I want some mac gay/goodness in my life. I've been thinking about buying a macbook pro, but indeed pricey. I've also been working on a 15" laptop for the past few months and its giving me claustrophobia. So i'm thinking that even w/ a nice laptop, i might want a 20-22" monitor to go with it. And then at that point... you know.

So maybe a macbook pro + monitor = $$$$$.. Or maybe i built build a hackintosh desktop. Itd cost under $1000 including monitor.. The only trick i gather is finding proven compatible hardware, and thats been made pretty easy and there are a number of recipes out there. Here's one:


Antec NSK6580 Black/ Silver 0.8mm cold-rolled steel construction ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 430W Power Supply - Retail
Item #: N82E16811129033
$119.95

ENCORE ENLGA-1320 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI Ethernet Card - Retail
Item #: N82E16833180026
Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy
$7.39

EVGA 640-P2-N824-AR GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
Item #: N82E16814130327
$30.00 Mail-in Rebate
$149.99

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KHX8500AD2K2/4GR - Retail
Item #: N82E16820104060
Return Policy: Standard Return Policy
$25.00 Mail-in Rebate
$92.99

Open Box: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813128059R
$60.00

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8500 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115036
$189.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Item #: N82E16822148288
$74.99


Grand Total:* $695.30 - $55 in rebates

Plus a monitor ~$300


Just a quick shop at newegg, not even priceshopping around. Thatd be a third the price and more powerful than any current Macbook Pro.. but its of course a desktop. I could easily dual boot into Vista and have enough power to run it well and play games. Plus itd be upgradable. I guess another con would be that by building "mac compatible", i'm limiting myself to a less than stellar motherboard which would inhibit upgrading a bit.

Ideas?

9/19/2008 11:10:54 PM

stick to cars

9/19/2008 11:15:17 PM

I actually built a few computers before i could drive

9/19/2008 11:20:39 PM

unfortunately ^^ is correct in this case

[Edited on September 19, 2008 at 11:21 PM. Reason : ^ god dammit]

9/19/2008 11:20:52 PM

http://www.efixusa.net/product_info.php?products_id=28

9/19/2008 11:26:25 PM

^yeh i've seen that, but its not entirely necessary. just use a recent kalyway (already updated up to leopard 10.5.5) and the right mobo and processor and youre set. 100% functionality now days.

9/19/2008 11:42:07 PM

i got it working on my compaq C714NR. Everything but the front audio ports.

9/20/2008 12:00:13 AM

^^except for updates from apple. i like being able to do automatic updates.

[Edited on September 20, 2008 at 12:30 AM. Reason : .]

9/20/2008 12:30:16 AM

auto update from 10.5.3 to 10.5.4 works. but no others so you need a hacked updater.

of course is not as easy as using real mac hardware, but is that ease worth two grand? dunno yet.

9/20/2008 12:35:46 AM

i've been a mac guy for years

i was part of the osx86 community waaaay back when it first started taking off

i got tired of shit not working so i sucked it up and bought a mac pro

granted, there have been some major advances (most notably in kalyway's distro), but it's still not just like having a real mac.

plus the case is much prettier

also, with the efix dongle, you can do automatic updates without killing it

[Edited on September 20, 2008 at 12:43 AM. Reason : .]

9/20/2008 12:42:52 AM

hrmm ok well i'll weight your opinion more heavily then

i'll look more into the efix thing as well

9/20/2008 12:45:48 AM

efix is really the only thing functionally different between a mac and pc in terms of operation. just get hard that there are kext's for and you're g2g.

9/20/2008 1:42:42 AM

hardware*

9/20/2008 10:40:44 AM

^^ How are you determining this?

They seem to have a lot of bizarre problems and limitations on their website, that to me suggests this isn't the "rosetta stone" that's going to bridge Macs and Windows PCs.

And for $100-something dollars, it's not worth it.

9/20/2008 12:12:22 PM

why dont you just get a mini, throw in 4 GB RAM, and some random monitor

you will be at your <$1000 price point with no extra work required

9/20/2008 12:50:29 PM

because the only thing that separates a dell intel mobo and an apple intel mobo is EFI in place of BIOS. I'm not saying this current revision is the end all in compatibility, but it's a step in the right direction. the only other thing you could suggest would be building an EFI driver for a small hypervisor like esxi and installing OSX on top of that.

