DIY Hackintosh Tutorial: Build a Mac Pro for Cheap
Tweaking the BIOS
Next we’ll need to tweak the BIOS a bit for this to work properly. Again your motherboard may be different than mine but the settings are usually the same. Most BIOSs can be accessed by pressing DEL or F1 right after system boot.
Note: Taking screenshots of the install process is not really possible so I used a digital camera.
My BIOS is version 2301. Some people say to use version 2206. So far I haven’t seen any problems with the version I’m using. If you experience problems with a later (than 2206) BIOS, or have an earlier one, then certainly change yours to 2206.
The following is a list of BIOS changes that were made. Theres a LOT more options in the BIOS but only change the ones shown here. I have laid them out in the same heirachy as found on your BIOS screen(s).
The first thing you should do however is restore your BIOS to it’s default values (this option is under the EXIT menu in your BIOS).
[Main]
Legacy Diskette : [Disabled]
[IDE Configuration]
Configure SATA As [AHCI]
ALPE ans ASP [Disabled]
IDE Detect Timeout (Sec) [0]
[Advanced]
[Jumper Free Configuration]
AI Overclocking [Manual]
CPU Frequency [333]
DRAM Frequency [DDR2-667Mhz]
[CPU Configuration]
Note: the top part of this section is grayed out.
Modify Ratio Support [Disabled]
Microcode Updation [Enabled]
Max CPUID Value Limit [Disabled]
Execute Disable Function [Enabled]
Enhance C1 Control [Auto]
CPU Internal Thermal Control [Auto]
Virtualization Technology [Disabled]
Intel(R) SpeedStep(tm) tech. [Disabled]
[Chipset]
Configure DRAM Timing by SPD [Enabled]
DRAM ECC Mode [Disabled]
Hyper Path 3 [Auto]
DRAM Throttling Threshold [Auto]
Memory Remap Feature [Enabled]
[Onboard Devices Configuration]
HD Audio Controller [Enabled]
HD Audio Mode [Non-Vista]
Front Panel Support Type [AC97]
Onboard 1394 Controller [Enabled]
Onboard PCIE GbE LAN_1 [Enabled]
Onboard PCIE GbE LAN_2 [Disabled]
LAN Option ROM [Disabled]
JMicron SATA/PATA Controller [Enabled]
JMicron Controller Mode [AHCI]
JMicron SATA/RAID BOOTROM [Disabled]
[PCI/PnP]
Plug And Play O/S [Yes]
[Power]
Suspend Mode [S3 Only]
Repost Video on S3 Resume [No]
ACPI 2.0 Support [Yes]
ACPI APIC support [Enabled]
[Hardware Monitor]
AI Quiet [Disabled]
[Boot]
[Boot Device Priority]
1st Boot Device [CDROM/DVD ROM]
2nd Boot Debice [HDD]
3rd Boot Device [Disabled]
Save your BIOS changes and reboot.
Installing Leopard
Now it’s time to boot your Leopard DVD. Put it in the drive, press your power button and pray. You should see some text that says something similar to this:
- - - - - - - Darwin/x86 boot v5.0.132 4095MB memory VESA v3.0 14MB (NVIDIA) Press any key to start up from CD-ROM, or press F8 to enter startup options. (3) - - - - - - - - -
Make sure you don’t just sit there drooling. Press a key so it starts from the CD-ROM. Eventually you will see that nice gray screen with the slightly darker gray Apple logo. Progress at last! Somehow this looks so much sweeter when the hardware cost about 30% of what a real Mac Pro costs! I took a moment to savor it. There was a lot of savoring since this screen took quite some time to get through.
Eventually you will end up with the very familiar screen as seen in the next image.
OK now we are at the first (somewhat) hurdle. Because there was no destination disk to choose from, we will need to partition and format the disk. Click on the “Utilities†tab at the top of the screen. (see the next pic) Then choose “Disk Utilityâ€.
Disk utility starts and you will see a Disk in the left pane. Click on the disk. (in my case : 298.1GB ST3320620AS). Then click “Partition†and choose 1 Partition from the Volume Scheme menu. Also give it a name. I chose “Leopardâ€. And choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for the Format type.
