10 ms·

I couldn't wait for the new Mac Pro

184 points by ranebo 13y ago

Void_ 13y ago
Hackintosh is fine as secondary/backup computer. I built one after I had to send my Air for repairs. But there will always be little issues. For example you can't install OS X Mavericks just yet. Being a developer this bugs me very much because I would very much like to try the new APIs.
shawnreilly 13y ago
I think it would have been better to compare this build to the iMac or the Mini. While I definitely applaud osx86 builds, I don't really find this build comparable to a Mac Pro of any recent generation. I think a much better comparison build would have been to upgrade an older Mac Pro 3.1 or 4.1 (EFI64 being the key) to 12 core with maximum ram and video card upgrades. I think right now the 4.1 is the sweet spot (considering memory prices). But even if someone maxed out the build, I don't think it would come close to the new 2013 Mac Pro. Another thing to think about here, especially for developers, is the software aspect of hacked/upgraded osx builds. When Apple releases a new OS version, or a new Xcode version, it might not work or it might be buggy / unstable. This is what happened with my old Mac Pro 1.1 and OSX 10.8 (flashed to 2.1 and upgraded 8 core 3.0ghz w/ 32gb). I was able to get up to 10.7 but 10.8 is messed up and the new 10.9 look like a no go. Which is why my old Mac Pro is now an ESXi Server (working on getting v5u1 working so I can run osx 10.8 virtualized)
- ranebo 13y ago
  I don't disagree, I'm not comparing the build I did with an actual Mac Pro. I just didn't have time to wait for it (I did this build months ago). As I mentioned at the end of the post if I had seen the tiny mac mini-esque build I linked to before I bought the case I did, I would have built something like that instead.
elithrar 13y ago
I feel this would have been more comparable with a Xeon, otherwise it's effectively a decked out iMac. Also: I toyed with the idea of building a Hackintosh to replace my 2011 iMac, instead of waiting for the 2013 model (Haswell, 780MX GPU). By the time I'd specced a comparable machine-i7, 16GB RAM, GTX 770, 3TB HDD, SSD, and a 27" Dell UltraSharp (to match the iMac panel), I really wasn't that far off the iMac's price with only a larger (256GB vs. 128GB) SSD to show for it. About < AUD$400 off, which if you consider the time to order, build, etc, isn't as significant as many make it out to be. The actual Hackintosh process seems to be relatively "smooth" if you use compatible parts and set a day aside (and a couple to research similar builds), but I dread any warranty issues (and therefore dealing with > 6 manufacturers). I'm still open to the idea, and maybe it makes more financial sense in US (there's about a 20% markup on parts here in Australia), but the price different wasn't substantial enough to offset the added effort/risk.
- blinkingled 13y ago
  >About < AUD$400 off, which if you consider the time to order, build, etc, isn't as significant as many make it out to be. Not only does it make financial sense - the upgrade-ability and repairability of a custom build in unparalleled by the iMac - esp. the newer one. You would at least need the $169 AppleCare to allow for the possibility of free repairs on the iMac for 3 years. That still leaves out upgrades. Whereas for the custom build it's just a matter of yanking out the failed part and putting in a new one at cost.
  - veidr 13y ago
    Right, I think this is where the OP's hackintosh is meaningfully similar to a Mac Pro, regardless of its specs. The Mac Pros are the only Macs in recent memory that I've kept in service for 5+ years, with multiple rounds of disk upgrades (boot SSD + 3TB, then 6TB, currently 12TB), and graphics card and RAM upgrades as well. If that's important to you, you currently either need a Mac Pro or a hackintosh. Of course, once the new trash-can Mac Pro ships, there won't be any Macs from Apple like that anymore...
    - 13y ago
jacques_chester 13y ago
Luckily for me, I don't do anything particularly CPU-intensive. I just bought the current Mac Pro. Sure, I'd like the shiny new one. But I also needed a faster Mac that could accept a bit of expansion that I could get before the end of last financial year. The hardest part about being an Apple tragic is separating my need for the zomg new shiny from simple business decisions like "is it worth getting something better now or limping along until some indeterminate future time?"
- zeckalpha 13y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
- bluedino 13y ago
  Curious to the reasons you didn't go with the iMac? Did you need a ton of cores, didn't want to deal with external disks...?
  - veidr 13y ago
    I am not the poster you are replying to, but one other reason I always choose Mac Pro is the ECC RAM. This may be mostly superstition on my part, but the fact that it can correct when cosmic rays from outer space[1] flip arbitrary bits in my computers' RAM really satisfies me. I have tried to use spare Mac Minis or notebooks as servers, too. Among my couple dozen Macs, nothing other than a Mac Pro has ever had a > 1 year uptime when really being used. Don't really know that it's the ECC RAM, but I'm sticking with it. [1]: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/rl/articles/ser-050323-talk-ref.pdf http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/rl/articles/ser-050323-talk-r...
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Two reasons. First: I have 2x30" screens. I don't want to go down. Second: I can't put multiple HDDs and SSDs in an iMac. The new system replaces a 24" iMac I bought in 2008. It made it for 5 years; the only upgrades were extra RAM when new and swapping the HDD for an SSD about 2.5 years into its lifetime. I don't know how long I'll keep this one. Under Australia's small business equipment rules, it's already fully depreciated. So there's no accounting purpose to hold onto it if I don't want to.
timerickson 13y ago
On the Retina MacBook Pro "Scrolling and animation tasks are jerky or just plain slow. I can’t deal with that in a new machine. Maybe in a year or two when it can drive its screen and a large external retina smoothly." What? Has the author used one recently? These problems were fixed within a month of original release. I've been using one for over a year and love it.
- veidr 13y ago
  They are not completely fixed. They did fix some of the issues (and continue to), but I just don't think the hardware has the capacity to make it right. There are all kinds of graphical lagging, jerking, and stuttering in my completely-maxed-out-with-all-upgrades latest model Retina MacBook Pro, when using it with 30" external monitors. Like using Exposé with a couple dozen apps open is like: - Hit button - Wait... thinking... thinking... - Still thinking... wait for it... - OK, here is the Exposé mini-window view, sans animation EDIT: AND, I should add, my monitors are the old stone-age 2560x1600 type of 30-inch, not the awesome modern high-res type ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ4BIKA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00DJ4BIKA&linkCode=as2&tag=mamaco-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ4BIKA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_... ). I don't believe the current MBP can even drive an external 4K display, which is what I think the OP was referring to. EDIT2: woah, I realized at that price, I really should be using an affiliate link where I get a kickback if anybody buys it. ;-)
- kalleboo 13y ago
  My Retina MacBook Pro bogs down graphically all the time. Websites with a lot of position:fixed or transparent backgrounds are a common culprit. iPhoto is another one. I can't imagine how bad the Apple pro apps run.
rdl 13y ago
I would have gone with a 15" rMBP; I assume he was only considering a 13" rMBP. I bought a Mac Mini 2.6 GHz i7 a month or so ago, and added a 240GB M500 SSD, 16GB RAM, and 4 x 4TB external HDDs. Pretty happy with it performance-wise, even for Final Cut. I'd probably get an Areca ARC-8050 8-drive Thunderbolt RAID (http://www.areca.us/products/thunderbolt.htm http://www.areca.us/products/thunderbolt.htm) if I needed faster storage beyond 100GB, though. It's mostly a Plex server, VMware server (although I just use Fusion at home), and testing some proxy/etc. stuff, and is connected only to a 1080p projector and 5.1 HT system. I figure not much will get upgraded on the Mini in the next 6 months -- maybe no upgrade at all, or if it is upgraded, only some pretty irrelevant-to-me stuff.
- dubya 13y ago
  It seems like the Mac Mini was dismissed too quickly. It and the Air have i7s, but the one in the Mac Mini has four cores. The geekbench numbers look to be about 1000 units(?) under the hackintosh he built, so ~8% performance loss for considerably less hassle. The Mini is more expensive as well, but will hold its value much better than the hackintosh if he wants the new Mac Pro in a couple of years.
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  > ... and added a 240GB M500 SSD ... This is a long shot but would you happen to know anything about the built-in encryption on this drive? I bought the 480 GB version a few months ago to put in a new laptop and the primary reason I chose the M500 is because it is a "Self-Encrypting Drive". IIUC, third-party software is required to actually benefit from that -- but I'm not sure that I do understand correctly.
  - rdl 13y ago
    Yeah, it is standard Opal, but I just use FileVault 2. I find AES-NI supported FileVault performance to be more than adequate. I don't know of anything but Wave which does Opal key management for OSX, particularly for boot drives. I use Fusion Drive with the 1TB drive I already had, too, so SED on just one of those drives wouldn't help.
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frozenport 13y ago
Seems ridiculous, if not snobby that the author will only run OS X.
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  Among other things, he may have a financial and training investment in Mac software. E.g. Final Cut only runs on OS X.
- eropple 13y ago
  Why? His video software is on OS X. Learning a completely new workflow that will provide no benefits in the long run? Money is cheap. Time is not. As a programmer, I won't use a non-OS X machine as my main computer. I have a desktop with Windows 7, but that's basically for games. I need Unix to feel comfortable (Cygwin doesn't cut it) and I need a desktop environment that doesn't feel hostile to just-pick-up-and-use (and that knocks out every Linux DE out there). It is the only choice that really fits my needs.
