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Comment by orf | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone here actually made a custom mac? I thought Apple tried to stop this by preventing the OS from installing and you had to do some hacky stuff to get it to work?

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Last year i7, 32gb ram.

You install via USB.

I seem to have to update my video card driver after an OS X update, but it takes less than 3 minutes.

I built it figuring worse-case scenario, I can slap Linux or Windows on it, and it will still be good hardware.

I spent more on the monitor than the system build.

If you do, I recommend purchasing the PCI-E adapter for the Apple Broadcom BCM94360CD card to have native wifi+bluetooth.

Very stable.

Any indication anywhere of the software noticing it's not running on official Apple hardware?

Not yet.

Here is an overview of the bootloader used, Clover.

https://clover-wiki.zetam.org/Technical-Background

Apple can totally see what hardware is installed. FakeSMC, IIRC, uses a spoofed serial number for the hardware which can easily be detected. I assume sending hardware profiles are a part of using iCloud or other Apple services. It isn't a stretch for them to see what you're up to.

1. iMessage App uses hardware serial and usually doesn't work on Hackintoshes without copying a serial from another working Mac.

2. DRM protected iTunes movies (the ones that don't work if you don't have a DRM capable monitor attached) won't play.

Those are the only two issues with Hackintoshes that can't be fixed by buying right hardware.

iMessage works just fine here, on two hackintosh systems, all I had to do was generate a unique serial, I did certainly not copy one from another Mac.

I did in the past (2011). Had an i7 with 16GB of RAM. It was pretty stable. Though I had problems with iMessage & OS X upgrades. Nevertheless I think it's fairly easy to build one and there is big benefit, since Apple's iMac is now the only 32GB capable machine that they sell.

> iMac is now the only 32GB capable machine that they sell.

The Mac Pro supports up to 64GB of RAM.

I doubt they sell many, if any mac pros any more.

Or a Hackintosh for less than $1,200?

The Mac Pro hasn't changed internally since 2013, calling it a professional computer is a joke at this point.

The reasoning was that newer Xeons were not fast enough to warrant a redesign. I am curious about the kind of usage a fully loaded Mac Pro is inadequate for.

Of course, you can buy a similarly capable Dell (OSX not included) for less, but you lose the hassle-free Macintoshness.

> I am curious about the kind of usage a fully loaded Mac Pro is inadequate.

Financial sanity, mostly. Those things cost $10,000+

If you spend more than 2 weeks of lost productivity over the lifetime of the machine because the hardware is not supported, the financials no longer make sense.

Not everyone is a rich guy with dream-like paychecks. With iOS you are stuck with OSX and currently the value proposition is bad.

This is a business decision. Being unable to be sure whether deadlines will be met is a cost you should factor in when acquiring hardware.

Building iOS apps doesn't require 32GB of memory.

You don't need a mac pro if your only reason for having a Mac is to run Xcode.

No. But building the backend and development for other things aside iOS, YES. Is not the current fad "Full-Stack developers"? I'm one since I start this 17 years ago (way before it was called "Desperate developer do anything for food!" instead of be "full-stack" ;).

Is not ideal to have more than 1 machine.

Very few development environments need 32gb. Would I like 32gb in my mbp? Yes. But 16gb gets the job done.

The inconveniences of using another platform (or lack of support with macOS on unsupported hardware) far outweighs the slight benefit of 32gb vs 16gb of ram.

Like 5 years old machine. So why upgrade?

We don't buy for years-ago needs, but for now-and-future.

And even ignoring this: Is also signaling. We expect top-of-the-line machine for work.

IF we use at FULL capacity OR NOT, is not the business of Apple.

A computer built from parts running an unsupported OS is most definitely not top-of-the-line.

If you are spending on memory and CPU you don't need, you are spending your money (ou your client's money) foolishly. Spend it on things that'll make you more productive.

> top-of-the-line

Define top of the line. What measurement do you use?

The reason the 2016 MBP has a 2015 Intel CPU is the same reason it has a 16GB memory limit.

Intel hasn't shipped a LPDDR4-capable quad-core mobile processor yet. Even dual-core Kaby Lake mobile processors released already don't support LPDDR4, and even if they did, they're less appropriate for a "pro" machine than previous generation quads.

[In competing devices the only machines that exceed 16GB of RAM will be using regular DDR3/4, (i.e. not low-power) and there will be a significant battery life effect, not to mention running hotter. (More power in == more heat out)

As a developer (i.e. not video/audio/graphics editing/production) the only use I can imagine that would regularly benefit from > 16GB of RAM is running multiple virtual machines to simulate a complex server environment.

This is the exact scenario I personally would like 32/64 GB of RAM to better handle. And yet, I'm still in favour of the highly portable configuration they settled on, rather than a power-hungry, hot machine using regular DDR.

however Apple should be ashamed that they still sell this in the configuration it has and worse for the price they want.

No machine should be left so long without updates. I really don't understand why Apple does that, they should be embarrassed

> I really don't understand why Apple does that

Margins. The more they can flog the same hardware, the higher the margins: you need less changes to the production chain (which are the real cost) and components get cheaper over time.

Guess who's in charge of Apple since 2013? A production-chain guy.

Built one less than a month ago. i7 6700K, 16GB RAM, Samsung 840 EVO pilfered from an old laptop, 1TB HD pulled from a Dell Poweredge T20 before filling it with NAS drives, and a GTX 950 that will be upgraded as soon as OS X drivers for the latest gen AMD or Nvidia cards are available. The motherboard I selected has tons of ports available, including USB 3.1/TB 3, and I bought an exceptionally nice case, PSU, and CPU cooler for it. It's blazing fast for everything — my top of the line 2015 15" rMBP is nearly 2x slower at tasks like compiling large projects with Xcode. The whole build costed me less than $1k.

The prevalence of hackintoshes is a direct result of a gaping hole existing in Apple's product line. Mac Pros are badly priced given their age and not everyone needs dual GPUs, but you don't have the option to reduce costs by dropping the second GPU if it's not needed. You can't opt for a more CPU/less GPU config either. The iMac is nice, but it has the reverse problem: its graphics are terribly weak for the display it drives and can never be upgraded. And of course there's the Mac Mini, which is little more than a low end headless 13" MacBook Pro, complete with the limitations of that model. There is no midrange Mac desktop that can be tailored to an individual's needs at a reasonable cost, and that's where hackintoshes come into the picture.

If Apple wants to slow down hackintoshing dramatically all they have to do is release a tower akin to the old aluminum Mac Pros and start its pricing at $1500 - $2000. People will gladly pay the price for a real Mac as long as they feel like they're getting a machine that caters to their needs. It's mostly alienated Mac fans who hackintosh, not cheapskates.

Yes. I have two running systems.

https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/7319000

https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/7246385

They are both equipped with GTX 970.

I7 (2014) with GTX780 on 16GB. Got 2x256GB SSD for each system, and works very well. Haven't got around to upgrade to Sierra as I suspect something may break.

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