Built a Hackintosh Today
 

Took all of 90 minutes to put everything in the case and install OSX on non-Apple hardware.

Got a little nervous at one point, but it as an issue with my video card which was fixed with a proper driver install after the OS install.

Everything worked without hassle, I'm really surprised by how easy they've made it at this point.

Built a Mini-ITX system:

Gigabyte Z77N motherboard
Intel i7 3770k
Nvidia 680 ti
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz
Samsung 128 SSD
2x2TB Seagate Barracuda

Build cost was just under $1200 and cost to build something similar with Apple was over $3000.

I can send you an apple decal if you like, lol.

I test on the AMD vmware hackintosh, it's south side Chicago.

I actually have a bunch of them. I just sold two old iMacs and the stickers were still in the unopened software boxes.

is everything working fine ? just like original mac ?

back in days, i read they had some issues with wifi card drivers.... and not all apps were working correctly.

I had to do the install with the on board graphics card, install the drivers for my card and then install the card.

Aside from that, the process was pretty much the same as installing OSX on a Mac, aside from needing to run one post install app that patches things up.

I was talking with someone about it a few weeks ago and they said it was a nightmare. Video card had to be very specific in order for the driver to work.

What are the limitations in terms of hardware? Did you select the hardware with the intention of doing a Hackintosh?

Yes. There is a site run that provides all the tools and also has a listing of tested builds for different uses.

I bought from the list and I am dead serious when I say that it took me 90 minutes. Granted I had the boot disk and all that ready to go.

I still have tidy things up and put the case together, but everything else was pretty much as easy as installing OSX and running a post install app with all the fixes.

http://www.tonymacx86.com/

Here's another tested build someone did for $250, if you want to give it a shot for yourself on the cheap. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. My kids had fun watching and asking questions.

I was just going to post that link...

I'm reading that site now. Very interesting stuff.

Me and a friend of mine attempted to install OSX on one of our machines about 5 years ago when Apple machines became Intel machines... we spent about 12 hours trying to prepare it for the OS installation and never actually got it up.

Sounds like the configuration has become very streamlined.

I had it running on a little 10'' Dell Netbook a few years back.

That was a bit of a process. This was a piece of cake.

Why not build a CentOS machine instead?

Can I run Final Cut or the Adobe Suite on Linux? :winkwink:

Probably not. I run all my Adobe stuff on Windows, and then my really, really good custom software that shall not be spoken of runs on Linux, where it really matters :)

Wait, are you saying Apple is just pc but twice as expensive because of an Apple logo?

I've always been an Apple user and I've always said that.

I'm not needing $2000+ in support. :winkwink:

Let us know how stable final cut is.. and what version you are using.

I've never been able to get any hackintoshes with good stable final cut.

No wonder Macs is scaM spelled backwards.

I've tried to build a hackintosh twice and failed. Gave up

Yep, feel the difference :thumbsup

I would build such one by myself, but unfortunately I just hate Mac OSX as the operating system :winkwink:

Apple computes are no differ to other PC brands (e.g. Sony, Asus etc). So you avoid any possible nightmares, you just need to buy exactly the same hardware that is installed on the particular Apple PC you want to clone :pimp

I had MacOS X installed on my two my hand-made desktops (one was AND-powered and another one had Intel Core2Duo) as a backup OS for years. Those desktops were not built for Mac OS X at all, however I don't remember any problems with the Mac OS X installation, expecting a few specific driver installations + a special patch for AMD CPU.

Currently I don't have Mac OS X on my computers. Not because I can't install it, but because I consider it as an absolutely useless OS for my needs :2 cents:

No issues so far with FCPX, but I've only opened it up to see so far. I plan to run some video through it this morning.

I'm running 10.8.2 at the moment, because of some issues with 10.8.3 that they are still trying to work out, because the video card is actually now supported natively in OSX.

Aside from that, smooth sailing.

Yup! I would venture to say that a good amount of Mac users don't really know that much about computer hardware and need some kind of support to fall back on.

They can pay for support all they want. I don't need it, so I don't see the point in overpaying by more than 2 grand.

running a hackintosh for about 2 years now, rock stable no issues what so ever, final cut, photoshop ... everything works just like on an original apple hardware.

A few tips for pople that are planing a new build:

1) Buy a gigabyte motherboard with UEFI Bios (fixes a lot of sleep / wake issues)
2) Check if your Graphics Card is compatible with osx (you can go cheep and buy radeon 5450 thats what i did and run perfectly my 2 monitor setup before i upgraded)
3) maybe obvious buy an ssd (use TRIM abler in multi beast)

Fan boys from around the world are gathering outside your door to lynch you.

The time you spend trying to save money would be better spent working :2 cents:

Photoshop under Mac OS X has some major issues with fonts. If there are true-type fonts installed that it can't "eat", the Mac OS X version Photoshop will crash, while Windows versions of Photoshop will just ignore the "broken" fonts.

P.S. It doesn't matter if Mac OS X version of Photoshop is ran on native Apple PC or on so-called hackintosh :2 cents:

if anybody needs Seagate hds lmk

the 3TB getting more soon got 2tb avail

i already did that before, but its not the same as a apple machine ;)

Kids are on vacation this week. There's no actual work getting done.

It now triple boots between OSX - Windows 8 - Ubuntu Studio

duh . lol

Did some tweaking and am getting almost 16000 on Geekbench running OSX.

You can't buy a Mac that does that.

Nice, Thanks for all the info. This is on my list of things to do in the next few months.

PCIexpress slot on the MoBo is crap. 10 days of waiting on an RMA. I hate waiting to Amazon is overnighting a new one in the meantime.

If it was an Apple, I'd be back up and running after a quick trip to the Apple Store. :1orglaugh

A 12-core (6-cores per CPU) dual CPU machine can't do 16000 on Geekbench?

Not for under $1200 it won't :winkwink:

A machine on that level from Apple is in the $4-5k range. Ad at this point, it's outdated hardware. I like to tinker. This means more funds for some new lighting gear.