  - darkstar999 13y ago
    I challenge you to give Linux Mint a whirl. Unless you require OSX software or someone else is paying for your hardware, you're probably just throwing money at having sexy hardware.
    - eropple 13y ago
      I've used Ubuntu as recently as 13.04 and I've used multiple iterations of Mint. For me they are fundamentally unpleasant to use. GNOME is an eyesore with visually unappealing applications sorely in need of UX help; KDE is worse. Oh, yeah, and OS X handles four monitors on two graphics cards without breaking a sweat, on a Hackintosh. Ubuntu and derivatives can't handle that without multiple X sessions and the couple hours every other month I have to spend updating my Hackintosh are worth the time for that alone. Even Windows isn't as crippled as Linux is here. I haven't touched on software, either. Audio software is a mess on Linux. (Ardour, against the combination of Logic and Ableton and Reason? Ever having to configure jackd, versus Core Audio which literally just works? Why spend the time?) Programming software honestly isn't a ton better unless you find "live in Vim" fulfilling and while I used to do that, I'm much more productive in more modern software. Swing apps--i.e., IntelliJ--look like garbage on Linux and there's nothing on Windows or Linux that comes close to Xcode for C++ development. Perhaps you should reserve your "challenges" for folks who haven't been there, done that.
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- tuananh 13y ago
  haven't experienced anything like that/ or maybe some websites use some kind of graphic heavy elements causing the browser (Chrome) to switch back and forth between integrated and dedicated graphic card; causing the sluggish feeling?
burrokeet 13y ago
The Mac Pro is a beast - I am still running a first gen MacPro1,1 - it's got an IDE drive installed in the second optical bay, four 3.5 SATA drives in the main bays and 2 2.5 SATA drives connected to the extra SATA connectors hidden under the front fan. At various times it has a hardware RAID card, extra FW+USB card, extra video card, video capture card, etc. I'm just about to grab a pair of 4 core xeons, extra ram, a Radeon hd5770 and some SSD drives - flash it to a MacPro2,1 and I can run Mavericks on it, with a Geekbench of about 10k. US$400 for the upgrades not including the SSDs. I think Apple has really dropped the ball with the new Mac Pro - it is like the Cube, it looks cool but the Mac Pro is not a machine that requires form over function - people buy them to upgrade them, swap things in and out, stick them in racks, etc. Thunderbolt is not a replacement for pro use expandability - it just means a lot more cost + a lot more (very expensive) cables + a performance hit. A good excuse for Apple to discontinue the Pro line eventually though - "hey we made this great new machine, but nobody bought it, so sorry"
- mbreese 13y ago
  > a lot more cost + a lot more (very expensive) cables + a performance hit I think that the jury is still out on if there will be a significant performance hit. Thunderbolt is like having a direct connection to the PCIe bus, isn't it? Now, you're right about the extra cost, but I think that they will still be sufficiently upgradeable, albeit with more cost and fewer choices.
  - wmf 13y ago
    Thunderbolt is like PCIe x2, but a slot is x8. Whether you need that much bandwidth is being fiercely debated.
    - wazoox 13y ago
      Fiercely debated by whom? I routinely set up machines with multiple 10GigE cards, each requiring 8x PCIe to function properly. 4K uncompressed RGB 10 bits video is 1,3 GB/s (2D, 24 fps; 3D and 48 FPS would demand 5 GB/s), this just doesn't go smoothly through a 10Gb/s link. I think this is quite typical of professional workstation work (vs something you could work on a laptop).
happywolf 13y ago
It would be a good exercise when I were in college, not enough money, more than enough time. Tinkering and optimizing a rig was what i liked to do. Fast forward to now, still a hacker at heart, but the extra time I would rather to go out for a walk, do some workout, or talk to friends. Just the priorities have changed
- eropple 13y ago
  I didn't build my desktop to be a Hackintosh, but it took me about two and a half hours my first time. The second (and last), it took me an hour and fifteen minutes. It's really not that rough.
  - jlgaddis 13y ago
    The one time I tried to make a Hackintosh, it ran wonderfully for weeks (after spending tens of hours getting it going in the first place). Then an OS X update came out, I installed it, and it never recovered. Nowadays, I don't have the time or desire to have to screw with it every time a major update drops and it messes up (or even has the potential to). One of the greatest things about Apple's combination of software and hardware, IMO, is that It Just Works(TM). A Hackintosh doesn't.
    - eropple 13y ago
      > One of the greatest things about Apple's combination of software and hardware, IMO, is that It Just Works(TM). A Hackintosh doesn't. For sure, and my primary machine is a rMBP 15", but my Hackintosh is also about $2K less than an equivalent Mac Pro would be (if they even fielded Sandy Bridge ones). Personally, I can be a point release or two behind as the kinks in the updates get worked out for two grand in my pocket.
      - jlgaddis 13y ago
        Totally understand. I paid just under $2300 for my MBP in June 2011 and a few dollars more for this Thinkpad in May. Five or six years I probably would've put a serious effort towards the Hackintosh but nowadays I'd rather not have to spend much time maintaining or fixing it if/when it broke.
grecy 13y ago
I spent a lot of time getting OS X running on a Dell Mini 9 netbook. At that time, I think it was regarded as the most compatible OS X netbook, and (IIRC) absolutely all the hardware worked 100% correctly. Wifi, sound, sleep/wake, external monitor, etc. I used it extensively for 3 years as my main machine, and it never once crashed or had a single problem. The more I used it, the more I was absolutely certain of one thing. My next machine will be a genuine Apple. I bought a 2012 MBA 13inch for ~3 times the price of the mini 9 and am extremely happy. Apple hardware is spectacular.
- reedlaw 13y ago
  You say it never crashed, but then you were certain to buy an Apple next. Why?
  - chrischen 13y ago
    He bought it for the hardware.
    - reedlaw 13y ago
      What exactly makes the hardware better? I would say running for 3 years without issue is pretty decent.
      - bbrks 13y ago
        True, but cheap netbooks have plastic hinges which like to break[1] at the lightest touch, or a generally cheap feeling plastic case. Nothing beats Apple's aluminium bodies. They are ridiculously solid. [1] http://i.imgur.com/St2Daeg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/St2Daeg.jpg - Personal experience
      - chrischen 13y ago
        You'll probably have to ask him that. As a macbook owner myself, I can tell you you have to use one regularly to notice that the build quality and attention to design is just much better. Solid unibody aluminum. Auto-dimming display. Backlit keyboard. Great battery life. A trackpad that is pleasant to use and works for scrolling, gestures, and moving the mouse. Tight OS integration with all of these hardware features. It's pretty clear whoever designed these features actually used these features. I've used cheap laptops before and they get produced with shitty features like fingerprint sensors that barely work. It's as if no one actually bothered to use the features they slap onto cheap Windows laptops, because if they did, it's pretty easy to notice how useless or unusable a lot of the features are. Most people spend the money on a commodity windows computer because they need a computer. When people spend the extra money on a mac, they do so because they want a mac. Point being, people buy a mac and pay the extra because every feature they include has a purpose and has been tested to be actually useful and not just a marketing gimmick.
jlgaddis 13y ago
Slightly off-topic: Does anyone run Mac OS X under VirtualBox on Linux (or tried to)? I have a 2011 MacBook Pro (8 GB RAM, 500 GB SATA, 15") that I used almost exclusively (and occasionally used a Windows 7 VM on) until this past May when I bought a beefed up Thinkpad W530 (32 GB RAM, 480 GB SSD + 500 GB SATA, 1920x1080) and installed Linux on it I've barely touched the MBP since then and only occasionally miss it, but I did notice that OS X is apparently supported on recent versions of VirtualBox. Like the Windows 7 VM that I keep around, it might be useful to have an OS X VM that I can fire up if the need arises.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  To rescue an old iMovie project of mine, I used 10.6 (or whatever version last had Rosetta) in Virtualbox 4.something. From memory I needed a completely hacked version of OS X and I wouldn't have had a chance of getting it working from my retail disc (yes, I own one!) Given the option again, I'd rent a machine or borrow one.
  - jlgaddis 13y ago
    Heh, I'll keep the MacBook Pro around then. I don't foresee the need to ever fire up an OS X VM other than at home.
- pkteison 13y ago
  No experience with VirtualBox, but I use OS X in ESXI and VMware Fusion and both of those work for me. Initial installation of OS X can be a challenge - you may need to disable some virtualization features e.g. interrupt remapping and you can have some driver challenges depending on your specific hardware (e.g. recent mac mini needs a network driver). Officially, VMware only supports mac pro (1). Unofficially, minis also work. Haven't tried a macbook pro. 1: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=server&partner=269 http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?dev...
  - jlgaddis 13y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate the reply. It's looking like I won't bother actually attempting this, though. If it were real easy I might do it but from all of the replies it sounds like way more trouble than I want to deal with.
jwr 13y ago
