IMac, Mac Mini, or Mac Pro?

jrafael wrote in post #16356213


Hackintosh FTW !!!

Been there, done that.

If you are tech savvy and don't mind monkeying around trying to find kexts to make things work, then by all means go for it.

I guess I am too old. I got tired of the seemingly simplest things breaking my hackintosh and having to spend half a day getting things working correctly again.

Sold my hack, and bought a used Mac Pro to go with my Macbook Pro and Mac Mini. Everything just works. And thats just fine with me.

rdalrt wrote in post #16356625
Been there, done that.

If you are tech savvy and don't mind monkeying around trying to find kexts to make things work, then by all means go for it.

I guess I am too old. I got tired of the seemingly simplest things breaking my hackintosh and having to spend half a day getting things working correctly again.

Sold my hack, and bought a used Mac Pro to go with my Macbook Pro and Mac Mini. Everything just works. And that's just fine with me.

That's is partially true if you already have a system and want to install OSX in it, however if you are building a pc from the ground up you can piece together are very nice and easy system that will require very little intervention from your part to run almost stock osx.

In my case I bought and use dell precision M4300 from ebay $70 then bought retail snow leopard from apple store $19.99 and with the help from the folks at http://www.osxlatitude​.com/

I was able to upgrade with out much fuss to ML 10.8.5 (the only thing that I changed in the laptop was the wireless card, bought and original apple airport for $13 shipped from amazon).

All of this its no much different than installing windows and then replacing the stock Microsoft drivers for the more up to date drivers from the manufacture themselves (ati, nvidia, etc).

jrafael wrote in post #16358057
That's is partially true if you already have a system and want to install OSX in it, however if you are building a pc from the ground up you can piece together are very nice and easy system that will require very little intervention from your part to run almost stock osx.

In my case I bought and use dell precision M4300 from ebay $70 then bought retail snow leopard from apple store $19.99 and with the help from the folks at http://www.osxlatitude​.com/

I was able to upgrade with out much fuss to ML 10.8.5 (the only thing that I changed in the laptop was the wireless card, bought and original apple airport for $13 shipped from amazon).

All of this its no much different than installing windows and then replacing the stock Microsoft drivers for the more up to date drivers from the manufacture themselves (ati, nvidia, etc).

It's still work. I've had 3 Hackintoshes in the past and although you've been lucky with upgrades, point releases have to be researched to make sure you don't kernal panic your installation, and new kexts are sometimes not completely compatible depending on your hardware revisions.

That being said I loved working and building a Hackintosh but if I was working on a time critical video or paid work, it was always a worry if something would go down. I hated to pay Apples prices but in the end I got a Mini and maxed it out myself and have the peace of mind that it's reliable to a fault as far as general operation goes. I would have the same feeling if it was a standard Windows box.

flowrider wrote in post #16358359
It's still work. I've had 3 Hackintoshes in the past and although you've been lucky with upgrades, point releases have to be researched to make sure you don't kernal panic your installation, and new kexts are sometimes not completely compatible depending on your hardware revisions.

That being said I loved working and building a Hackintosh but if I was working on a time critical video or paid work, it was always a worry if something would go down. I hated to pay Apples prices but in the end I got a Mini and maxed it out myself and have the peace of mind that it's reliable to a fault as far as general operation goes. I would have the same feeling if it was a standard Windows box.

I know what you mean, however Apple user themselves are not exempt of that either:

https://discussions.ap​ple.com/message/231895​14#23189514
https://discussions.ap​ple.com/message/232597​71#23259771

not much different than using a hackintosh.

jrafael wrote in post #16358465
I know what you mean, however Apple user themselves are not exempt of that either:

https://discussions.ap​ple.com/message/231895​14#23189514
https://discussions.ap​ple.com/message/232597​71#23259771

not much different than using a hackintosh.

Too true but often an update will only break part of the mac such as wifi. An update can break the entire installation on a Hackintosh and give you a kernal panic which is significantly more trouble than missing wifi.

One thing if you have a Hack is you have to be very vigilant with your backups and it's always a good idea to keep a mirrored bootable backup handy. It's a good idea for all computer users though.

flowrider wrote in post #16358493
... you have to be very vigilant with your backups and it's always a good idea to keep a mirrored bootable backup handy. It's a good idea for all computer users though.

For this I personally found Time Machine a very handy tool.

Rushmore wrote in post #16326292
I use an iMac...

BUT.. going to do a Hackintosh..

£5000 equivalent,
for around £850

jrafael wrote in post #16356213


Hackintosh FTW !!!

It's pure fantasy to suggest a £850 hackintosh is equivalent to a Mac Pro.

Tony-S wrote in post #16358911
It's pure fantasy to suggest a £850 hackintosh is equivalent to a Mac Pro.

lol,

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=Kqjvj8mUCKI

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=DvHm_zGAMvM

http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=jSWWp_VYy6w

http://nofilmschool.co​m/build-a-hackintosh/

http://www.eoshd.com …well-as-on-a-5000-mac-pro

http://itsjustjustin.c​om …ct-hackintosh-macpro/6851

http://forums.planet5d​.com …-%28for-4K-RAW-editing%29

http://www.insanelymac​.com …-builds-for-every-budget/

For the industrious and extremely patient person by all means try and build a clone. For the rest of us that prefer a machine that just works properly after firing it up right out the box we'll continue to shell out the dough for the real deal.

I'd love to have the time to build my own, but I frankly HATE pc's with a passion and they continue to frustrate me every day at work. When I come home and fire up my Apple products I feel relaxed and confident.

jrafael wrote in post #16359814
lol,

LOL for sure. Can any of those take 128 GB of RAM?
Can any of those take two processors?
Do any of those use EEC RAM?
Do any of those use Xeon processors?

