OSX on Custom PC

[55five55]

Not 100% sure this is in the right section but oh well!

I've been battling with what to do for my next computer!
I mainly do basic things like excel and word documents for university, general browsing and watching videos. I do play some games, primarily Borderlands 2 and I want to get more into gaming but my current laptop can't handle much (BL2 on min-low graphics gets ~30fps but drops a lot and with long loading times between areas and start up).
I don't think I need the most top of the line set up, but I do want to be able to play a wide variety of games at good fps and good graphics so I'm not sure which route to take.

I've never built a PC, and while it is significantly cheaper the lack of tech support should things go wrong concerns me, and just in general I much prefer using a Mac OS.

The iMac I've mainly been looking at is the 21.5" top tier (GT 750M), would consider upgrading the RAM and adding the Fusion drive, though I can't seem to find consistent answers on how it performs on a number of games (plus a new model should be released late this year?)

If I did buy a custom PC or built one, could I just load a Mac OS instead of Windows?
If I went for the iMac, how does it perform for gaming? Will it run Windows only games through bootcamp well? Could I use bootcamp to get Windows games through Steam?

 

[Lunfai]

Not 100% sure this is in the right section but oh well!

I've been battling with what to do for my next computer!
I mainly do basic things like excel and word documents for university, general browsing and watching videos. I do play some games, primarily Borderlands 2 and I want to get more into gaming but my current laptop can't handle much (BL2 on min-low graphics gets ~30fps but drops a lot and with long loading times between areas and start up).
I don't think I need the most top of the line set up, but I do want to be able to play a wide variety of games at good fps and good graphics so I'm not sure which route to take.

I've never built a PC, and while it is significantly cheaper the lack of tech support should things go wrong concerns me, and just in general I much prefer using a Mac OS.

The iMac I've mainly been looking at is the 21.5" top tier (GT 750M), would consider upgrading the RAM and adding the Fusion drive, though I can't seem to find consistent answers on how it performs on a number of games (plus a new model should be released late this year?)

If I did buy a custom PC or built one, could I just load a Mac OS instead of Windows?
If I went for the iMac, how does it perform for gaming? Will it run Windows only games through bootcamp well? Could I use bootcamp to get Windows games through Steam?

I wouldn't reallt use a iMac for gaming for its doable. Yes you can load games via BootCamp and steam. It's like ordinary Windows, so there are no limitations.

OS X is can be loaded on PCs, but the process can be daunting. However, I believe the process has been simplified since it's original arrival and it's quite easy (so I've heard). Find a build online and build your custom PC around it. It has to be Intel inside instead of AMD.

 

[gnasher729]

I wouldn't reallt use a iMac for gaming for its doable. Yes you can load games via BootCamp and steam. It's like ordinary Windows, so there are no limitations.

OS X is can be loaded on PCs, but the process can be daunting. However, I believe the process has been simplified since it's original arrival and it's quite easy (so I've heard). Find a build online and build your custom PC around it. It has to be Intel inside instead of AMD.

No matter what you think, installing MacOS X on a computer that is not Apple branded is both copyright infringement and a DMCA violation. Now that you know I'd expect you not to recommend this again.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

The iMac I've mainly been looking at is the 21.5" top tier (GT 750M), would consider upgrading the RAM and adding the Fusion drive, though I can't seem to find consistent answers on how it performs on a number of games (plus a new model should be released late this year?)

Barefeats.com has plenty of charts.

 

[VI™]

No matter what you think, installing MacOS X on a computer that is not Apple branded is both copyright infringement and a DMCA violation. Now that you know I'd expect you not to recommend this again.

Yes! It's bad! Bad bad bad bad bad! People that think such thoughts should seek forgiveness and repent their sins!

Not 100% sure this is in the right section but oh well!

I've been battling with what to do for my next computer!
I mainly do basic things like excel and word documents for university, general browsing and watching videos. I do play some games, primarily Borderlands 2 and I want to get more into gaming but my current laptop can't handle much (BL2 on min-low graphics gets ~30fps but drops a lot and with long loading times between areas and start up).
I don't think I need the most top of the line set up, but I do want to be able to play a wide variety of games at good fps and good graphics so I'm not sure which route to take.

I've never built a PC, and while it is significantly cheaper the lack of tech support should things go wrong concerns me, and just in general I much prefer using a Mac OS.