I used Hackintosh machines in the past. The problem with those is that after you've invested lots of time and effort, you end up with a machine that doesn't work, but performs that task extremely fast and is relatively cheap. This article is actually great, because it paints a very realisting picture of the experience. Most hackintosh fans fail to mention that your machine might not wake up from sleep, so you either run it 24/7 or shut down fully and wait ages for it to boot afterwards. Or that you'll get weird networking problems. Or that your video card driver will crash every once in a while, taking your whole machine down with it. Or that you can't click "update" next to an OS update and usually need to manually go through the process of waiting, then reading the forums scanning for people's experiences, then moving various kexts out of the way and patching them back in after the upgrade. Yes, I realize there are many people with a nearly flawless experience. But not everyone can get one. In my case, I decided it definitely wasn't worth it and bought a real Mac Pro. Couldn't be happier, especially as 3 years ago it wasn't easy to build a machine with 32GB of RAM. Net result: yes, it was expensive, but it works.
- lostlogin 13y ago
  > Expensive but it works. This seems to be the case all too often for me. The cheap solution so often turns out to be a stop-gap before the expensive and final solution. It might be sign of old age but I'm skipping the cheap stopgap quite often now days.
  - bbrks 13y ago
    I started realising this last year at the ripe old age of 20. Sure, there's a bigger upfront cost. But you'll quickly save money once you realise you'd end up buying the expensive widget two years down the line anyway out of frustration.
    - lostlogin 13y ago
      It's more the time saving than the dollar saving I'm interested in these days. I regularly have this argument with people about media PCs. I don't touch the AppleTV, just hit play. It's been reliable for 3 years. Sure, their systems are amazing, but they take about a day of maintenance every 3 months to keep functional. Buy the tool you need the moment you need it. And I get to have shiny new tools this way.
jeswin 13y ago
I would love to do this too, but the licensing situation bothers me. Even if you owned an OSX disc, you aren't in the clear, right?
- cheald 13y ago
  IIRC, OS X is only licensed to run on official Apple hardware, so yes, it's a violation of the license to run a hackintosh.
kayoone 13y ago
Ive used OSX on relatively old (2009) Intel hardware a couple of times in the past and generally only had minor problems. Certainly less than when going with Ubuntu or other Linux distros. If youve got the money a real mac is still the way to go though!
doe88 13y ago
I actually use a hackintosh system since 2010 and I would not overstate enough how much it is a pain in the ass, I've had all kind of issues although I've always carefully chosen my components, moreover you cannot easily test previews of OS X, if you're a developer it can be a problem. And because generally xcode requires the last version of the system and also often the last version of iTunes which in turn requires to be up to date you are then forced to make every update and each update is a new risk to break something. In short at one point or another I've had issues with the graphic card or the integrated gpu, with USB 3, with the audio, with the screen resolutions on my two displays, various kernel freezes, networking... And to this day some of these issues are still unresolved. Moreover you generally should always buy a Gigabyte motherboard for maximum compatibility but with the new Z87 chipset if I were to buy a MB I'd like to buy an Asus I prefer their current lineup. So in the end you don't even buy what you really want to buy. And also if your mb have something fancy, forget it you'll likely have troubles make it work. After 3 years, my conclusion is it's not worth the energy I'm waiting the new mac pro to ditch my current setup, I can't take it anymore.
- listic 13y ago
  Can you install the version of Mac OS, iTunes and XCode that go together with each other and stick with it? I'm thinking of getting a Hackintosh on my laptop to get started with iOS development, but I'm not ready o get a new laptop just for that (and I don't really like Mac OS).
  - doe88 13y ago
    As I explained, yes you can but only for a limited time. For instance xcode 5 is only compatible OS X 10.8 and upward so it is likely that next year in june the new xcode will drop compatibility on OS X 10.8. Moreover to target new devices, new iOS versions you must use the latest xcode version thus at one point you'll need to make an update. I also don't want to scary you either because it is doable, this is what I do since 2010 and I use it as my main system (I have a mac mini and a macbook pro but I prefer a big machine for my developments) and chances are that if your system works well with a given version of OS X it will likely work well with the next version. But it will always take some time to check the forums to resolve a particular issue or to check what people have experienced before making an update and breaking anything big. What I want to say is it's not straighforward because you are somehow always forced to update if you use it for developing apps.
cheald 13y ago
Building a hackintosh will give you a deep appreciation for how well Windows manages to work on such a dizzying array of hardware profiles. Macs work so well because Apple controls the hardware pipeline from top to bottom - the fact that Windows manages to work so well without controlling any of the hardware pipeline is actually pretty incredible (and, it gives you a lot of appreciation for the work that Linux developers have done to provide a similar experience, as well as illuminating why some things still don't "Just work" like they do in Windows or OS X environments).
- tekacs 13y ago
  When you consider that Microsoft have an (at least small) team dedicated (full time job) to pretty much every area of hardware (e.g. printer team) who are given the active support of the manufacturers, it is indeed pretty impressive that Linux does as good a job as it does. :)
- mseebach 13y ago
  First, Windows doesn't "manage" a dizzying array of hardware profiles, try to install a vanilla windows-copy. Literally nothing works. The display is 640x480. USB is out, network is out. I had to burn a CD rom with the network driver to download the rest of the drivers. The vendor manages the hardware profiles and puts them on the installer CD. If manually managing drivers teaches you to "appreciate" anything, do yourself a favour and install Ubuntu, if should cure you from such folly. Even if you'll never use it a day in your life, it will show you that "managing a dizzying array of hardware profiles" might well be difficult, but it's NOT a discipline either Windows or MacOS even competes in. EDITED to respond: Yes, this was XP. But even back then, Windows was marketed (and had been for a decade) as the "just works" OS, hardware wise. I'm glad they've improved, but it took them long enough.
  - throwaway2048 13y ago
    windows vista/7/8 have greatly improved the out of the box driver stuff. I believe a fresh windows 7 install has something like 7 gigs of printer drivers alone (!)
  - 13y ago
Ecio78 13y ago
AFAIK the Apple Mac OSX licensing doesn't allow you to do so. Here's an article about different involved aspects: http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/24/are-hackintosh-computers-legal/ http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/24/are-hackintosh-com...
- legulere 13y ago
  That's irrelevant in many countries. The EULA is non-binding in many countries.
  - Ecio78 13y ago
    Interesting, I didn't know. Can you tell me some examples of these countries?
    - legulere 13y ago
      Germany http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/73768 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/73768
- yardie 13y ago
  This has been covered hundreds of times. There is nothing illegal about buying software and modifying it for your tastes. Where a lot of hackintosh resellers fail is they modify it and then distribute it, which will certainly lead to failure.
zamalek 13y ago
Am I the only one that is irked by the first paragraph: "Macbook Air hard crashed rendering in Final Cut Pro [...] I had been asking too much of the little 11” wonder." I'm used to things taking forever when I ask too much from a computer, not it outright crashing. Is this "normal" on Macs?
- ranebo 13y ago
  Definitely not normal. I covered this in much greater detail in another post http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2013/07/22/ios-app-promo-video-on-a-budget/ http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2013/07/22/ios-app-prom...
Samuel_Michon 13y ago
The author wanted a Mac Pro, but couldn’t wait a few months for it to be released. He could’ve bought an iMac and then sold it when the Mac Pro was available, that would’ve cost him $300 at the most. Instead, he chose to spend 4 full working days to build a computer that doesn’t work as well as a Mac and can stop working altogether any day with no recourse. A computer that is worth zero in the resale market. A computer that Apple will not service. By the sound of it, this is the author’s only computer, which he is dependent on to make his living, and it seems he isn’t planning to buy another Mac (even though he is a professional iOS developer). This is a cautionary tale, an extreme example of being penny wise and pound foolish.
- workbench 13y ago
  It's not even comparable to the Mac Pro which is a machine mostly aimed towards OpenCL power. The Mac Pro has 2 graphics cards, only one of them is connected to the graphics displays
- ranebo 13y ago
  As I stated in the post I also have a MacBook Air that still functions perfectly for development work. I would never recommend a Hackintosh as a developers sole computer. I also mention that I pursued this route because my gaming pc needs a refresh cpu/mb wise and this can be easily converted by dropping in my existing high end GFX card. You are right about one thing though, it is a cautionary tale. I wrote it because I didn't see enough showing the pain involved.
  - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
    In the article, you wrote you gave your MacBook Air to your girlfriend. I guess she doesn’t use it often and you have made separate user accounts? As for the part about you wanting a gaming PC anyways, I had somehow missed that. (I have to admit I zone out whenever video games are mentioned.) > seeing as my gaming PC was due for a refresh I figured I could give it a go and if it all went to hell, I’d suffer through the pain then move it to that role when the Mac Pro was ready.
- 13y ago
daGrevis 13y ago
Seems to me that this is something between OS X and Linux. Beautiful and will work with most apps on OS X (the OS X part), but not that easy to set up and may require some tinkering (the Linux part and I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that Tux is not beautiful).