Important: Before you actually do the partitioning you must click the “Options†button below the Volume Scheme pane. It will then pop up a window (as follows) showing the partition scheme choices.
Choose GUID Partition Table. Sometimes you may want to choose Master Boot Record (I don’t). If you do then make sure you use the appropriate bootloader option when customizing your installation later during the install.
After this it will then pop up a dialog asking you to confirm that you actually want to proceed. Press “Partitionâ€. You should then see a screen very much like this with the information of your newly partitioned disk.
Now we are back to the “Select Destination†Screen. Hopefully you now have a destination in the window. Choose it and press continue. You should now be at the “Install Summary†screen. It is very important that you press the “Customize†button here. Do it now.
When you press the customize button you will see a screen with a few options. If you have the same hardware as I have then make it look exactly as I did in the following picture.
Note: This is where you would choose the different Bootloader if you chose MBR before. Also DO NOT choose any video drivers here. It could possibly make your system fail to boot. We will deal with it a bit later. Now you should be back to the “Install Summary†screen.
Press Install. It will pop up a dialog informing you that it is checking the installation DVD. Feel free to press skip if you are sure your media is okay. Hallelujah, it’s installing!
During this point I noticed it sort of went to sleep a little. At first I thought it crashed because the little blue bar wasn’t doing its normal flowing animation. I then moved the mouse a bit and it updated the progress bar. Phew! I thought my plans of Leopard on cheap hardware was about to be thwarted at the 11th hour. But no, I was still on that righteous path!
And righteous it was. Only 20 or so short minutes later I was greeted with the following “Install Succeeded†Screen.
I took some time to soak it in. I was so happy I almost fired up my PC so I could watch the 2008 Macworld keynote address and get all hyped up about buying the latest gadgets and overpriced hardware from Apple and renting copious amounts of movies online. Almost.
On the next page we will configure the video and wifi drivers…
Your hackintosh will die in about 3 weeks. That stuff with a 350PU, hope you don’t care of the data you have inside.
32bit only O-o?
Wow great tutorial here – and it looks like a good build you chose. If you bought a genuine PowerMac case, or an old one even, you would be set.
Wow, what an informative tutorial!
Thanks so much for posting it I have missed building PC’s. I was planning on building a Windows PC this summer, but now I’m going to build a Hackintosh. I hope you keep us posted about its performance.
I just wonder how noisy this thing is. In my experience, PCs tend to be much louder than Macs, which I dislike very much.
Could you please make that comparison too?
Thanks!
Is it upgradable though? Meaning will the system break down when doing software update?
Nice article.
Some alternative bios settings for your motherboard that you might want to consider:
Virtualization Technology [Enabled]
You can turn on virtualisation and use it with parallels if you want. Not too important. Having it on does not seem to cause problems with overclocking
Enhance C1 Control [Auto]
CPU Internal Thermal Control [Auto]
Intel(R) SpeedStep(tm) tech. [On - or auto or whatever]
I found that if I didn’t have speedstep and C1 on, sleep would not work. If I enable them and use the real apple kernel with efi boot, then sleep will work. Unfortunately having these enabled limits your overclocking potential as you can not increase the cpu voltage. It is up to the individual to decide what is more important. You have done a mild overclock so it probably doesn’t mater that you can’t increase cpu voltage in your case.
Hyper Path 3 [Disabled or off or whatever]
It is normally recommended to disable Hyper path 3 if you want to be doing overclocking above a certain amount. You have done a mild overclock so it probably doesn’t mater in your case.
I would like to stress that if people are doing overclocking, it is important to do thorough stress testing of cpu and ram. This is most easily done using windows tools such as orthos/prime95 and also using ram testing such as memtest86+. Overclockers might want to research this.
Could you mention some of the limitations of a Hackintosh? I am interested in ditching my Mac mini and building one of these.
Also, I hear the line-in, sleep and shutdown don’t function on this configuration. Could you verify this?
Thanks!