The iMac I've mainly been looking at is the 21.5" top tier (GT 750M), would consider upgrading the RAM and adding the Fusion drive, though I can't seem to find consistent answers on how it performs on a number of games (plus a new model should be released late this year?)

If I did buy a custom PC or built one, could I just load a Mac OS instead of Windows?
If I went for the iMac, how does it perform for gaming? Will it run Windows only games through bootcamp well? Could I use bootcamp to get Windows games through Steam?

Now that that poster is appeased:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/home.php

Building a PC is easy. It's like legos with more connectors! The hardest part is making sure the CPU is slotted correctly as the pins are easy to bend and you need to be verrrrrrry careful with them. Once it's together and working fine, you shouldn't have very many issues with it. If you do, you save the receipts and either contact the company you purchased the product from or the manufacture depending on return and warranty conditions. If you want to build a gaming PC, this is usually to way to go to get power for a lower price. You can also purchase a pre-built. If you do that, you want to make sure it doesn't use proprietary parts like Dell used to (and may still do) where as a generic HDD or other item won't fit in to the case provided by dell.

That's the easy part. OS X will work on no Apple hardward. How hard or easy it is, is up to the parts you use to put it together. Parts like RAM and HDDs are pretty much universal. Any brand and any type (so long as it's compatible with the rest of the hardware) should suffice. Stuff like CPU, Mobo, and GPU are where it gets tricky. The link above has builds and installs for certain types of hardware or you can go your own way. If you have hardware that matches a certain install, it should be as easy as loading an EFI emulator and install OS X, and install the driver pack or whatever is included. If your hardware isn't contained in a certain install, you have to do the EFI emulator and OS X install then individually install each driver. MAKE SURE THE HARDWARE YOU HAVE HAS OS X DRIVERS AVAILABLE FOR IT. I had a Hackintosh with an Nvidia 295 GTX in it. There was never officially support in OS X for this so I had to do alot to get this to work. It took me about 1-2 weeks to get it running.

After that, guess what? You can't really update. At least not right away. An update may work fine and not do anything, but there are chances that driver updates or other OS updates will break your install requiring you to fix the broken pieces or start from scratch.

My recommendations if you want a Hackintosh:
1. Dual boot OS X and Windows on two separate drives
2. Make and image of ALL your partitions so that "reinstalling" isn't really reinstalling
3. Make sure the parts you want have OS X drivers available for them

It can be daunting and it will require some knowledge of a computer past turning it on, point and clicking, and turning it off but in the end if you can get it worked out it will let you use OS X and offer you a better gaming machine for a cheaper price.

 

[55five55]

Oh wow, a lot to consider Making the thread I was thinking just loading the Mac OS on a custom computer was going to be the best option but it seems to be the most complicated and probably not a good one given I haven't gone through the whole process of building and maintaining a custom PC before.
Interesting to know the options available!
On a side note, in terms of improving gaming performance on an iMac using Bootcamp, is there more benefit to upgrading the 8GB RAM to 16GB or getting the i7 over the i5? I feel the main benefit of the i7 is the hyper threading but don't imagine that helping with Bootcamp.
I know people say "if you don't know if you need 16GB of RAM then you don't" but given I've only got 4GB at the moment all I know is I need more

Much to think about! Such a helpful forum though

 

[VI™]

For gaming, the better CPU would benefit you more, but even then, it may not be by much. Most games rely on the GPU to the point where you can get away with having an older processor and not as much RAM. There a few out there that are CPU intensive and benefit from a faster CPU but I haven't heard of a RAM intensive game. RAM would benefit you more if you have a lot of programs open or use RAM intensive programs like photo and video editing software.

The biggest bottleneck on the iMac will be the GPU.

 

[jeremysteele]

No matter what you think, installing MacOS X on a computer that is not Apple branded is both copyright infringement and a DMCA violation. Now that you know I'd expect you not to recommend this again.

Traditional hackintoshing has never been challenged in court - so I wouldn't say it so bluntly like it is fact. Just because Apple has it in their ToS and license does not mean it is law.

however, what has been set in stone is that the installing & selling is illegal (Psystar) - if you read the decisions for that case they simply stated selling non-Apple computers with OS X preinstalled or selling tools used to do so was illegal - but it was never stated that a user doing it themselves was in violation of the law.