nicholassmith 13y ago
I tried a Hackintosh a while back, it was mildly interesting, sucked more time than I really felt happy with and I abandoned it. Part of the reason I moved to Apple hardware (and OS X) was to avoid spending time digging around with graphics cards, and RAM and making sure I have the correct drivers. I'm sure plenty of people enjoy it, but I don't, and it's just diverting time from things I do enjoy. There was also lots of other side issues, updates could cause it to break and require a revert back to a known good point, and hope it still worked okay, or having some slight system instability. The Hackintosh project is pretty useful, but I currently don't need Mac Pro level of power, and if I did then I'd prefer to pay the premium to avoid spending time working on it. 4-5 full work days doesn't cover the cost of one, but it's certainly a non-trivial amount of it.
jasonkester 13y ago
Handy ROI calculator: Trading four days of otherwise billable work to save $1,000 makes sense if you value your time at $31.25/hr or less. Given that the tradeoff isn't even "end up with an equivalent thing at the end of the day", I'd like to take the chance to thank the author for taking the bullet for us on this one and being honest about how much work really goes in to one of these builds. I bet he'll save a lot of people a lot of pain and money.
- lucaspiller 13y ago
  He said he had done this sort of stuff before, as have I, and I would happily do this in my spare time as leisure given the opportunity.
- ranebo 13y ago
  The return is even less when you factor system upgrades in. I'm glad you got that impression, I originally wrote it up for my friends that were interested as a form of persuading them against it. I perhaps should have made the "con" section larger.
- Void_ 13y ago
  It's what they call, wait, what was it, yeah, fun.
- vacri 13y ago
  I really don't understand this point of view, that techies don't enjoy playing with tech, so therefore any such personal work done should be compared to your hourly consulting rate. Some people get a lot of entertainment out of making hybrid systems work.
  - hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
    I think it's clear in the article he setup the system to get work done on Final Cut with a cheaper machine, it was not for leisure.
    - 13y ago
jcrei 13y ago
Wouldn't it be great if you could just build a Mac Mini stack? Like a Mac Mini, on top of a Mac Mini, on top of a Mac Mini, with some sort of a daisy chained thunderbolt connection that also shares CPU/RAM/Graphic resources. That would make for a perfect Mac Pro set up and also for servers. If you would ever need extra resources, just buy a new Mac Mini and put it on top.
tehwalrus 13y ago
I've never had a "real" reason to use OS X over anything else, only convenience (numerical programming in Python, works pretty much everywhere, slightly easier on Linux in fact) - Thus, if I were in this situation I'd hack together a cheap Linux box (of which I have...three lying around the flat now, including old laptops) and work on that for a few months while waiting for a new release (more likely, saving up for the new release.) That said, if I had to work on OS X, hackintosh would probably have appealed to me (if I was spending my own money on the hardware and needed a good GPU.) Thanks for thoroughly disabusing me of this preference!
gbrhaz 13y ago
I guess I must be in the minority. I've had 3 Hackintosh machines in the past, all with different hardware. They have all worked almost perfectly. Each one did require some post-install setting up. For example, dual monitors, sound card issues, graphics etc. But the set up never took longer than a few hours, and I get a machine that is 1/4 the price of a retail Mac. I also think I can count the number of the times they've crashed on one hand.
cones688 13y ago
2 of OPs biggest gripes were onboard WIFI and BT not working, these could have been fixed with a 40 buck TP-Link card which requires no kexts and is recognized as an Airport card and a 10 buck Belkin USB Bluetooth dongle which again requires no install or configuration.
sebzz 13y ago
I've been using one since about 2011. It's true that there can be some issues depending on the hardware you have. I've only had issues with waking up my PC, and sound, and only had to download a DSDT for my motherboard. To be honest, if you already have a desktop which is somewhat compatible, then this makes total sense. The fact that you can continue upgrading hardware, add SSDs, change graphics card is fantastic. I did this as an experiment, and it worked so well that I never switched back. You no longer have to buy the latest Macs to get the latest hardware. That said, I don't think buying new hardware for making a hackintosh is necessarily the best idea. You _will_ run into problems that can vary, and these aren't necessarily things you expect when buying a new desktop. The problems mentioned in the article were harder to solve than the ones I had. But a hackintosh's return over investment is HUGE, if it works!
Udo 13y ago
I couldn't wait for the new Mac Pro as well, so I bought an 27" iMac a few days ago. Building a Hackintosh is something I considered as well, but based on my previous experiments in that area I absolutely have to concur with the others here who say it's not worth the hassle and at the end the machine never works quite right. The biggest issue for me is multi-screen support, it was the main reason I bought my old Mac Pro. But it's a loud machine and it eats a lot of power, even when idle. And let's face it, most computers spend most of their time in idle. The new iMac supports two external displays, so that was my minimum requirement met right there (possibly by accident on Apple's part). I thought I'd miss the Pro's raw computing power but when rendering or gaming the iMac doesn't seem to be significantly slower to be honest. The entire setup consumes less than half the wattage of the Pro, it's relatively cheap (around € 2k), and most importantly it's very very quiet.
nmc 13y ago
Aaron couldn't wait either, but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShNx6cdk_8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShNx6cdk_8
empire29 13y ago
As an ex-hackintosher im always thrilled to see people pull great stories like this off! I gave up on rolling my own due to the small irritations (system error when my logic mouse's USB dongle was removed) and the upgrade-paralysis; Every new rev of OS X would met w trepidation as a carved out a weekend "just in case". Either way, I hit a point where investing in an MBA was more economical... Now I can get by with a MBA; if we're talking about a MacPro then the value trade off might still be there :)
trebor 13y ago
A hackintosh is only an option when you don't mind breaking your word. In fact, this is why I bought a Mac mini instead of built a Hackintosh; I even wrote Tim Cook about a "system builder" license being something I'd dream of. The license explicitly states that you agree to install OSX on only Apple-approved/sold hardware (paraphrased). I'm aware of most the arguments why EULAs are unenforceable, why/how to bypass them, etc, but is any of that honest?
canthonytucci 13y ago
I built a very similar system using the "confirmed working" parts listed in the buyer's guide at http://tonymacx86.com http://tonymacx86.com To those poo-pooing the hackintosh, my experience was quite different this time around from when I had OS X running on a netbook a few years back. I already had a monitor, PSU, video card and ram, so the money investment for me was fairly small when compared to builing a system from scratch. It took one evening to put everything together and install the OS, I followed the instructions there and have done several system updates without new problems coming up. I had to mess around a bit with kernel extensions to get my Radeon card put out 2560x1440 properly, but my problems were solved in under an hour. I've had strange problems connecting to my wireless printer, but I solved them by plugging it in and forgetting about it. I've used it as a development machine w/ xcode and have not had any problems there. All that said, I would NEVER use this as my only mac. I'm careful about keeping work backed up and off the machine in the event that something strange comes up, so there is that added overhead, but for any data/files you care about this should be done anyway.
captainmuon 13y ago
I think all the negativity is a bit unfair. I built a Hackintosh last year, I'm very satisfied with it, and I think it was worth it also economically. The PC includes a Core i5 2500K, Radeon HD6870, 8GB RAM, SSD, nice screen of my choice, etc.. I started by installing Windows 7, but very soon I tried to install OS X (I bought the components with that option in mind). The benefit of OS X for me is that on the one hand it can run all my consumer software (especially games, MS office). On the other hand it is also a pretty nice Unix, so I can run all my work stuff (mostly scientific computing, and stuff that is distributed as source code). It took me a few evenings, but eventually I got everything working (including sound, network, and standby mode). Now its probably the most stable system I've ever had. The thing is, I was fully expecting to put in some hours of work. That is the price you pay for building your own computer, whether you install Windows, OS X, or something else. Installing OS X was only slightly more complicated than installing e.g. Linux. If you include the time needed for choosing components, assembling everything, installing applications, the difference is very small. Especially considering how hard it is to get UNIX stuff under Windows (cygwin, mingw32, and so on), or games and big proprietary applications on Linux (using Wine). Now, may people say you should just pay a bit more, and get a solid Mac that you know works fine, and has a warranty. The problem is, I couldn't afford a new Mac with the specs I needed. And you are never as flexible with a prebuilt computer as with one you build yourself. I guess my bottom line is that it is unfair to compare buying a Mac with building a Hackintosh. The alternative to a self-built Hackintosh is not a Mac Pro, but a self-built Windows PC. The Mac Pro is the alternative to an assembled Dell, HP, etc..
benjamincburns 13y ago
Am I the only one who thought (per the photo) that the author was saying he needed a Mac Pro because he makes fancy toilets?