[...] žinojau, kad tai darau ir žinojau, kad to noriu. Tik gaila, kad galÄ—jau gerokai sutaupyt. Pasirodo, Intelinis Mac OS’as gali puikiai suktis ir ne ant firminÄ—s Apple įrangos. Tereikia Å¡iek tiek pasiknaisioti internete, susirankioti dalis ir Å¡tai tau savadarbis Mac Pro [...]
OMG how amazing.
Hum, initial price, price per work hour, any downtime/productivity loss, resale value, etc.
Is it really that cost effective? Or is this that ugly girl can really kiss?
Wow I really enjoyed this article and hope to see more like it here soon.
So I have just began sourcing parts for this experiment, and should have everything I need in a few days. I went with your _exact_ build except added a hard drive in order to setup RAID. I’ll report back when I have everything ready to roll…
Can anyone comment on the gaming potential running this setup and gaming through VMware Fusion on a Windows VM? Possible?
[...] how certain things are possible, that might run contrary to popular thought. The guys over at macapper have put together a nice little tutorial on what you need to put together a macpro for 600.00 on a [...]
Ive done this and its just not worth it, you can’t upgrade anything unless you wait for it to be hacked etc. also it was no where near stable when I was doing it (I have heard it has gotten better).
I’m intrigued and am considering doing this. One question though: your hard drive appears on your desktop with an orange drive icon, indicating OS X sees it as an external drive…meaning it could be accidentally ejected. Is this the case, or did you just customize the icon (I notice the dock is customized)?
Plug your HD into the black port.
It wont show up as an external HDD then.
The red port is meant for a eSATA adapter that plugs into that port, then goes on the backplane.
EFI lets you update it, you don’t need to wait for it to be hacked.
So yes, you can apply ALL offical apple updates, including the yet-to-be-released 10.5.2
It was an interesting article. This is great as a low end mac pro. Type system. So the headless imac. However it misses alot of things that people pay for in the mac pro. For example you can’t put 32gb of RAM into it. It would be some serious work to fit 4 hard drives into it(mind you thats just what case you pick) Also no optical in. But for most people thats not a problem. Noise level can be fixed with some fan controls but this will add to the cost. Remember this is also compared to the old mac pros. So the benchmarks don’t mean a thing. Because to make this same system when the 2006 mac pros came out the costs would be alot closer. The Mac Pros were cheap back then compared to dell etc. Its short on firewire ports too…only one. The FSB is slower too…..in real world performance the mac pro would win out. Particularly the new ones. But anyway this is a GREAT option for a headless imac. As long as you have some technical knowledge to do it.
[...] ArtÃculo (RSS) ¿Rendimiento de Mac a precio de PC? En MacApper tienen una guÃa estupenda de cómo montar tu propio Mac por partes con poco esfuerzo y menos [...]
[...] el Blog de Rudeworks nos informan de un estupendo tutorial para construir nuestra propia Mac Pro (también conocidas como Hackingtosh) de manera muy económica con el [...]
[...] under the Intel sun. Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800 by hacker extraordinaire Adam Pash DIY Hackintosh Tutorial: Build a Mac Pro for Cheap by Darwinian at MacApper Hack Attack : Install Leopard On your PC in Just One Step at Dailyapps [...]
[...] Desde que Apple se pasó a Intel cada vez hay más ordenadores capaces de ejecutar Mac OS de forma nativa, aunque no podemos alcanzar el rendimiento que tendrÃa en su entorno ideal, sà podemos hacernos una idea del potencial de este gran sistema operativo. En MacApper han elaborado un manual para que podamos montarnos un PC que sea lo más compatible posible con el Mac OS. [...]
Great Article and Very Interesting though like others I already own a Mac Pro system.
Jayden makes a good points about not being able to upgrade memory to 32GB of RAM, but then who can afford 32GB of DDR2 FB RAM needed for Mac Pro. Mac Pro memory is WAY over priced for something we are not getting, but the present system design doesn’t offer any other options.
Thanks for the info and I’ll look forward to updates since I may end upgrading my GFX card sooner or later.
