

Ask HN: PC I can buy today to add/make Hackintosh? - usermac

I know I can DIY a PC Hackintosh but I want to buy a PC and put my legal OS X onto it. So what PC can I buy today?
======
rblatz
If it's a hobby machine go for it. They can be a lot of fun and a good way to
learn more about OS X, but if it is a work machine I wouldn't recommend it.
Things break all the time, updates will Bork your system. Sometimes the App
Store won't work. Power use issues, it's just a lot of work.

If it's a work machine I recommend buying a base Mac mini, then adding an ssd
as a second drive and maxing the ram yourself. You will get a screaming fast
machine for anything that isn't too graphics intensive like hardcore gaming.
And it will probably cost you about the same or less as building your own
hackintosh.

~~~
beardedscotsman
Just this, great for a hobby machine, but honestly it's next to impossible to
use as something you have to relay on.

For me, it's just about updates and iMessage. I use iMessage a lot, and their
security means it doesn't work on a hackintosh. Next are the updates. The
issue here, is that graphics doesn't work, or the machine doesn't boot, etc.
All fixable, but often you have to debug it once or twice.

Problem I had with the Mac Mini was I bought mine as the basic model, and its
so slow to use, the hackintosh is better. However, nothing works as well as my
MacBook for actual work.

Right now, personally, I'm waiting for the 5k iMac and when it can be used as
an external monitor. I upgrade my computer every couple years, but my old
Apple Cinema Display is 7 years old now, so I really need an iMac to be usable
as a 2nd display. Hopefully september will bring that update.

~~~
mayoff
Why not the Dell 5k monitor as your second display?

~~~
beardedscotsman
Yeah could do, but the problems with the hackintosh are a pain. I honestly
can't wait to upgrade. My current CPU is the intel 3770k and the 4.0ghz iMac
processor is around 30% faster at max usage.

I've moved most gaming to consoles, just not super interested in PC gaming and
the iMac can still do most of it.

If Apple bring out a Mac Pro though with a gaming performance GPU I might
consider that too, but thats never going to happen any time soon, lol.

Also finally I love the glassy reflective screens. Just so used to them these
days and using anything but is just odd to me.

------
mchannon
Strange how most of the comments don't address the actual question- what off
the shelf PC makes a good hackintosh?

The only off-the-shelf PC I've seen used recently is a Gigabyte Brix (Gigabyte
does make motherboards too but this is a complete computer).

Dell, etc. use their own BIOSes and while they may be compatible with
hackintoshing, not many people are putting much effort into making them
compatible. You may not be able to turn off certain instructions from the BIOS
that cause crashes.

Avoid AMD processors and AMD/ATI graphics chipsets; not as much effort has
been put into making them compatible.

One other detail- your legal OS X still has licensing terms that basically say
if the box you install it on doesn't have an Apple on it, you're violating
them.

------
SebKba
I would really advise agains even trying, unless you are simply bored. I
created a system with exact parts recommended by tonymacx86 and it took days
to get everything up and running. Even then basic stuff kept braking like
sound. Speed stepping didn't work at all so I abandoned that ship...

------
johng
Even if you don't build it, it's not a plug and play process. I'd read
everything here: [http://www.tonymacx86.com/](http://www.tonymacx86.com/)

------
tmikaeld
Been running Hackintosh for 5 years and have always used Gigabyte
Motherboards. They generally work out of the box using tonymacx86 installation
tools including upgrades.

Get an Nvidia Card (Any current model will work) if you want to avoid
installation issues and get the best performance (Nvidia have native drivers
for OS X) and make sure to enable TRIM on SSD's.

------
covercash
[https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh](https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh) is
another useful resource.

------
kanche
Back in college days, I made my dell laptop a hackintosh, at that time ati was
not supported by osx, so it was very troublesome to install - patching dsdt,
kexts and all. It broke when I updated to Lion and I stopped and installed
Arch Linux. I used to check
[http://www.insanelymac.com](http://www.insanelymac.com) forum,
[http://wiki.osx86project.org](http://wiki.osx86project.org), and,
[http://www.tonymacx86.com](http://www.tonymacx86.com) a lot. There you will
find most of the resources you need.

You might find these links useful in finding a compatible pc if you don't want
to do diy:

[http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.10.3/Port...](http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.10.3/Portables)

[http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.10.3/Desk...](http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.10.3/Desktops)

------
Korni22
There are few OEM that are actually Plug'n'Play, and even with those, you will
most likely have problems with OS X updates.

If I were you, I'd really go with DIY, fewer problems and you will gain
experience.

johng linked to tonymacx86 which is a useful resource, although I don't really
like MultiBeast since it's not actually the All-In-One solution it's supposed
to be.

insanelymac.com is also quite useful :)

------
capnhooke
Depending on why exactly you want a Hackintosh you might want to check out
Elementary OS [1]. It's a Linux distro that has the same sort of feel as Mac
OS (and it's free).

If you're looking to do development for Apple products though you're probably
better off just buying a Mac.

[1] [https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/)

~~~
touristtam
I would never understand advising getting a derivative of Ubuntu for the sake
of the UI. But I agree that if the OP wants to use Apple's environment he
should consider buying their product. I personally would rather use a
Linux/BSD system.

------
Tiopy
There are optimized parts for a hackintosh, which is why it is best to DIY.

As far as buying, the retailers will skimp on areas that are negligible or
ignored by the consumer, e.g. motherboard, RAM, PSU. This makes it difficult
to work with compatibility & OSX from a straight buy perspective versus
choosing each optimized part in a custom build.

As a warning, you might run into issues with seamless integration that is
normally experienced with Apple products via MBP/iPhone/iPad. The 'ecosystem'
doesn't like Hackintosh :D

Seconding Korni22 and insanelymac forums.

------
hitsurume
I built a hackintosh a few months ago because I really prefer OSX for
development compared to working in Windows or Linux. I spent around $700ish on
desktop parts, (i7 cpu, 16gb ram, no video card but using the intel HD default
graphics) I've been using it as my every day machine and it runs great.
Including running windows VM's in virtualbox etc. Only thing that doesn't
really work is the USB ports, which in the grand scheme of things is kind of
minor.

------
_pdeschen
Have you considered virtualization? Before adopting OSX, I went the
virtualization route myself 4 years ago. I know it works on vmware (at least
for me back then with vmw player running on Dell Linux laptop).

It probably depends on your requirements. YMMV

If you're going through this to save a few hundreds, get a mba refurbished.

~~~
mmebane
I have Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and Yosemite running in VMWare
Workstation. They work well enough to do web testing in Safari, but the video
performance has been too slow to do much else, so I don't use them for
anything too serious.

------
avinassh
Would you be assembling a desktop machine or buying a laptop?

------
Daneel_
Out of curiosity, is this Oculus VR related?