184 points by ranebo 13y ago

Void_ 13y ago

Hackintosh is fine as secondary/backup computer. I built one after I had to send my Air for repairs. But there will always be little issues. For example you can't install OS X Mavericks just yet. Being a developer this bugs me very much because I would very much like to try the new APIs.

shawnreilly 13y ago

I think it would have been better to compare this build to the iMac or the Mini. While I definitely applaud osx86 builds, I don't really find this build comparable to a Mac Pro of any recent generation. I think a much better comparison build would have been to upgrade an older Mac Pro 3.1 or 4.1 (EFI64 being the key) to 12 core with maximum ram and video card upgrades. I think right now the 4.1 is the sweet spot (considering memory prices). But even if someone maxed out the build, I don't think it would come close to the new 2013 Mac Pro. Another thing to think about here, especially for developers, is the software aspect of hacked/upgraded osx builds. When Apple releases a new OS version, or a new Xcode version, it might not work or it might be buggy / unstable. This is what happened with my old Mac Pro 1.1 and OSX 10.8 (flashed to 2.1 and upgraded 8 core 3.0ghz w/ 32gb). I was able to get up to 10.7 but 10.8 is messed up and the new 10.9 look like a no go. Which is why my old Mac Pro is now an ESXi Server (working on getting v5u1 working so I can run osx 10.8 virtualized)

ranebo 13y ago
I don't disagree, I'm not comparing the build I did with an actual Mac Pro. I just didn't have time to wait for it (I did this build months ago). As I mentioned at the end of the post if I had seen the tiny mac mini-esque build I linked to before I bought the case I did, I would have built something like that instead.

elithrar 13y ago

I feel this would have been more comparable with a Xeon, otherwise it's effectively a decked out iMac. Also: I toyed with the idea of building a Hackintosh to replace my 2011 iMac, instead of waiting for the 2013 model (Haswell, 780MX GPU). By the time I'd specced a comparable machine-i7, 16GB RAM, GTX 770, 3TB HDD, SSD, and a 27" Dell UltraSharp (to match the iMac panel), I really wasn't that far off the iMac's price with only a larger (256GB vs. 128GB) SSD to show for it. About < AUD$400 off, which if you consider the time to order, build, etc, isn't as significant as many make it out to be. The actual Hackintosh process seems to be relatively "smooth" if you use compatible parts and set a day aside (and a couple to research similar builds), but I dread any warranty issues (and therefore dealing with > 6 manufacturers). I'm still open to the idea, and maybe it makes more financial sense in US (there's about a 20% markup on parts here in Australia), but the price different wasn't substantial enough to offset the added effort/risk.

blinkingled 13y ago
>About < AUD$400 off, which if you consider the time to order, build, etc, isn't as significant as many make it out to be. Not only does it make financial sense - the upgrade-ability and repairability of a custom build in unparalleled by the iMac - esp. the newer one. You would at least need the $169 AppleCare to allow for the possibility of free repairs on the iMac for 3 years. That still leaves out upgrades. Whereas for the custom build it's just a matter of yanking out the failed part and putting in a new one at cost.
- veidr 13y ago
  Right, I think this is where the OP's hackintosh is meaningfully similar to a Mac Pro, regardless of its specs. The Mac Pros are the only Macs in recent memory that I've kept in service for 5+ years, with multiple rounds of disk upgrades (boot SSD + 3TB, then 6TB, currently 12TB), and graphics card and RAM upgrades as well. If that's important to you, you currently either need a Mac Pro or a hackintosh. Of course, once the new trash-can Mac Pro ships, there won't be any Macs from Apple like that anymore...
  - 13y ago

jacques_chester 13y ago

Luckily for me, I don't do anything particularly CPU-intensive. I just bought the current Mac Pro. Sure, I'd like the shiny new one. But I also needed a faster Mac that could accept a bit of expansion that I could get before the end of last financial year. The hardest part about being an Apple tragic is separating my need for the zomg new shiny from simple business decisions like "is it worth getting something better now or limping along until some indeterminate future time?"

zeckalpha 13y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
bluedino 13y ago
Curious to the reasons you didn't go with the iMac? Did you need a ton of cores, didn't want to deal with external disks...?
- veidr 13y ago
  I am not the poster you are replying to, but one other reason I always choose Mac Pro is the ECC RAM. This may be mostly superstition on my part, but the fact that it can correct when cosmic rays from outer space[1] flip arbitrary bits in my computers' RAM really satisfies me. I have tried to use spare Mac Minis or notebooks as servers, too. Among my couple dozen Macs, nothing other than a Mac Pro has ever had a > 1 year uptime when really being used. Don't really know that it's the ECC RAM, but I'm sticking with it. [1]: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/rl/articles/ser-050323-talk-ref.pdf http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/rl/articles/ser-050323-talk-r...
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Two reasons. First: I have 2x30" screens. I don't want to go down. Second: I can't put multiple HDDs and SSDs in an iMac. The new system replaces a 24" iMac I bought in 2008. It made it for 5 years; the only upgrades were extra RAM when new and swapping the HDD for an SSD about 2.5 years into its lifetime. I don't know how long I'll keep this one. Under Australia's small business equipment rules, it's already fully depreciated. So there's no accounting purpose to hold onto it if I don't want to.

timerickson 13y ago

On the Retina MacBook Pro "Scrolling and animation tasks are jerky or just plain slow. I can’t deal with that in a new machine. Maybe in a year or two when it can drive its screen and a large external retina smoothly." What? Has the author used one recently? These problems were fixed within a month of original release. I've been using one for over a year and love it.

veidr 13y ago
They are not completely fixed. They did fix some of the issues (and continue to), but I just don't think the hardware has the capacity to make it right. There are all kinds of graphical lagging, jerking, and stuttering in my completely-maxed-out-with-all-upgrades latest model Retina MacBook Pro, when using it with 30" external monitors. Like using Exposé with a couple dozen apps open is like: - Hit button - Wait... thinking... thinking... - Still thinking... wait for it... - OK, here is the Exposé mini-window view, sans animation EDIT: AND, I should add, my monitors are the old stone-age 2560x1600 type of 30-inch, not the awesome modern high-res type ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ4BIKA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00DJ4BIKA&linkCode=as2&tag=mamaco-20 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DJ4BIKA/ref=as_li_qf_sp_... ). I don't believe the current MBP can even drive an external 4K display, which is what I think the OP was referring to. EDIT2: woah, I realized at that price, I really should be using an affiliate link where I get a kickback if anybody buys it. ;-)
kalleboo 13y ago
My Retina MacBook Pro bogs down graphically all the time. Websites with a lot of position:fixed or transparent backgrounds are a common culprit. iPhoto is another one. I can't imagine how bad the Apple pro apps run.

rdl 13y ago

I would have gone with a 15" rMBP; I assume he was only considering a 13" rMBP. I bought a Mac Mini 2.6 GHz i7 a month or so ago, and added a 240GB M500 SSD, 16GB RAM, and 4 x 4TB external HDDs. Pretty happy with it performance-wise, even for Final Cut. I'd probably get an Areca ARC-8050 8-drive Thunderbolt RAID (http://www.areca.us/products/thunderbolt.htm http://www.areca.us/products/thunderbolt.htm) if I needed faster storage beyond 100GB, though. It's mostly a Plex server, VMware server (although I just use Fusion at home), and testing some proxy/etc. stuff, and is connected only to a 1080p projector and 5.1 HT system. I figure not much will get upgraded on the Mini in the next 6 months -- maybe no upgrade at all, or if it is upgraded, only some pretty irrelevant-to-me stuff.

dubya 13y ago
It seems like the Mac Mini was dismissed too quickly. It and the Air have i7s, but the one in the Mac Mini has four cores. The geekbench numbers look to be about 1000 units(?) under the hackintosh he built, so ~8% performance loss for considerably less hassle. The Mini is more expensive as well, but will hold its value much better than the hackintosh if he wants the new Mac Pro in a couple of years.
jlgaddis 13y ago
> ... and added a 240GB M500 SSD ... This is a long shot but would you happen to know anything about the built-in encryption on this drive? I bought the 480 GB version a few months ago to put in a new laptop and the primary reason I chose the M500 is because it is a "Self-Encrypting Drive". IIUC, third-party software is required to actually benefit from that -- but I'm not sure that I do understand correctly.
- rdl 13y ago
  Yeah, it is standard Opal, but I just use FileVault 2. I find AES-NI supported FileVault performance to be more than adequate. I don't know of anything but Wave which does Opal key management for OSX, particularly for boot drives. I use Fusion Drive with the 1TB drive I already had, too, so SED on just one of those drives wouldn't help.

deleted 13y ago

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frozenport 13y ago

Seems ridiculous, if not snobby that the author will only run OS X.