Brian…
[...] para construir tu propia MacBook Pro. Mas barato que comprarla. Tags: Apple, HowTo, Mac, minipost, Tip, tutorial January 22, 2008 | [...]
Well, for starters, it’s not a Mac Pro because it doesn’t have Xeons with at least four cores (the minimum you can get on any of them). (I do wish Apple would fill that gap: Core2Duos in a mini tower.)
I think this was a great piece. DIY(ing) it can be hard the first couple of times, and giving clear instructions can help to get you going. The machine may not be a powerhouse, but it’s a project piece, and a learning tool. If the made for 1st year computer science students do this in lab they might come out of school with more skills they could take to the market. You made a great tutorial with a lot of detail.
32GB of ram? Sure that board only supports 8GB… but I think that’s more than enough unless you’re rendering Hollywood movies on it. In which case you wouldn’t be building a hacked together Mac.
The motherboard in this build is a great choice, I have it myself running Leopard without any issues at all. Solid!
Nice, so you’re saying we’ll spend $935 bucks, plus tax in some instances and we have to spend a few hours shopping around and a few hours working to make sure everything is right. That’s great, I like that you’ve got this done and it will help some people, but I just had to order mine online and unpack it. It works the way it’s supposed to work the moment it’s out of the box. Plus with a few minutes of shopping around I paid less than what a student would pay for a new Mac Pro. I guess the cost is about the same in the end, unless you’re a teenager and time has no value.
Bloody Razor buys DVDs at Blockbuster for full MSRP because his time is too valuable to justify checking Target to see if it’s 10 bucks cheaper there instead. Bloody Razor goes to a car dealership and asks how much the car he wants costs, then writes a check for it without any haggling or effort, because his time is too valuable to bother with researching or counter-offering or any of that mess. He just goes into the car dealership and drives out with a new car. So what if if cost him a few extra thousand dollars…he’s not some teenager whose time isn’t worth anything.
saving a couple thousand dollars on a machine that costs a couple thousand dollars is probably worth the couple of hours it takes to make this happen. I wonder how much Bloody Razor got paid to watch the Steve Jobs keynote this year?
I must say i strongly dislike people like bloody Razor saying teenagers time has no value. People like him piss me off. We aren’t all lazy butts thank you very much.
Jayden and Ben,
I agree with both of you for a few reasons. I’m well beyond the teenage years, but know personally many young computer users who do more then play games and complain about having too much homework.
I have too much homework, mine just revolves around web development for clients at 2AM in the morning.
One things is clear though, Apple needs to move on and open the door to someone else when it comes to computer systems. As much as I like my Mac Pro workstation, anyone thought about upgrading their memory or gfx card lately. Last I checked, it is pretty hard to login to Nvidia and ATI and find the latest drivers for Mac OS.
I understand Apple’s hesitation (supporting Mac Clones in the past didn’t go well, lowering their price point, etc), but companies like Dell are not going to build Mac systems with just “OkiDoki” hardware that barely works.
I’m sure Dell is also not the only ones willing to try something else beside Windows Vista and the standard Redmond failures.
I say if your motivated…you should go for it, build a Mac compatible system and do it Legit! Buy your own copy of Leopard, Mac Apps and try it out for yourself. If you need the professional workstation like the Mac Pro workstation, take the leap and enjoy what Apple really has to offer.
Hi,
I’d like to know if it’s possible to do a hackintosh with an AMD processor instead of an Intel pross?..
Yes, http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.5.1#AMD
You omitted the cost of Leopard in your price totals. At least, if you wanted to be as legit as possible. So that’s another $110 or so (at amazon.com at least).
Cool article! Rather than fork out for an iMac that comes with a screen that I don’t want, a Mac Mini that’s woefully underpowered, or a Mac Pro that is simply overpriced, this is the great fourth option that Apple doesn’t want to give its users.
And for those whining about pointless this all is because “it’s not that cheap” and how we should all be good customers and just go buy a real Mac Pro instead: yeah, well, we’re not all BMW owners.