You can build a high-performance hackintosh, but they are not "equivalent" to a Mac Pro.

Tony-S wrote in post #16360133
LOL for sure. Can any of those take 128 GB of RAM?
Can any of those take two processors?
Do any of those use EEC RAM?
Do any of those use Xeon processors?

You can build a high-performance hackintosh, but they are not "equivalent" to a Mac Pro.

Lol, again.

Of course it can, did you check the youtube video that i linked, there is a guy showing off a dual processor (12 cores total) hackintosh.

Since apple moved to intel processors its easy to piece together high quality/performance equipment for less than "real" mac.

And I'm not saying hackintosh are for everyone, however all platforms and os have the fair share of issues, if you don't believe take a look at the supports forums at apple, Microsoft, Debian, etc.

All electronics components are going to fail, deteriorate or be out of spec sooner or later, example, something as simple as a capacitor it can cause blue screen of death, kernel panics, etc, there is not "black magic" or voodoo involved. some manufactures use better quality components than others but that doesn't exempt from this.

Motherboard $579.99 http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6813182354

CPU - $899.99 x 2 http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6819117267

Memory - $689.99 x 2 http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6820239276

$3,759.95

even after adding the rest of the needing componets (gpu, psu, etc) the new mac pro its going to cost probably 2x or more than that.

There is a very detailed step by step guide in this link, perhaps will help clear some of the FUD that has been posted.

http://nofilmschool.co​m/build-a-hackintosh/

Other user's super macs builds:

http://www.macbreaker.​com …on-hackintosh-server.html

http://www.tonymacx86.​com …b-geekbench-28-000-a.html

http://www.macintouch.​com/reviews/supermax/

32 cores hackintosh !!! http://www.reduser.net …s-ready-CS6-vs-REDROCKET&

Tony-S wrote in post #16360133
LOL for sure. Can any of those take 128 GB of RAM?
Can any of those take two processors?
Do any of those use EEC RAM?
Do any of those use Xeon processors?

You can build a high-performance hackintosh, but they are not "equivalent" to a Mac Pro.

Will 128 GB of ram out preform 64GB in many applications that most users will run into?

No. No it will not as for many problem sets you will barely push a 8GB, and for the vast majority of users you will barely make real use of 2GB even today.

Will 2 processors be better than 1 for a majority of processing tasks?

Nope, not even close. Most processing tasks these days barely even make use of two cores, let alone two processors.

Will most problems be better served with more expensive ECC ram?

Nope. In more than a decade of computer sciences research I can count the number of times I have had a ram corruption (that wasn't related to an actual hardware failure) on one hand. That hand looks kind of like a fist when counting them, because I've never had one.

Will most problems be best served with a Xeon Processor (of the grade Apple ships with their current line of pros)? ... Given that for 1/4 of the price you can get higher bench mark scores with an i7, I would say no, not at all.

There are lots of ways computer systems may be 'equivalent' or 'more powerful'. Through one of my jobs I have access to a few super computers. One of which is a dedicated custom cluster that cost a few million when it was brought online a year ago. It eats terabytes of data in the blink of an eye. (It has something insane like 20000 1.something ghz cores)

Clearly a better computer than my old home built desktop with an i5 right? Try loading photoshop on it...

jrafael wrote in post #16360288
Lol, again. Of course it can, did you check the youtube video that i linked, there is a guy showing off a dual processor (12 cores total) hackintosh.

Thanks for showing you can't build an equivalent to the Mac Pro for £850 ($1350).

I know all about hackintoshes. I've built 4 of them and one still runs my home theater.

You'll find that it's closer to the cost of a Mac Pro than half price.

What FUD has been posted?

Luckless wrote in post #16360330
Will 128 GB of ram out preform 64GB in many applications that most users will run into?

No, but that's not the point. The point is you can't build a Mac Pro-equivalent hackintosh for $1350. You can build an iMac-equivalent hackintosh but it will be about the same cost, sans display. I went through this a few years ago. In the end, with all the features of an iMac minus the cost of a 27" H-IPS display, the hackintosh was a bit more expensive, and that's not counting my time assembling it and troubleshooting the installation.

Tony-S wrote in post #16360451
Thanks for showing you can't build an equivalent to the Mac Pro for £850 ($1350).

Really, again check OVER HERE http://nofilmschool.co​m …a-hackintosh/comparisons​/
they show you a startup mac pro for $900.

And the other builds I linked was to respond to the other user saying that you couldn't build a fast hackintosh.

BTW here its another system for ~$1,148

http://9to5mac.com …h-mac-pro-specs-for-1148/

Another build for less than $1300

http://jmprocreative.c​om …ustom-mac-pro-hackintosh/

More Mix-and-Match hardware suggestions:

http://www.tonymacx86.​com …ember-2013.html#custo_pro

jrafael wrote in post #16360532
Really, again check OVER HERE http://nofilmschool.co​m …a-hackintosh/comparisons​/
they show you a startup mac pro for $900.

You need to reread that link. The $900 is the starting point for an i5 hackintosh. Not even close to a Mac Pro. Their "Mac Pro" hackintosh is based on an Ivy Bridge processor, not a Xeon processor.

Again, if you build a PC to the same specifications and features of a Mac Pro, it will cost just about the same as a genuine Mac Pro. No one is saying you can't build a cheap hackintosh, but by the time you add all the components to it, you'll be in the same ball-park price as a Mac.