auctiontheory 13y ago
Among other things, he may have a financial and training investment in Mac software. E.g. Final Cut only runs on OS X.
eropple 13y ago
Why? His video software is on OS X. Learning a completely new workflow that will provide no benefits in the long run? Money is cheap. Time is not. As a programmer, I won't use a non-OS X machine as my main computer. I have a desktop with Windows 7, but that's basically for games. I need Unix to feel comfortable (Cygwin doesn't cut it) and I need a desktop environment that doesn't feel hostile to just-pick-up-and-use (and that knocks out every Linux DE out there). It is the only choice that really fits my needs.
- darkstar999 13y ago
  I challenge you to give Linux Mint a whirl. Unless you require OSX software or someone else is paying for your hardware, you're probably just throwing money at having sexy hardware.
  - eropple 13y ago
    I've used Ubuntu as recently as 13.04 and I've used multiple iterations of Mint. For me they are fundamentally unpleasant to use. GNOME is an eyesore with visually unappealing applications sorely in need of UX help; KDE is worse. Oh, yeah, and OS X handles four monitors on two graphics cards without breaking a sweat, on a Hackintosh. Ubuntu and derivatives can't handle that without multiple X sessions and the couple hours every other month I have to spend updating my Hackintosh are worth the time for that alone. Even Windows isn't as crippled as Linux is here. I haven't touched on software, either. Audio software is a mess on Linux. (Ardour, against the combination of Logic and Ableton and Reason? Ever having to configure jackd, versus Core Audio which literally just works? Why spend the time?) Programming software honestly isn't a ton better unless you find "live in Vim" fulfilling and while I used to do that, I'm much more productive in more modern software. Swing apps--i.e., IntelliJ--look like garbage on Linux and there's nothing on Windows or Linux that comes close to Xcode for C++ development. Perhaps you should reserve your "challenges" for folks who haven't been there, done that.

deleted 13y ago

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tuananh 13y ago
haven't experienced anything like that/ or maybe some websites use some kind of graphic heavy elements causing the browser (Chrome) to switch back and forth between integrated and dedicated graphic card; causing the sluggish feeling?

burrokeet 13y ago

The Mac Pro is a beast - I am still running a first gen MacPro1,1 - it's got an IDE drive installed in the second optical bay, four 3.5 SATA drives in the main bays and 2 2.5 SATA drives connected to the extra SATA connectors hidden under the front fan. At various times it has a hardware RAID card, extra FW+USB card, extra video card, video capture card, etc. I'm just about to grab a pair of 4 core xeons, extra ram, a Radeon hd5770 and some SSD drives - flash it to a MacPro2,1 and I can run Mavericks on it, with a Geekbench of about 10k. US$400 for the upgrades not including the SSDs. I think Apple has really dropped the ball with the new Mac Pro - it is like the Cube, it looks cool but the Mac Pro is not a machine that requires form over function - people buy them to upgrade them, swap things in and out, stick them in racks, etc. Thunderbolt is not a replacement for pro use expandability - it just means a lot more cost + a lot more (very expensive) cables + a performance hit. A good excuse for Apple to discontinue the Pro line eventually though - "hey we made this great new machine, but nobody bought it, so sorry"

mbreese 13y ago
> a lot more cost + a lot more (very expensive) cables + a performance hit I think that the jury is still out on if there will be a significant performance hit. Thunderbolt is like having a direct connection to the PCIe bus, isn't it? Now, you're right about the extra cost, but I think that they will still be sufficiently upgradeable, albeit with more cost and fewer choices.
- wmf 13y ago
  Thunderbolt is like PCIe x2, but a slot is x8. Whether you need that much bandwidth is being fiercely debated.
  - wazoox 13y ago
    Fiercely debated by whom? I routinely set up machines with multiple 10GigE cards, each requiring 8x PCIe to function properly. 4K uncompressed RGB 10 bits video is 1,3 GB/s (2D, 24 fps; 3D and 48 FPS would demand 5 GB/s), this just doesn't go smoothly through a 10Gb/s link. I think this is quite typical of professional workstation work (vs something you could work on a laptop).

happywolf 13y ago

It would be a good exercise when I were in college, not enough money, more than enough time. Tinkering and optimizing a rig was what i liked to do. Fast forward to now, still a hacker at heart, but the extra time I would rather to go out for a walk, do some workout, or talk to friends. Just the priorities have changed

eropple 13y ago
I didn't build my desktop to be a Hackintosh, but it took me about two and a half hours my first time. The second (and last), it took me an hour and fifteen minutes. It's really not that rough.
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  The one time I tried to make a Hackintosh, it ran wonderfully for weeks (after spending tens of hours getting it going in the first place). Then an OS X update came out, I installed it, and it never recovered. Nowadays, I don't have the time or desire to have to screw with it every time a major update drops and it messes up (or even has the potential to). One of the greatest things about Apple's combination of software and hardware, IMO, is that It Just Works(TM). A Hackintosh doesn't.
  - eropple 13y ago
    > One of the greatest things about Apple's combination of software and hardware, IMO, is that It Just Works(TM). A Hackintosh doesn't. For sure, and my primary machine is a rMBP 15", but my Hackintosh is also about $2K less than an equivalent Mac Pro would be (if they even fielded Sandy Bridge ones). Personally, I can be a point release or two behind as the kinks in the updates get worked out for two grand in my pocket.
    - jlgaddis 13y ago
      Totally understand. I paid just under $2300 for my MBP in June 2011 and a few dollars more for this Thinkpad in May. Five or six years I probably would've put a serious effort towards the Hackintosh but nowadays I'd rather not have to spend much time maintaining or fixing it if/when it broke.

grecy 13y ago

I spent a lot of time getting OS X running on a Dell Mini 9 netbook. At that time, I think it was regarded as the most compatible OS X netbook, and (IIRC) absolutely all the hardware worked 100% correctly. Wifi, sound, sleep/wake, external monitor, etc. I used it extensively for 3 years as my main machine, and it never once crashed or had a single problem. The more I used it, the more I was absolutely certain of one thing. My next machine will be a genuine Apple. I bought a 2012 MBA 13inch for ~3 times the price of the mini 9 and am extremely happy. Apple hardware is spectacular.

reedlaw 13y ago
You say it never crashed, but then you were certain to buy an Apple next. Why?
- chrischen 13y ago
  He bought it for the hardware.
  - reedlaw 13y ago
    What exactly makes the hardware better? I would say running for 3 years without issue is pretty decent.
    - bbrks 13y ago
      True, but cheap netbooks have plastic hinges which like to break[1] at the lightest touch, or a generally cheap feeling plastic case. Nothing beats Apple's aluminium bodies. They are ridiculously solid. [1] http://i.imgur.com/St2Daeg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/St2Daeg.jpg - Personal experience
    - chrischen 13y ago
      You'll probably have to ask him that. As a macbook owner myself, I can tell you you have to use one regularly to notice that the build quality and attention to design is just much better. Solid unibody aluminum. Auto-dimming display. Backlit keyboard. Great battery life. A trackpad that is pleasant to use and works for scrolling, gestures, and moving the mouse. Tight OS integration with all of these hardware features. It's pretty clear whoever designed these features actually used these features. I've used cheap laptops before and they get produced with shitty features like fingerprint sensors that barely work. It's as if no one actually bothered to use the features they slap onto cheap Windows laptops, because if they did, it's pretty easy to notice how useless or unusable a lot of the features are. Most people spend the money on a commodity windows computer because they need a computer. When people spend the extra money on a mac, they do so because they want a mac. Point being, people buy a mac and pay the extra because every feature they include has a purpose and has been tested to be actually useful and not just a marketing gimmick.

jlgaddis 13y ago

Slightly off-topic: Does anyone run Mac OS X under VirtualBox on Linux (or tried to)? I have a 2011 MacBook Pro (8 GB RAM, 500 GB SATA, 15") that I used almost exclusively (and occasionally used a Windows 7 VM on) until this past May when I bought a beefed up Thinkpad W530 (32 GB RAM, 480 GB SSD + 500 GB SATA, 1920x1080) and installed Linux on it I've barely touched the MBP since then and only occasionally miss it, but I did notice that OS X is apparently supported on recent versions of VirtualBox. Like the Windows 7 VM that I keep around, it might be useful to have an OS X VM that I can fire up if the need arises.

voltagex_ 13y ago
To rescue an old iMovie project of mine, I used 10.6 (or whatever version last had Rosetta) in Virtualbox 4.something. From memory I needed a completely hacked version of OS X and I wouldn't have had a chance of getting it working from my retail disc (yes, I own one!) Given the option again, I'd rent a machine or borrow one.
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  Heh, I'll keep the MacBook Pro around then. I don't foresee the need to ever fire up an OS X VM other than at home.
pkteison 13y ago
No experience with VirtualBox, but I use OS X in ESXI and VMware Fusion and both of those work for me. Initial installation of OS X can be a challenge - you may need to disable some virtualization features e.g. interrupt remapping and you can have some driver challenges depending on your specific hardware (e.g. recent mac mini needs a network driver). Officially, VMware only supports mac pro (1). Unofficially, minis also work. Haven't tried a macbook pro. 1: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?deviceCategory=server&partner=269 http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?dev...
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate the reply. It's looking like I won't bother actually attempting this, though. If it were real easy I might do it but from all of the replies it sounds like way more trouble than I want to deal with.