Plus, if you already have the hard drive, casing, optical drive etc, all you’ll need to do is upgrade the motherboard, processor, RAM and maybe the graphics card. With new copy of Leopard added, that should cost about $300 to $500 (depending on speed you choose). So that’s, what, about a third the price of an iMac?
No wonder Apple doesn’t want to release OS X to other platforms.
to dilmah actually the mac pro is underpriced….by over $1000 compare it to a Dell Precision 690 with the same CPU and a competitive GPU.
Sorry the Precision T7400 not the other one i mentioned.
Would be any problem if using RAM: 4GB DDR2 800 Mhz in two dimms ?
And 8 gigas of pc800 ddr2 memory? Hacked-Macosx is 64bit or would I loose 4 gigs cos is 32bit?
[...] De todas las guÃas que hay dando vueltas, sin dudas la mejor es la de Macapper. [...]
Which disc did you use to install leopard?
Retail? Kalyway? Brazil? ToHs? or iATKOS?
Got it. Sorry read the article a bit hastily.
can i buy a pc laptop and do this hack.
what kind would be better?
The video card driver you referenced ( http://scottdangel.com/blog/?p=15 ), i cant seem to download the file. (i just get HUGE text files (30mb)) Ive asked for help there but got no answers, can you help me?
or link me to another way to drive this vid card with the same build as your hackintosh?
thanks
I have a PC running vista now,
gigabyte ga-965p-ds3
2 gb ram 800
core 2 duo e6600
do u think if i bought a separate hard drive i could do this hack and run parallels? or do the BIOS configurations not work with windows?
Hi all,
I am new to this forum. I tried to install hackintosh in my PC, immediately when it shows up the Darwin boot loader is loading it restarts. My machine configuration is as follows:
1. Intel 102GGC2 motherboard
2. Nvidia 7300 GT
3. Pentium D 3.2 GHz
4. 120 GB Seagate IDE HDD
5. 250 GB Seagate SATA
6. Creative Audigy Value
7. 1024 MB DDR2.
If anyone succeeded in installing Hackintosh in this config kindly let me know the procedure.
Thanks in advance.
pwr2thepenguins: regarding the video driver you’re having trouble with ( http://scottdangel.com/blog/?p=15 ) it’s a .PKG file, which is an archive format for use with OS X once it’s been loaded.
It will NOT be usable on your Windows box.
And now for something completely off topic…
I always thought the Realtek logo looked like a crab, not a scorpion.
I’m confused, why do those who believe their time is of such great value search and read posts in forums, let alone leave comments? If you’re not interested in the article’s topic, why bother? Possibly for the opportunity to just bitch and moan…?
In general, a DIY approach, if taken seriously, can almost always (if nothing else) lead to a better understanding of how our world works. Simply accepting the process and mechanics of any idea or device without understanding it’s core system leads to a lack of progression and allows for those in higher power to better control the masses. Take auto repair for example; imagine if it were included in our academic development growing up (as it once was), and presented as an extremely important requirement, how much stress, time, and most importantly, money we could avoid/save? Car repair does involve some tools most would not have access to in their home garage, but there’s a long list of DIY receipts that in fact, after the initial learning process, can provide the average person an opportunity to rely less on the auto repair shops. What other choice do we have but to take their word on the matter… if they say it needs replaced, then it must… right?
Point is, in certain cases (e.g. computer, auto and home repair) where the item, device, machine, whatever is a major part of our everyday lives and involves such intricate workings, wouldn’t it be wise if we were all better educated and overall less afraid to take matters into our own hands…? I think so.
So… take control and make your own Mac damn it, fight the power!
Wow… I really need to cut back on the Adderall.
Thanks man, your article inspired me to give it a shot. After some hours of trial and error, I am ecstatic with my oc’d 45nm E8400 based result. Under Leopard 10.5.2, it has turned out to be a very fast and stable machine. Faster than the Mac pro in all bench marks except threading.
While I admire the Apple engineering, as a long time Mac head, it bothered me that I could not build a fully customized machine like the PC folks could. It also seemed wasteful to me to watch a machine go obsolete without being able to upgrade CPU etc. to squeeze more life from it.