9/20/2008 5:56:00 PM

the EFI (and most hacked OSXes) still only work with certain gigabyte mobos. The EFI claims to be able to offer hackless Apple updates and the use of a retail Leopard disc. Besides that, i don't see the big benefit if i already have to build to certain compatible specs

9/20/2008 8:05:18 PM

Since no one has, I'll ask (could solve the whole problem)...

Quote :

"I want some mac gay/goodness in my life. "

...why?

9/21/2008 10:23:50 PM

because the Apple ads have brainwashed me.

9/21/2008 10:57:18 PM

Don't do it...I've been messing with it for years. I broke down bought a macbook.

Now, I'm on my Vista machine I built and love it.

9/23/2008 1:06:47 PM

just buy a mac dude, its easier.

9/23/2008 1:17:24 PM

bump

11/17/2009 10:19:49 PM

Quote :

"just buy a mac dude, its easier."

and more expensive

11/17/2009 10:38:44 PM

my dell mini9 is a hackintosh, but i really don't have any helpful advice for you. i just downloaded a couple things and installed osx.

11/17/2009 11:32:03 PM

can you run the iphone SDK?

11/18/2009 12:00:46 AM

i have. msi wind.

11/18/2009 12:59:00 AM

I'm trying to use my PC to dual boot Windows 7 and OSX. Windows is already installed. I downloaded Kalyway and tried to install, and it hangs up. It goes to the point where you enter "-v" and then another page of text and it just sits there. I downloaded and tried with iATKOS v1.0 and it just reboots after you enter the "-v" back to the same point. Any suggestions?

11/18/2009 2:23:29 AM

You could just buy a loaded MacBook Pro from me for around $700 (less for a normal white MacBook or a Pro with a few scratches) and have plenty left over to buy a nice big monitor for it too. I've been getting in a TON of Apple hardware as of late, so I have a lot of pretty decent stuff.

11/18/2009 3:46:50 AM

^^Try iATKOS v7.

11/18/2009 6:26:11 AM

Quote :

"can you run the iphone SDK?"

haven't tried. i'm running leopard 10.5.4 (i think it's .4, i'm not going to update to risk being shut out). i'm not sure of the system requirements for sdk, but my netbook has a 16gb ssd, 2gb ram.

11/18/2009 9:36:18 AM

i got kalyway 10.5.2 to install finally. i had to flash the bios to an older version.

Now my biggest problem is that ethernet doesn't work. I have read it's common but there are ways around it. I've tried some but any suggestions from you guys would be great.

My mobo is a MSI P6N SLI Platnum 650i.

Thanks for any help.

12/4/2009 8:13:33 AM

what are you wanting a mac for? I mean, if you're not editing video or churning out after effects (which, in the last 2 distros are faster on pc anyway) what do you need the horsepower for?

I'd get a first or second-gen intel based mac off craigslist and have at it.

I gave up on Apple when they sent out the information that my $12,000 mac pro was not going to be updated any more since they switched to intel architecture. That's like saying you can't fix my car any more since it's not the current model year

12/4/2009 10:19:13 AM

$12K?

12/4/2009 10:40:58 AM

Didn't 10.6.2 pretty much kill this?

12/4/2009 12:46:41 PM

I came here to post something that I apparently had already posted over a year ago.

12/4/2009 1:08:12 PM

^^only on netbooks.

http://stellarola.tumblr.com/post/238461982/lifehacker-10-6-2-update-ud3p-v3

[Edited on December 4, 2009 at 3:40 PM. Reason : .]

12/4/2009 3:31:52 PM

Quote :

"what are you wanting a mac for? I mean, if you're not editing video or churning out after effects (which, in the last 2 distros are faster on pc anyway) what do you need the horsepower for?"

Final Cut is exactly what I want it for. I do plenty of video/audio editing at work, and some things would be made easier if I could do them at home. If FCP would work on PC then I wouldnt bother

12/5/2009 12:20:57 AM