To Mac or to Hack...

[rikadik]

I'm not in a position to buy a new rig now, but give it a couple of months and I definitely will be. I'm wondering whether to get an iMac or build a Hackintosh.

Using a £700 budget, if I get an iMac (with the HE discount) I get the following:

iMac £702.65
2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
250GB hard drive1
8x double-layer SuperDrive
ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT with 128MB memory

If I was to build a Hackintosh, it'd be in the following form:

Hackintosh £687.91

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache (2x4MB (4MB per core pair) Retail Boxed Processor
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory NVIDIA SLI READY EDITION CL5
Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM
MSI 8600GT Silent edition 256MB DVI HDTV PCI-E Graphics Card
Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Mid Tower Case - With 500W EarthWatts PSU
Samsung SM2032BW 20"TFT Monitor Widescreen 1680x1050 3000:1 300cd/m2 2ms VGA/DVI-D Glossy Black 3 Years Warrany

So... I obviously get a HELL of a lot more computer for my money.

But I'm slightly scared of OSx86. I want the machine to be stable. I want to run Logic Studio 8 smoothly. I want to dual boot XP or run XP on a VM.

The iMac will work great out of the box. The hackintosh could be a big mistake. I have no need whatsoever for a powerful Windows box. But the hackintosh could be sooooo good!

I just don't know which way to go. What do you guys think?

 

[alfa147x]

For all my osx86 question i would pm "Kaido"

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: alfa147x
For all my osx86 question i would pm "Kaido"

haha

There are a few caveats with building a Hackintosh:

1. An install is rarely "perfect" - be prepared to tinker!
2. No guarantee on future updates
3. Maximum 2 monitors (dual DVI on a single card)

With that said, I've had mine up and running for about 2 months now and absolutely love it. It really all comes down to research - get a good motherboard and a good video card and everything else will fall into place. So let me ask you a few questions:

Have you built computers before?

Do you like to tinker?

Are you prepared to work out the bugs in your system without getting frustrated?

 

[rikadik]

If everything really does fall into place if I get the right motherboard and video card, that is great news, as my only demand for a video card is dual-DVI and preferably silent and my only demands for a motherboard are... well... that it works. I'll be using an external sound card I already own (which will hopefully work :S), FireWire and a few USB ports important too I guess!

So to your questions...

Have I built computers before? The short answer is no. The full answer is although I've never built a computer from scratch before, I've taken apart PCs, installed new PCI cards, hard drives, memory etc. I have a good grasp of how everything fits together and a reasonably sound knowledge of computing in general. I have a mate who'd be happy to help. So building the hackintosh shouldn't be a problem.

Do I like to tinker? Hmm, I've never really played around with a computer much before to be perfectly honest. However, I'd enjoy a moderate challenge with the right help and support. Trouble is, truely, when it comes to ironing out likely problems, I will have practically no ideas what I'm doing. Sure, I'd be able to look up solutions online, follow them through, but more than likely I'd have no appreciation of the significance of what I'm doing.

Can I work out the bugs from my system without getting frustrated? Well, yes, I'm quite a calm methodical person! However, I would not be happy if after a reasonable amount of time and effort I was basically left with a powerful PC without OS X running properly on it. As said above, I want to build a rig as the centre of a music production rig. I'm used to Logic 7 Pro / Logic Studio 8 so anything but functional OS X wouldn't cut it for me. Plus, I've truly converted over to OSX since getting a MacBook 18 months ago, and only use Windows for a handful of undemanding tasks.

So as you can see, I do worry slightly about OSx86. What I'm really wondering is if theres anything to worry about. Obviously there's no guarantees in life (and certainly OSx86 ) but I really need to know if someone like myself can put together a Hackintosh that's going to be stable and do that I want. I'm up for a challenge, but a realistic one I guess!

 

[hotsoda]

Honestly in your position I would buy a real machine. Building a Hakintosh can be frustrating, and there really is no guaranty for the future. It would be a fun project to do if you're using it for a spare machine, but I would not trust it with all of my data (for the risk of it breaking one day) and important tasks.

There's no telling what Apple's product line will look like "in a couple of months", so your best option is to watch and wait.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: rikadik
If everything really does fall into place if I get the right motherboard and video card, that is great news, as my only demand for a video card is dual-DVI and preferably silent and my only demands for a motherboard are... well... that it works. I'll be using an external sound card I already own (which will hopefully work :S), FireWire and a few USB ports important too I guess!

So to your questions...

Have I built computers before? The short answer is no. The full answer is although I've never built a computer from scratch before, I've taken apart PCs, installed new PCI cards, hard drives, memory etc. I have a good grasp of how everything fits together and a reasonably sound knowledge of computing in general. I have a mate who'd be happy to help. So building the hackintosh shouldn't be a problem.