I hope that Apple will find a way to embrace this market segment and not try to stifle it. Producing their own reasonably priced, customizable, mid sized tower for hobbyists might be the solution.
Hi Darwinian,
You are a lifesaver. I was having a big headache tweaking the BIOS. I didn’t get this thing working properly, until I found your guide!.
I just wanted to thank you for your effort writing this. Keep up the good work!.
[...] é o mais próximo do que se convém chamar de Unix; se o hardware fosse compatÃvel, seria um Hackintosh) e mais o equivalente a 50 mil dólares em licenças de software “compradas” no eMule [...]
Sistema operativo con más futuro…
El sistema mas usado va a ser. MAC OSX, es mucho mas veloz, versatil, dinamico, seguro, estable, bonito y barato que cualquier otro..
Pero para que Mac OS sea el m……
Idiots like Bloody Razor don’t know that people also can buy their computers that can work straight out of a box. And yes, they deliver too. And as a matter of fact, i felt i wasted about a million bucks replying about his comment. Cuz you know, I’m a busy man!
Anyway, great writeup, and i am going to do this to my newly acquired, $600 laptop!
Hi Guys,
Owning a Mac has been elusive for me….
I have several PCs with different purposes though
This is a great leap for me
I’ll build one with an 8 gig memory, 500 gig HDD, Intel Quad Core processor, and a High End ATI Graphics Card
I have some questions though….
I want to put in some peripheral cards….
If I buy a Tuner, does it have to be a PCI or PCIe TV Tuner developed for Macs?
What about Scanners….
Using a Mac has its appeal for me for multimedia and graphics purposes
Anyone here can give me some tips?
I’d appreciate it if there would be some.
The last time I used an apple was in the Apple IIc and IIc days
Nowadays, the only apple I own is an IPod
Having the Ipod sync in its native environment would be a thrill for me
Marlou for scanners anything that will work with a normal mac will work as all you need is drivers. So anything that says its mac compatible will work. And even some things that aren’t might.
Hi
Do you have any successtion how i can get Leopard from My SD Card on my EEE Started ?
Installation is no Problem but the startup…
I will keep Windows XP on my SDD Harddrive….
Thanks in advanced
Tiilt
Hi. Thanks for the great article. This has really made me want to have a go, partly because I don’t trust Microsoft operating systems and partly because I don’t trust Apple hardware. I’m writing this on a broken G4 Powerbook by the way. The screen hinges snapped (common problem) and the screen is glued together, so to fix it is to more or less destroy it. The other G4 fried its own brain (common problem) and a new board costs about as much as the machine was worth.
Anyway, I was curious when I read some earlier comments about how you can’t fit 32gb in your machine, wondering what it would cost if you could, so I priced up a top spec mac and then looked up some of the components listed on Bizrate. The result? Well, it looks like a 32gb, twin 3.2 Xeon box with 4TB storage and an Nvidia Quattro will set you back $18399 from Apple, or $8058.10 if you build it yourself. Truth to tell, I didn’t factor in mouse, keyboard and OS, and the ram was 667, not 800, but then I couldn’t be bothered to obsess more, having already proved a point. Apple gear is way overpriced, but then, that’s not news. It’s just nice to know that the best gear can now be married to the best OS for less than you used to have to pay.
Trev you do know Apple kills you on the RAM, no one in their right mind orders RAM from apple redo you comparison ordering RAM from a 3rd party like it should be done. Apple has underpriced that machine compared to other companies, compare it to a dell with the same CPUs etc. With apple you save over $1000. Now granted anything will be cheaper if you build it yourself.
I most enjoy the apple-heads (now before you get offended I’m one of them too for the most part) talking about the “underpriced” mac pro. Yes, for what you are getting the price is more than fair – at time of release. Where apple makes a killing is on duration. That’s why they can underprice the MacPro upon release… because it will cost exactly the same amount in 6 months (or in the case of the last version 12+), however, they will be paying significantly less because the hardware will already be largely outdated and cheaper.
