tired when waking up in the morning, hoping to get work done, just to realise I had made my system unbootable last night when trying to install latest bootloader.

it's the reason I sold my hack.
....... snip............
Click to expand...

Thanks for your continued contributions here. I have been occasionally tempted to build a Hackintosh but your comments above remind me why I have migrated away from building Win machines. :p

regards
JohnG
 
I've gone the hackint0sh route 3 times (sony vaio tz, dell inspiron and a samsung nc10) and all 3 times have gone and yearned for the real deal.

Hackint0sh in my experience (spent hours and hours and days and days customizing, even kext editing my own drivers for the hardware) still feels like a broken OSX experience.

Not to mention the occassional kernel panics (only on the samsung but the sony vaio tz and dell inspiron was fine).
 
Cindori said:
maintenance.
...
it's the reason I sold my hack.
Click to expand...

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

You're one of the top poster's here regarding Hacintosh. If you've given up, that should be a big hint to those of us who are contemplating it but don't want to spend half our life fiddling.
 
Phantom Gremlin said:
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

You're one of the top poster's here regarding Hacintosh. If you've given up, that should be a big hint to those of us who are contemplating it but don't want to spend half our life fiddling.
Click to expand...

Note that he also kept fiddling with it, which is what gave him issues in the first place.

After I updated my hackintosh, I haven't been fiddling with it, and it's given me absolutely no problems.

This doesn't mean that building a hack is for you, but there are two sides to every coin.
 
Cindori said:
maintenance.


a hackintosh does not "just work".
Click to expand...

Yes... and no...

I'll take it a step further and qualify it with "it depends." With some hardware, it's nearly as simple as the real thing... with other hardware, you're in for a nightmare trying to make it work.
 
As others have said, it really depends on your hardware...
If you choose the right motherboard -Thigns get super easy.. Right video card- Even easier. Those are pretty much the only 2 key parts.
Gigabyte boards have the most compatibility.

Here is my setup (a bit out dated, but it gets the job done)
Gigabyte EP45-uD3P motherboard
Intel Quad Q6600 2.4ghz
4GB of DDR2
Nvidia 8800 GTS- 640mb.

With this set up I installed 10.6 with zero issues. I only had to install 1 KEXT and that is optional (It just made bonjour work with my network card). Install was quick and painless- about as easy as my macbook. (There is also a Life hacker article on this exact setup).

I have also been able to use the built in software updated with zero issues. I am currently on 10.6.3 - use the computer EVERY day. NO kernel panics, NO slow downs, NO problems. It is as stable as my macbook.
Although, the future is unknown. The next update could kill it (or at least just cause some minor issues that need fixing), and that is the risk with these. It is usually best to wait on updates and see what others say first.

This all being said, my next desktop is probably going to be a Mac Pro.. But that won't be a few years from now as this computer is working great for what I need. I don't want a macpro because I hate my hack, but I feel that it is the next step to go.. Plus any thing I build will cost around the same as a mac pro for about the same specs (Will be using server parts just like the mac pro) so I figure I would just save my self the trouble :)
 
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