Do I like to tinker? Hmm, I've never really played around with a computer much before to be perfectly honest. However, I'd enjoy a moderate challenge with the right help and support. Trouble is, truely, when it comes to ironing out likely problems, I will have practically no ideas what I'm doing. Sure, I'd be able to look up solutions online, follow them through, but more than likely I'd have no appreciation of the significance of what I'm doing.

Can I work out the bugs from my system without getting frustrated? Well, yes, I'm quite a calm methodical person! However, I would not be happy if after a reasonable amount of time and effort I was basically left with a powerful PC without OS X running properly on it. As said above, I want to build a rig as the centre of a music production rig. I'm used to Logic 7 Pro / Logic Studio 8 so anything but functional OS X wouldn't cut it for me. Plus, I've truly converted over to OSX since getting a MacBook 18 months ago, and only use Windows for a handful of undemanding tasks.

So as you can see, I do worry slightly about OSx86. What I'm really wondering is if theres anything to worry about. Obviously there's no guarantees in life (and certainly OSx86 ) but I really need to know if someone like myself can put together a Hackintosh that's going to be stable and do that I want. I'm up for a challenge, but a realistic one I guess!

The future of the software is up in the air. Apple could release an update that kills the project. But - I'm sure that hackers will figure out a way around it, it's only a matter of time, as always. Can you afford to wait for updates? Does your software run fine as-is? I do a lot of multimedia work and I'm pretty happy with 10.5.1 for Adobe CS3, FCS2, Painter, etc.

Here are my suggestions for your hardware:

1. Quiet case, fans, and power supply (Antec Sonata III is a good place to start)
2. Intel Bad Axe 2 motherboard (Quad-proc support + onboard Firewire)
3. Intel Q6600 2.4ghz Quad-Core processor
4. 8 gigs of inexpensive ram (2gb sticks are $40 on Newegg)
5. All-SATA drives (SATA HDDs & SATA DVD)

I'm guessing you'll be using a Firewire interface for your audio work - is that right? Many PCI/PCIe cards work as well (I just find Firewire more convenient). You'll want a quiet machine to work on, so look for quiet fans, power supplies, and solidly-built cases. You may want to get a quiet HSF for the CPU if your case doesn't have dampening. For the video card, Asus makes a silent 7300GT which is 1080p-capable, but has 1 DVI and 1 VGA:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...1021&Tpk=asus%2b7300gt

I'm sure with a little research you could find a silent dual-DVI solution. My primary card is an 8800GTS and it is surprisingly quiet. Whichever motherboard you go with, make sure to do your research on compatibility and stability. The Bad Axe 2 is the board I'm most familiar with since I own one, but there are several good options out there to create an inexpensive, powerful machine.

 

[erikistired]

if you need a production machine buy a real mac, don't skimp out.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: fisher
if you need a production machine buy a real mac, don't skimp out.

Ditto, Hackintoshes aren't completely problem-free and should never be relied on for anything that matters (your data is going to be fine, but no promises that your Mac won't boot up one day). However as far as side projects go, getting a Hackintosh up & running was one of the more fun things I've tinkered with as of late.

 

[rikadik]

Thanks for all the advice guys.

Well, I suppose getting updates on time isn't hugely important. Logic Studio 8 runs fine on 10.5.1.

I completely understand that for a production machine a Hackintosh isn't going to be as realiable as a real Mac. But then, this isn't my living, I make music for fun. And the thought in a couple of months I could have a Q9450 8GB rig for the same price as a 2.0 Ghz Core 2 Duo iMac hurts. I just need to decide whether to make the leap of faith or not with OSx86. I guess I'll just keep watching it and seeing how its progresing.

If I was loaded I would just buy a Mac Pro. But I'm not. This for me just makes me wish that there was a "Mac Pro Lite" on Apple's product line. Maybe they'll refresh the iMacs with 45nm chips in the near future, who knows. A price drop in the iMacs would be nice. I'll just cross my fingers I guess!

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: rikadik
If I was loaded I would just buy a Mac Pro. But I'm not. This for me just makes me wish that there was a "Mac Pro Lite" on Apple's product line. Maybe they'll refresh the iMacs with 45nm chips in the near future, who knows. A price drop in the iMacs would be nice. I'll just cross my fingers I guess!

My fingers have permanently been crossed for a normal headless "Mac."

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: rikadik
If I was loaded I would just buy a Mac Pro. But I'm not. This for me just makes me wish that there was a "Mac Pro Lite" on Apple's product line. Maybe they'll refresh the iMacs with 45nm chips in the near future, who knows. A price drop in the iMacs would be nice. I'll just cross my fingers I guess!

My fingers have permanently been crossed for a normal headless "Mac."

Ditto. If they released a Shuttle-style SFF, that would be perfect - room for a boot drive and a Time Machine drive, and maybe a scratch drive. Also room for a real video card!