I have a mac… but I also have ‘hackintoshes’ that are all running perfectly with the exception of one of them not sleeping – which I don’t mind. They all run vanilla kernels, all take any software update apple pushes out, etc… etc…
The bottom line is that many people would like more power and flexibility than an iMac offers (i.e. run a 8800GT/8800GTS) with the latest graphics update, run a quad core CPU, run a very fast dual core (E8400@4GHz), etc…
All of these can be had for less than an iMac in basic configuration… and if you’re like me and have most of the hardware and cases just lying around from PC projects and clients… it’s win-win.
Not everyone needs 8way SMP – and not everyone needs 32GB of ram… sometimes you just want 2 cores running twice as fast and 4GB of much faster (albeit less reliable) Non-buffered DDR2
DON’T DO IT, DON’T USE A HACKINTOSH if u plan to use it with adobe CS3 suite, this suite is not working, there is a patch for installing but it crashs easily.
I coudn’t use cs3 suite properly yest so if there’s someone who knows how to do it PLEASE I beg u tell me at leicacanon(AT)gmail.com
I only use Photoshop CS3 and it works rock solid (and amazingly fast) with my hackintosh.
Interesting post, interesting comments.
To the Mac Pro defenders — yes, a Mac Pro can be a good deal if you want to buy something that works right out of the box and the Mac Pro has precisely the specs you need.
One of the central problems for a lot of people buying a Mac is that they don’t need the exact specs of a Mac Pro. If you’re buying a Dell (and especially if you’re building your own system), you have the option of scaling down when you don’t need some elaborate, expensive feature. With a Mac Pro, you often don’t have that option.
If what you need is a car that comes off the line really fast, a Porsche can be a very good investment. If what you need is a car to take you to work and back, a Corolla may be a better choice.
Ultimately, a Hackintosh is simply about people who like using Macs enough to want to use OS X, but want lower costs or more choice in hardware. If they weren’t Mac enthusiasts, they would just go build a system that ran something else. It’s certainly easier.
Personally, I prefer Ubuntu, though I can imagine buying a MacBook Pro to run it on (the price is in the same ballpark as a high quality ThinkPad, which is what I currently use). But I love the idea that people can buy whatever hardware they like the most and run whatever operating system they like the most on it.
DiGiCiD@L, the thing with that is most companys do the same thing with not lowering the price accordingly. If you configure a Dell precision 690 with 2 dual core 2.66ghz CPUs (same ones as the old Mac Pros) Then put a DVD burner in it. a 160gb drive(smaller then the old Mac Pros), A basic sound card. You will find the price is $3,018 This is still with a lower end GPU then the Mac Pros came stock with. That price is more expensive then the new Mac Pros, AND the old ones. Many companys do what apple does with not lowering their prices. Now i am not saying its right i am just saying don’t imply Apples the only one who does that.
I’m a pro Editor, Certified in Final Cut Pro.
I build Hackintoshes because they are much more stable and I can use any Video card on the market at half the price… I can fit 8 SATA II HDD’s in a normal $30 case from Fry’s, bought it two weeks ago.
I have a Bios, I have control over my hardware, you have to go to the Apple store, Have fun waiting 3 weeks for it to get back to you. Every piece of Hardware has Manufacturer’s warranty for 3-years, for Free!!!
By the way I can build a 8 core 2.0ghz, EFI able HAckintosh for $2000, not $4000. Mine has 16GB of Ram, yours has 2GB stock.
i can run any Operating system I need to when New software omes out, Linux, Windows or OSX,
Red One footage renders better from PC hardware on Windows, Even though I’ll use FCP I transcode with a PC because its just faster.
[...] Gainward 9600GT 1024MB likes overclocking – Techgage: Creative EAX vs. ASUS DS3D GX 2.0 – Macapper: DIY Hackintosh Tutorial: Build a Mac Pro for Cheap – The Tech Report: Overclocking Intel’s Xeon X3320 processor: For servers, workstations, and [...]
Ugo Tognazzi said on
January 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
“You omitted the cost of Leopard in your price totals. At least, if you wanted to be as legit as possible. So that’s another $110 or so (at amazon.com at least).”
I have some swamp land in Florida for sale.
