Hackintosh
 

Thinking of building a Hackintosh to replace my primary desktop. Anyone have experience with them? Anything I should be concerned of? I have little experience with Mac, it can run Windows and Mac at the same time, correct?

Been using AMD for the last 10 years, it's time to say goodbye. :(

Budget is $800-1000.

never have good experience with hackintosh, I couldn't find a stable mountain lion, mavericks img for PC.

I used leopard 10.5 two years ago, it crashes and boot loop every time I install nvidia driver, so I quitted. It is hardware sensitive, so you need to read a lot of forum to get it right.

^10.5 was a long time back.

there's a guide here that will help.

it's might be difficult to set up at first but after it shouldn't be a problem. Suggest using 10.9 as it has the least problems and more compatibility

Well, I am using this guide as reference, will I still have hardware compatibility issues?

Building a CustoMac: Buyer's Guide September 2014

no, just follow the guide

Read more about it. Seems like you need to do alot of tinkering in order to get it to work and I am not up for that. Besides, for a decent build, it will cost significantly more than what I am willing to spend.

If you follow a standard build, the tinkering will be to a minimum. And even then, there's a pretty big support group for Hackintoshes and I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard.

As for a decent build, it's going to cost just the same as a PC of similar performance (since you are using PC parts afterall).

Honestly, not worth the time. I work for the fruit stand and own several Macs, but am still a PC enthusiast with a gamer rig I progressively upgrade over time.

If you want a Mac, get a Mac.
If you want a PC, get a PC.

No point crossing them over.

If you need Windows and Mac at the same time, go Parallels or Bootcamp on a Mac instead, will work better.

A used 27" iMac from 2011 using an i5 processor can be had for under $1000. Unless you're still in high school, and have a shitload of spare time, it's better to just get a Mac to run OSX.

A Mac and PC are the same just running different operation systems.

It's probably going to take you 100 hours of fiddling and you might save $300. If $3/hr of your time still sounds good, go ahead with it. Most people do it for the challenge, like doing the Grouse Grind. Is doing the Grouse Grind a good idea? Only you can make that decision. Everyone is different.

Anyone know why OSX has such crappy driver support?

Most Hackintoshes will no longer work if you attempt to do "Updates". It's kinda like cracking Photoshop then expecting it to be able to do "Adobe Updates". If this is something you want, forget about this project. It is fairly easy to make this error. You might do an "iTunes Update" to improve security, and the OS no longer works. You then need to reinstall all over again.

This also means that you can't let Mom use the computer, because she might click "Yes" to the updates.

The Mac OS only includes drivers for the hardware that can be found in a real Mac. That is all they need to support. The Hackintosh recommended hardware list includes components have a lot of chips that are found in a real Mac.

If you have any hardware that is not in a real Mac ( i.e. your wireless N adapter), you need to find a Linux driver for it and install it manually. This can require knowledge of using the Linux command line. Learning the Linux command line is harder than learning DOS.

Bah. DOS is simple.

...but that might be because I grew up with it. :lol

^ DOS is NOTHING compared to Linux command line. :)

Like others have said, there's just too much headache, and I don't want to invest so much time in fiddling around with it. I was contemplating whether I should build it myself or just pay the money and get the shop to put it together for me. That's practically how far I will go in terms of hands on. I'm sure that I have the skills and technical expertise to get it up and running but I don't want to invest tons of hours of troubleshooting if something goes wrong. I just want it to work.

AND I did not know that a simple update from Apple could potentially break the Hackintosh OSX. Good to know.

Just buy a Mac if you want OS X.

I did a Hackintosh several years ago (2006-ish) to avoid buying a Mac and, while it worked okay (kind of) for me, it was a friggin' nightmare once it got into my GF's hands. We eventually just ended up buying an iMac.

Out of curiosity, why are you wanting to switch to OS X?

Edit: 5000th post recommending a Mac ... Ugh ... gross ...

^ LOL congrats!

For the versatility of running both, and I want to play around with it, but I'm not gonna pay premium for a Mac just to see if I'll like it.

Only difference is you can crack Photoshop and update it still (or at least with CS6) :woot2:

As many have already mentioned, it's not worth the time to build your own hackintosh. Apple to apple, you won't be able to get it much cheaper. I know for a fact that if you were to build a base model Mac Mini with components that would give you similar size, Mac mini is actually cheaper, albeit only slight. (source: my dumb friend built his "windows mini" PC)

And even if you somehow manage to set it up perfectly so there is 0 compatibility issue, whenever there is a major update on mac os(not just version, but security or bug fixing... etc), you'd have to go through the entire ordeal again.