jwr 13y ago

I used Hackintosh machines in the past. The problem with those is that after you've invested lots of time and effort, you end up with a machine that doesn't work, but performs that task extremely fast and is relatively cheap. This article is actually great, because it paints a very realisting picture of the experience. Most hackintosh fans fail to mention that your machine might not wake up from sleep, so you either run it 24/7 or shut down fully and wait ages for it to boot afterwards. Or that you'll get weird networking problems. Or that your video card driver will crash every once in a while, taking your whole machine down with it. Or that you can't click "update" next to an OS update and usually need to manually go through the process of waiting, then reading the forums scanning for people's experiences, then moving various kexts out of the way and patching them back in after the upgrade. Yes, I realize there are many people with a nearly flawless experience. But not everyone can get one. In my case, I decided it definitely wasn't worth it and bought a real Mac Pro. Couldn't be happier, especially as 3 years ago it wasn't easy to build a machine with 32GB of RAM. Net result: yes, it was expensive, but it works.

lostlogin 13y ago
> Expensive but it works. This seems to be the case all too often for me. The cheap solution so often turns out to be a stop-gap before the expensive and final solution. It might be sign of old age but I'm skipping the cheap stopgap quite often now days.
- bbrks 13y ago
  I started realising this last year at the ripe old age of 20. Sure, there's a bigger upfront cost. But you'll quickly save money once you realise you'd end up buying the expensive widget two years down the line anyway out of frustration.
  - lostlogin 13y ago
    It's more the time saving than the dollar saving I'm interested in these days. I regularly have this argument with people about media PCs. I don't touch the AppleTV, just hit play. It's been reliable for 3 years. Sure, their systems are amazing, but they take about a day of maintenance every 3 months to keep functional. Buy the tool you need the moment you need it. And I get to have shiny new tools this way.

jeswin 13y ago

I would love to do this too, but the licensing situation bothers me. Even if you owned an OSX disc, you aren't in the clear, right?

cheald 13y ago
IIRC, OS X is only licensed to run on official Apple hardware, so yes, it's a violation of the license to run a hackintosh.

kayoone 13y ago

Ive used OSX on relatively old (2009) Intel hardware a couple of times in the past and generally only had minor problems. Certainly less than when going with Ubuntu or other Linux distros. If youve got the money a real mac is still the way to go though!

doe88 13y ago

I actually use a hackintosh system since 2010 and I would not overstate enough how much it is a pain in the ass, I've had all kind of issues although I've always carefully chosen my components, moreover you cannot easily test previews of OS X, if you're a developer it can be a problem. And because generally xcode requires the last version of the system and also often the last version of iTunes which in turn requires to be up to date you are then forced to make every update and each update is a new risk to break something. In short at one point or another I've had issues with the graphic card or the integrated gpu, with USB 3, with the audio, with the screen resolutions on my two displays, various kernel freezes, networking... And to this day some of these issues are still unresolved. Moreover you generally should always buy a Gigabyte motherboard for maximum compatibility but with the new Z87 chipset if I were to buy a MB I'd like to buy an Asus I prefer their current lineup. So in the end you don't even buy what you really want to buy. And also if your mb have something fancy, forget it you'll likely have troubles make it work. After 3 years, my conclusion is it's not worth the energy I'm waiting the new mac pro to ditch my current setup, I can't take it anymore.

listic 13y ago
Can you install the version of Mac OS, iTunes and XCode that go together with each other and stick with it? I'm thinking of getting a Hackintosh on my laptop to get started with iOS development, but I'm not ready o get a new laptop just for that (and I don't really like Mac OS).
- doe88 13y ago
  As I explained, yes you can but only for a limited time. For instance xcode 5 is only compatible OS X 10.8 and upward so it is likely that next year in june the new xcode will drop compatibility on OS X 10.8. Moreover to target new devices, new iOS versions you must use the latest xcode version thus at one point you'll need to make an update. I also don't want to scary you either because it is doable, this is what I do since 2010 and I use it as my main system (I have a mac mini and a macbook pro but I prefer a big machine for my developments) and chances are that if your system works well with a given version of OS X it will likely work well with the next version. But it will always take some time to check the forums to resolve a particular issue or to check what people have experienced before making an update and breaking anything big. What I want to say is it's not straighforward because you are somehow always forced to update if you use it for developing apps.

cheald 13y ago

Building a hackintosh will give you a deep appreciation for how well Windows manages to work on such a dizzying array of hardware profiles. Macs work so well because Apple controls the hardware pipeline from top to bottom - the fact that Windows manages to work so well without controlling any of the hardware pipeline is actually pretty incredible (and, it gives you a lot of appreciation for the work that Linux developers have done to provide a similar experience, as well as illuminating why some things still don't "Just work" like they do in Windows or OS X environments).

tekacs 13y ago
When you consider that Microsoft have an (at least small) team dedicated (full time job) to pretty much every area of hardware (e.g. printer team) who are given the active support of the manufacturers, it is indeed pretty impressive that Linux does as good a job as it does. :)
mseebach 13y ago
First, Windows doesn't "manage" a dizzying array of hardware profiles, try to install a vanilla windows-copy. Literally nothing works. The display is 640x480. USB is out, network is out. I had to burn a CD rom with the network driver to download the rest of the drivers. The vendor manages the hardware profiles and puts them on the installer CD. If manually managing drivers teaches you to "appreciate" anything, do yourself a favour and install Ubuntu, if should cure you from such folly. Even if you'll never use it a day in your life, it will show you that "managing a dizzying array of hardware profiles" might well be difficult, but it's NOT a discipline either Windows or MacOS even competes in. EDITED to respond: Yes, this was XP. But even back then, Windows was marketed (and had been for a decade) as the "just works" OS, hardware wise. I'm glad they've improved, but it took them long enough.
- throwaway2048 13y ago
  windows vista/7/8 have greatly improved the out of the box driver stuff. I believe a fresh windows 7 install has something like 7 gigs of printer drivers alone (!)
- 13y ago

Ecio78 13y ago

AFAIK the Apple Mac OSX licensing doesn't allow you to do so. Here's an article about different involved aspects: http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/24/are-hackintosh-computers-legal/ http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/24/are-hackintosh-com...

legulere 13y ago
That's irrelevant in many countries. The EULA is non-binding in many countries.
- Ecio78 13y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know. Can you tell me some examples of these countries?
  - legulere 13y ago
    Germany http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/73768 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/73768
yardie 13y ago
This has been covered hundreds of times. There is nothing illegal about buying software and modifying it for your tastes. Where a lot of hackintosh resellers fail is they modify it and then distribute it, which will certainly lead to failure.

zamalek 13y ago

Am I the only one that is irked by the first paragraph: "Macbook Air hard crashed rendering in Final Cut Pro [...] I had been asking too much of the little 11” wonder." I'm used to things taking forever when I ask too much from a computer, not it outright crashing. Is this "normal" on Macs?

ranebo 13y ago
Definitely not normal. I covered this in much greater detail in another post http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2013/07/22/ios-app-promo-video-on-a-budget/ http://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/2013/07/22/ios-app-prom...

Samuel_Michon 13y ago

The author wanted a Mac Pro, but couldn’t wait a few months for it to be released. He could’ve bought an iMac and then sold it when the Mac Pro was available, that would’ve cost him $300 at the most. Instead, he chose to spend 4 full working days to build a computer that doesn’t work as well as a Mac and can stop working altogether any day with no recourse. A computer that is worth zero in the resale market. A computer that Apple will not service. By the sound of it, this is the author’s only computer, which he is dependent on to make his living, and it seems he isn’t planning to buy another Mac (even though he is a professional iOS developer). This is a cautionary tale, an extreme example of being penny wise and pound foolish.

workbench 13y ago
It's not even comparable to the Mac Pro which is a machine mostly aimed towards OpenCL power. The Mac Pro has 2 graphics cards, only one of them is connected to the graphics displays
ranebo 13y ago
As I stated in the post I also have a MacBook Air that still functions perfectly for development work. I would never recommend a Hackintosh as a developers sole computer. I also mention that I pursued this route because my gaming pc needs a refresh cpu/mb wise and this can be easily converted by dropping in my existing high end GFX card. You are right about one thing though, it is a cautionary tale. I wrote it because I didn't see enough showing the pain involved.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago
  In the article, you wrote you gave your MacBook Air to your girlfriend. I guess she doesn’t use it often and you have made separate user accounts? As for the part about you wanting a gaming PC anyways, I had somehow missed that. (I have to admit I zone out whenever video games are mentioned.) > seeing as my gaming PC was due for a refresh I figured I could give it a go and if it all went to hell, I’d suffer through the pain then move it to that role when the Mac Pro was ready.
13y ago

daGrevis 13y ago

Seems to me that this is something between OS X and Linux. Beautiful and will work with most apps on OS X (the OS X part), but not that easy to set up and may require some tinkering (the Linux part and I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that Tux is not beautiful).

