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Should I replace Imac with a better hackintosh?? Need help asap

R

risherwood

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 17, 2011
23
0
So im in high school currently and am very interested in film making. I do a lot of work with premiere and some after effects so a decent computer is a must. I currently have a 2011 base model imac with 12gb ram and it does pretty good - although its crashed like 15 times since i bought 6 months ago. I put it up on craigslist just to see what I got offered and some guy offered me a custom built hackintosh he paid 1400 to make. The specs on paper are good (geekbench score around 8500), it has 3.31 quad core processor 8gb ram 1tb hard drive blu ray drive 2gb dedicated vram radeon graphics card. It has mac os x lion installed as well as windows 7. I know that on paper the specs r better than my imac and I am well aware that my imac would be more stable/smooth. However, i told him that it would be an unfair trade to give my imac for his since although they share a similar price, mine was made by apple and more stable. He understood and made me a counter offer. This is why I am really considering the offer. He said he would throw in his white 16gb like new ipad 2. In addition he will include a 1080p 20" samsung monitor. This seems like a really good deal for a video editor - I know its not a fair trade just his pc for my imac, but if he includes an ipad 2?! That seems like a pretty decent trade for me. I would use an ipad for school too because I dont have a laptop. Should i do this trade? Again, I know it wont be as stable as my imac (which incidentally has crashed several times) but with the bonus of an ipad and as much expandability options of a mac pro, its hard to pass on this offer. Any help is appreciated.

He sent me the parts used to build the pc:

case- Antec TWO HUNDRED S
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129074

Motherboard- ASUS P8P67 DELUXE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131701

cPU- Intel Core i5-2500K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

PSU- hec XP1080 800W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817339035

GPU- DIAMOND 6870PE51G
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103123
http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-PCI-Express-Graphics-Display-Eyefinity/dp/B0047CQ0L0

RAM- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

HDD- Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB (x2)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

Peripherals-Logitech Wireless Combo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126197

Logitech S120 2.3 Watts (RMS) 2.0 Speaker System
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836121013

Rosewill RNX-N150PCe
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166047

SIIG 3-port 1394 (FireWire) PCI adapter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16800998056

Vantec 58-In-1 Internal Card Reader/Writer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820276003

Optical- LG 22X Super-Multi DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136240

LG Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 10X BD-ROM 4MB
Cache SATA Internal 12X Super Multi Blue with 3D Playback Blu-ray Disc Rewriter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136239

Also comes with apple keyboard/mouse.
 
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You asked that question already. And while the GPU is much better, the Hackintosh only has 1000 Geekbench points more than your iMac.

And if you are so interested in a Hackintosh, why not build it yourself, thus troubleshooting is much easier, as you are already versed in the matter then?
 
Because i know nothing about building hackintosh's. Im not necasarily looking for an "upgrade" but Im interested in expandability options as well as the ipad 2 mainly. I know I posted it before but he didnt offer the ipad 2 before. I dont want to make one myself. The parts seem to be rated highly and it has room for upgrades which is major.
 
risherwood said:
Because i know nothing about building hackintosh's. Im not necasarily looking for an "upgrade" but Im interested in expandability options as well as the ipad 2 mainly. I know I posted it before but he didnt offer the ipad 2 before. I dont want to make one myself. The parts seem to be rated highly and it has room for upgrades which is major.
Click to expand...

But what if you have a problem? How are you going to troubleshoot a Hackintosh if you don't even know, how it was build and what steps had to be done to overcome some of the problems it might have had?

Anyway, it is your iMac and your life, so do what you want. Hardware wise it is an okay switch (with the iPad), but as you don't have any experience with Hackintoshes, I do not recommend the switch.
I have met people (on and offline), who are able to use a Mac, but can't troubleshoot it. A Mac is often much more easier to troubleshoot than a Hackintosh, as many problems are well documented and repeating. With a Hackitnosh it gets more complicated due to the different hardware components.

If you really want more power, you could look at refurbished i7 iMacs, if that is what you are after.
 
