Three complete specs for OSx86 compatible PCs | Hacker News Reader

Three complete specs for OSx86 compatible PCs

tonymacx86.blogspot.com

52 pointsmambodog41 comments

As someone who ran a hackintosh for over a year, here's the summary:

CON - even if things work now, they can and will break in the future (removed hardware support etc)

- every update takes time and work

- don't even think about running it on the hardware you already have - only use specifically built systems (such as those linked)

- backups aren't as nice as on a mac (disk cloning, time machine)

PRO - you get a lot of harddisks (internal, cheap and fast ones)

- it's almost stupid not to use a raid setup (such as 10)

- serious GPU power is affordable, but OSX is picky

- repairs are really really cheap

I'll second this. I built a hackintosh 2 years ago that ran 10.5 beautifully (leopard), with quad core, 4GB RAM, 750GB hard drive, for only $800. The problem is that now there is no driver support to run snow leopard, so I'm stuck running an OS from 2 years ago that probably won't be supported much longer, and I can't even install point releases very easily without risk of breaking my system.

So, 2 years later I've got a system that runs Windows or Linux beautifully but isn't really a functional Mac. This can be great for a short time, but just keep in mind that anything you build now will probably not run 10.7 when it comes out next year.

What hardware did you have issues with?

Not that I necessarily recommend the hackintosh route, but if you had 10.5 running, 10.6 should run as well. I had my system moved to 10.6 within a week of it's release.

I had an ATI 3870 which was supported in 10.5 but ceased to be in 10.6 - a shame, since it outperformed the nvidia cards in core graphics by a large margin.

But if you're a hacker, and you like doing it (like I do), you can bring new OS support. For instance, I wrote patches to get my system up to speed on 10.6 the week of its release. Lots of other people now use my code. That's rewarding.

Like anything, it's a tradeoff. Do you want to learn about deep osx internals? Or do you want to go back to your day job writing webapps? Both can be rewarding; it's a function of your free time and how much you want things to "just work" vs how much you want to learn.

  - don't even think about running it on the hardware you already have - 
  only use specifically built systems (such as those linked)

As far as I know, hackintosh works well in laptops. I'm running it on HP Pavilion dv5-1010us. The only hardware I can't get to work is wireless - which is admittedly quite a pain.

QED

I've been playing around with Hackintoshes since the original leaked 10.4 developer build from 2005. It's really no worse than the type of upkeep and headaches you get from using Linux on the desktop in my opinion. The quality of available applications for OSX makes it worth doing if you can put up with some tinkering.

"As Mac OS X Snow Leopard was never meant to be installed on this hardware, any drivers that work now, may need workarounds later. There are absolutely no guarantees when it comes to this stuff- but that's what makes it fun."

I guess it has to be the fun part, because these aren't that much cheaper than a Mac mini (which won't come bundled with the same headaches).

But they're also much more fuller spec'd than a Mac mini.

That's a big problem with Apple nowadays. They offer two desktops that don't have a built-in display, and there's a huge gap between the humble Mac mini and the Mac Pro. And I fear it's getting worse now that they focus so much on the mobile market.

We need a couple of new Performas...

That's a big problem with Apple nowadays.

This has been a problem with Apple since at least 2005 and really since at least 2002, when I started thinking about getting a Mac: they've never sold a decently powered, expandable box.

And it probably will continue to be a problem moving into the future.

Apple tries to push external solutions to expandability, i.e. USB and wireless (and failed with Firewire). This works for some stuff (hard drives), but it's still a big waste if you want to get a faster (GPU, CPU) iMac, but would be perfectly fine with your existing display. At least used Macs sell at a reasonable price…

And Mac Pros aren't consumer machines. They might look like medium to high grade desktop PCs, but Apple tends to see them more as the successor to SGIs and Sun workstations.

The problem is: Is there a real demand for a mid-range desktop? Even the normal market is migrating towards laptops. And they have the advantage that the power users see them as more disposable than laptops anyway, despite the price premium, and that even low-performance models are a good value for those that don't need the speed.

