

Three complete specs for OSx86 compatible PCs - mambodog
http://tonymacx86.blogspot.com/2010/06/building-customac-three-complete-pc.html

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uuid
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

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illumin8
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.

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tvon
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.

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uuid
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.

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jsz0
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.

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bombs
"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).

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

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rbranson
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.

~~~
drewcrawford
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?

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

~~~
drewcrawford
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.