If you took a poll on the last thread you asked the almost exact same question, NO would have definitely be ranked amongst the highest responses.

Regardless of the iPad 2, my response still stands as a NO. There is no reason to keep asking people if you have already made up your mind.
 
Even if I just used the machine as a PC and wiped it clean, since I dont mind pc's, in terms of hard ware is it a fair trade (with ipad 2 included)?
 
"Because i know nothing about building hackintosh's. Im not necasarily looking for an "upgrade" but Im interested in expandability options as well as the ipad 2 mainly. I know I posted it before but he didnt offer the ipad 2 before. I dont want to make one myself."

It doesn't matter what the seller offers to "sweeten" the deal. The fact that he is doing so, indicates to me that _he_ has his reasons for getting rid of the Hackintosh in question. Perhaps _he_ is having problems with it that vex him, and he wants to "bail out" for a REAL Mac.

And the fact that you admit to knowing "nothing" about Hackintoshes indicates that when you run into problems with it (probably very soon after buying it), that you are going to be up against the wall with no easy way to discover the solution.

Keep the iMac.

Trade it for the hackintosh, and I'll bet within 3 months you are going to be very regretful that you did....
 
If you don't know enough to build you own yen do NOT get a hackintosh!!!! You will run into some sort of problem for sure.
I ran a hackintosh for almost 3 years. After finding the perfect hardware combonI had a really stable computer. BUTnproblems would still arise! No hackintosh is perfect, and if you can't figure it out for your self then you shouldn't even think of one.
 
risher,
How many of these threads are you going to create? No one is going to tell you that a PC of parts and a few custom drivers is a good idea to trade into. The build advertised is *****. A few points better, a whole lot of possible problems.
Or if you have such a need for HW e-peen and that is all you care about (because apparently that is all a computer is) do it. Tired of hearing everyone tell you the same thing. Over and over and over....
 
A while ago I realized that trying to replicate something for a cheaper price will always result in me regretting that I didn't simply go with the actual product.
 
Personally……

I have an iMac (see my signature file), it works, its stable, it serves my needs, etc. etc. As that famous fortune cookie states, "if it works, then don't screw with it. Keep it and keep using it".

Thus, I'd keep the existing iMac. Life is already full of too many other stresses…

BTW: Do you know the reason why he wants to "off-load" a hackintosh? It's like someone saying they have a fibreglass kit car (they made themselves) and they want to trade for an nice factory built `Proven Technology` real materials trans-am? For this, I'd be keeping the factory built trans-am. Especially since it works and it too is proven to work in the long run…

Hope this helps…
 
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I've had all manner of macs for more than 20 years. They're great. I built myself a Hackintosh a few years ago when Apple had a time gap in upgrading their iMac line and I (felt like I) needed to move to an Intel chip from the G5. I'm happy enough with the Hackintosh, but it often requires some work to maintain - usually whenever there is a system upgrade. Sometimes certain features aren't as reliable as I would like.

Look, you have a plenty powerful iMac for what you want to do. My next computer will be an iMac when there is decent performance separation between the current model and the one I built. I'm looking forward to that day, although I've enjoyed my time with the Hackintosh. Remember, when your Hackintosh "crashes" it might be pretty hard to reboot. How good are you with the command line? Do you have another computer at home to download things to and surf the web for solutions? That's what happens when you have a Hackintosh. I imagine your time is better spent than troubleshooting drivers and boot loaders, right?
 
If you're still here dear OP, take a look at some Mac Pros. Unlike your iMac, you can upgrade them, but it's much easier than a Hackintosh. And there are used ones out there that would be good deals. You might find one with similar specs that you could upgrade later.

rob
 
robgendreau said:
If you're still here dear OP, take a look at some Mac Pros. Unlike your iMac, you can upgrade them, but it's much easier than a Hackintosh. And there are used ones out there that would be good deals. You might find one with similar specs that you could upgrade later.

rob
Click to expand...

If you read his earlier post in a different forum, he asked that question last month...
 
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