The only possible exception where I'd see some money coming it would be gamers. Steam is porting more and more games, so there'd actually be some usage scenarios, and the Mac hardware landscape isn't unified enough (GPU and CPU-wise) so that developers could gain much by optimizing one path only (as done with gaming consoles). But alas, the usual home-built gaming PC is almost on par with a Mac Pro anyway (or even superior), so what would Apple sell for that? And they wouldn't earn a lot from upgrades, as those are sold by third parties.

So as much as I'd like to see a bigger product palette from Apple, I certainly understand the reason why they're doing it like this. And it seems to work for them.

The bigger problem is that we don't have a good desktop hardware market anyway. There's no real competition. Linux doesn't sell hardware (in that range), there's no IBM/HP/Sun/SGI/Apollo Unix market, there's no Amiga, Atari or Be anymore. It's either parts, parts, parts or desktops/laptops not designed for one OS specifically – or Apple.

The CPU sure, but I'm wondering how usable the graphics card would be, it not being one of the graphics cards that ships with a Mac. It'd suck having am lack of drivers be a bottleneck.

If you're willing to spend a bit of time following a guide to set it up properly, your performance shouldn't be much worse than the cards that ship with real Macs. Comparing with Windows, games performance is pretty average (on par with genuine Macs) but I have no trouble with video playback, window draw/effects, and even 3D work in Silo.

The $800 budget hackintosh seems roughly equivalent to a $2600 quad core Mac Pro.

Here in Australia, the quad-core Mac Pro is $3600 AUD, and I've built myself a similarly spec'd machine for about $2000 AUD. This included some extras, like an external pro sound card, which I highly recommend to hackintosh builders as it negates having to mess around getting the chipset sound working. That said, in my case getting onboard audio working was as simple as installing the VoodooHDA kext, but as mentioned in the article YMMV.

And the $1350 build is rougly equivalent to a $3650 Mac Pro.

Roughly? The Mac Pro has a workstation-grade dual-socket motherboard with Xeon processors, ECC FB-DIMM memory, and four PCI-E x16 slots. The build quality is also significantly better than most off-the-shelf PC hardware. Granted, this isn't important to most people buying their home system to dick around with, but it IS called the "Pro" for a reason. Go spec out the same hardware from Dell or HP and you'll find similar prices.

Actually they don't use FB-DIMM ram anymore http://www.apple.com/ca/macpro/specs.html

Seems that it has gone the way of rambus.

>but it IS called the "Pro" for a reason

Exactly, the money you safe on hardware you'll lose on support issues. If I were still a student I'd probably be running a hackintosh but my time now is too valuable to dick around with such a setup and afaik there are no firms offering support for hackintoshes.

Well with the money you save you can even build another hackintosh as backup.

But if you value the time to buy parts and assemble them more then a mac is good for you.

Yeah, but you don't need that stuff unless you're Pixar or running production servers.

I think there's a market for a midrange, expandable mac. A quad-core machine with a few extra drive bays and two PCI x16 slots. A software developer's box. A Mac Mini is underpowered, but the Pro is way overpowered, esp with regards to I/O. The quad-core iMac is a step in the right direction, but it's not really expandable.

Apple has traditionally taken the position that there's not enough margin on this sort of market. But all those iOS developers have to run something. Couldn't Apple sell it at cost and write it off as developer evangelism for iOS?

Probably not. Even if you (unrealistically) assume that there isn't a huge amount of overhead to designing and maintaining another Mac product, there's a huge cost involved in complicating their product line and confusing customers. Part of Apple's computer product strategy involves an extremely simple product line with few options.

Isn't a Mac Mini a perfectly valid choice for iOS development?

There's a pretty big difference in compile time for large projects. If you're just hacking around, sure, works great. But if you make a living on iOS and do a few hundred compiles a day, it's a no brainer to buy a quad-core or eight-core machine.

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