nicholassmith 13y ago

I tried a Hackintosh a while back, it was mildly interesting, sucked more time than I really felt happy with and I abandoned it. Part of the reason I moved to Apple hardware (and OS X) was to avoid spending time digging around with graphics cards, and RAM and making sure I have the correct drivers. I'm sure plenty of people enjoy it, but I don't, and it's just diverting time from things I do enjoy. There was also lots of other side issues, updates could cause it to break and require a revert back to a known good point, and hope it still worked okay, or having some slight system instability. The Hackintosh project is pretty useful, but I currently don't need Mac Pro level of power, and if I did then I'd prefer to pay the premium to avoid spending time working on it. 4-5 full work days doesn't cover the cost of one, but it's certainly a non-trivial amount of it.

jasonkester 13y ago

Handy ROI calculator: Trading four days of otherwise billable work to save $1,000 makes sense if you value your time at $31.25/hr or less. Given that the tradeoff isn't even "end up with an equivalent thing at the end of the day", I'd like to take the chance to thank the author for taking the bullet for us on this one and being honest about how much work really goes in to one of these builds. I bet he'll save a lot of people a lot of pain and money.

lucaspiller 13y ago
He said he had done this sort of stuff before, as have I, and I would happily do this in my spare time as leisure given the opportunity.
ranebo 13y ago
The return is even less when you factor system upgrades in. I'm glad you got that impression, I originally wrote it up for my friends that were interested as a form of persuading them against it. I perhaps should have made the "con" section larger.
Void_ 13y ago
It's what they call, wait, what was it, yeah, fun.
vacri 13y ago
I really don't understand this point of view, that techies don't enjoy playing with tech, so therefore any such personal work done should be compared to your hourly consulting rate. Some people get a lot of entertainment out of making hybrid systems work.
- hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
  I think it's clear in the article he setup the system to get work done on Final Cut with a cheaper machine, it was not for leisure.
  - 13y ago

jcrei 13y ago

Wouldn't it be great if you could just build a Mac Mini stack? Like a Mac Mini, on top of a Mac Mini, on top of a Mac Mini, with some sort of a daisy chained thunderbolt connection that also shares CPU/RAM/Graphic resources. That would make for a perfect Mac Pro set up and also for servers. If you would ever need extra resources, just buy a new Mac Mini and put it on top.

tehwalrus 13y ago

I've never had a "real" reason to use OS X over anything else, only convenience (numerical programming in Python, works pretty much everywhere, slightly easier on Linux in fact) - Thus, if I were in this situation I'd hack together a cheap Linux box (of which I have...three lying around the flat now, including old laptops) and work on that for a few months while waiting for a new release (more likely, saving up for the new release.) That said, if I had to work on OS X, hackintosh would probably have appealed to me (if I was spending my own money on the hardware and needed a good GPU.) Thanks for thoroughly disabusing me of this preference!

gbrhaz 13y ago

I guess I must be in the minority. I've had 3 Hackintosh machines in the past, all with different hardware. They have all worked almost perfectly. Each one did require some post-install setting up. For example, dual monitors, sound card issues, graphics etc. But the set up never took longer than a few hours, and I get a machine that is 1/4 the price of a retail Mac. I also think I can count the number of the times they've crashed on one hand.

cones688 13y ago

2 of OPs biggest gripes were onboard WIFI and BT not working, these could have been fixed with a 40 buck TP-Link card which requires no kexts and is recognized as an Airport card and a 10 buck Belkin USB Bluetooth dongle which again requires no install or configuration.

sebzz 13y ago

I've been using one since about 2011. It's true that there can be some issues depending on the hardware you have. I've only had issues with waking up my PC, and sound, and only had to download a DSDT for my motherboard. To be honest, if you already have a desktop which is somewhat compatible, then this makes total sense. The fact that you can continue upgrading hardware, add SSDs, change graphics card is fantastic. I did this as an experiment, and it worked so well that I never switched back. You no longer have to buy the latest Macs to get the latest hardware. That said, I don't think buying new hardware for making a hackintosh is necessarily the best idea. You _will_ run into problems that can vary, and these aren't necessarily things you expect when buying a new desktop. The problems mentioned in the article were harder to solve than the ones I had. But a hackintosh's return over investment is HUGE, if it works!

Udo 13y ago

I couldn't wait for the new Mac Pro as well, so I bought an 27" iMac a few days ago. Building a Hackintosh is something I considered as well, but based on my previous experiments in that area I absolutely have to concur with the others here who say it's not worth the hassle and at the end the machine never works quite right. The biggest issue for me is multi-screen support, it was the main reason I bought my old Mac Pro. But it's a loud machine and it eats a lot of power, even when idle. And let's face it, most computers spend most of their time in idle. The new iMac supports two external displays, so that was my minimum requirement met right there (possibly by accident on Apple's part). I thought I'd miss the Pro's raw computing power but when rendering or gaming the iMac doesn't seem to be significantly slower to be honest. The entire setup consumes less than half the wattage of the Pro, it's relatively cheap (around € 2k), and most importantly it's very very quiet.

nmc 13y ago

Aaron couldn't wait either, but... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShNx6cdk_8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wShNx6cdk_8

empire29 13y ago

As an ex-hackintosher im always thrilled to see people pull great stories like this off! I gave up on rolling my own due to the small irritations (system error when my logic mouse's USB dongle was removed) and the upgrade-paralysis; Every new rev of OS X would met w trepidation as a carved out a weekend "just in case". Either way, I hit a point where investing in an MBA was more economical... Now I can get by with a MBA; if we're talking about a MacPro then the value trade off might still be there :)

trebor 13y ago

A hackintosh is only an option when you don't mind breaking your word. In fact, this is why I bought a Mac mini instead of built a Hackintosh; I even wrote Tim Cook about a "system builder" license being something I'd dream of. The license explicitly states that you agree to install OSX on only Apple-approved/sold hardware (paraphrased). I'm aware of most the arguments why EULAs are unenforceable, why/how to bypass them, etc, but is any of that honest?

canthonytucci 13y ago

I built a very similar system using the "confirmed working" parts listed in the buyer's guide at http://tonymacx86.com http://tonymacx86.com To those poo-pooing the hackintosh, my experience was quite different this time around from when I had OS X running on a netbook a few years back. I already had a monitor, PSU, video card and ram, so the money investment for me was fairly small when compared to builing a system from scratch. It took one evening to put everything together and install the OS, I followed the instructions there and have done several system updates without new problems coming up. I had to mess around a bit with kernel extensions to get my Radeon card put out 2560x1440 properly, but my problems were solved in under an hour. I've had strange problems connecting to my wireless printer, but I solved them by plugging it in and forgetting about it. I've used it as a development machine w/ xcode and have not had any problems there. All that said, I would NEVER use this as my only mac. I'm careful about keeping work backed up and off the machine in the event that something strange comes up, so there is that added overhead, but for any data/files you care about this should be done anyway.

captainmuon 13y ago

I think all the negativity is a bit unfair. I built a Hackintosh last year, I'm very satisfied with it, and I think it was worth it also economically. The PC includes a Core i5 2500K, Radeon HD6870, 8GB RAM, SSD, nice screen of my choice, etc.. I started by installing Windows 7, but very soon I tried to install OS X (I bought the components with that option in mind). The benefit of OS X for me is that on the one hand it can run all my consumer software (especially games, MS office). On the other hand it is also a pretty nice Unix, so I can run all my work stuff (mostly scientific computing, and stuff that is distributed as source code). It took me a few evenings, but eventually I got everything working (including sound, network, and standby mode). Now its probably the most stable system I've ever had. The thing is, I was fully expecting to put in some hours of work. That is the price you pay for building your own computer, whether you install Windows, OS X, or something else. Installing OS X was only slightly more complicated than installing e.g. Linux. If you include the time needed for choosing components, assembling everything, installing applications, the difference is very small. Especially considering how hard it is to get UNIX stuff under Windows (cygwin, mingw32, and so on), or games and big proprietary applications on Linux (using Wine). Now, may people say you should just pay a bit more, and get a solid Mac that you know works fine, and has a warranty. The problem is, I couldn't afford a new Mac with the specs I needed. And you are never as flexible with a prebuilt computer as with one you build yourself. I guess my bottom line is that it is unfair to compare buying a Mac with building a Hackintosh. The alternative to a self-built Hackintosh is not a Mac Pro, but a self-built Windows PC. The Mac Pro is the alternative to an assembled Dell, HP, etc..

benjamincburns 13y ago

Am I the only one who thought (per the photo) that the author was saying he needed a Mac Pro because he makes fancy toilets?