Ugo Tognazzi said on
January 28th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
“You omitted the cost of Leopard in your price totals. At least, if you wanted to be as legit as possible. So that’s another $110 or so (at amazon.com at least).â€
Here’s the problem though: even if you purchased a copy of leopard, its still illegal (or least in violation of the end user agreement). As the EULA for apple states OSX can only be run on apple certified hardware.
I have all the parts to build a 4-core 8 gig Hackintosh and I was wondering if I would be able to just use that computer as a Slave computer to my Macbook pro, to free up my resources. Some of my more high end Plug-ins for my music programs eat up my computers resources and I would rather not shell out the 3 grand for a new mac pro. Does anyone know if this works, or has anyone tried this?
“Important: With the processor make sure you get the one that has G0 stepping (not B3 stepping). The G0 version runs cooler thus can be overclocked more with a stock cooler more so than its B3 counterpart.”
Where do I look for this info spec?
[...] DIY Hackintosh on Mac Apper [...]
What monitors are you using with this Hackintosh? I think I can make out the Samsung logos, but what are they, and are they VGA or DVI?
Thanks for the inspiration mate.
I rushed out on the w/e to get myself some parts for my own Hackintosh project. My hardware:
Intel D975XBX2 motherboard
Intel C2Q Q6600
4×1GB DDR2-667
El cheapo Nvidia GF 7500 – 256MB (ASUS)
160GB HDD (system)
250GB HDD (data)
iMic USB Audio
Antec 650W PSU (a bit overboard but all I had)
old AOpen case
The only thing that didn’t want to work out of the box is audio. The situation is similar to yours, audio hardware doesn’t show up in the profiler but is shown in the audio settings. Difference here is that it didn’t work. So I got myself an iMic USB audio adapter (others will probably work too) and all is fine.
The system runs Kalyway 10.5.2 and updates perfectly via the software update. All I need now is a niceer looking case. I have an old Power Mac G5 case here from a dead Mac but I don’t have the skills to convert that one, so it’ll have to be something more “main stream”.
I bloody love my Hackintosh. I love it so much that I’m gonna try to turn my Laptop into a Hackbook
Thanks a bunch for this article, Thanks to Kalyway and all the others for making this possible.
Thats just a sub-standard gaming pc (667 RAM? 8600? LOL!) made useless by installing a sub-standard OS.
hi , Im sorry for my english but i install with the following hardware:
Asus M2NPV-VM
2 Gb Kingston ddr2 667
Athlon X2 4200+
Gforce 8600 GT 512M
hard disk 80 IDE
Ethernet 3Com Etherlink C905
Xbenk mark 103
Everything run fine
The version of the OS leopard is Leo4All
Thanks
Norberto
I have all the parts that was listed in this install guide in an already recently built computer running Vista and want to switch over to Leopard as I already have a copy I bought from Newegg.
My question is can you update the apple software online like windows or there is no way to keep updating because it’s not apple hardware?
@Awethentik
That depends on the OSX you are using. I don’t think you can use a standard OS X disc as your PC will fail the hardware check. You can use something like Leo4All but you won’t be able to use the regular software update because the OS is hacked quite a bit and software updates would destroy the hacks.
I used Kalyway OS X, which doesn’t hack the OS itself, jus the installer and it adds drivers for other hardware. I’ve used the automatic software update and it worked without a glitch.
Hth
I noticed some people saying PC’s are louder then macs, and questioning how stable these are.
They are FAR quieter then Macs, or at least can be. The great thing about this is you choose what fans you want, I have mine overclocked from 1.6ghz to 2.7ghz my temps are 30c and I can’t hear a darn noise from my computer.
This should really be a punch in the gut for apple, they have horrible customer support. Thats right sir $59.99 for one problem, which we can’t guarantee we can solve. Or how about a $700 charge for a hinge replacement on my old powerbook ?! Are you kidding me. They are the biggest taxers ever, I’m not talking about government taxes. But this thing I like to call paint it white, apple taxes.
Apple makes a great running system, but besides that everythings a crock. It’s really simple to make these computers. It’s all plug and play. You can get all the information you need here.
http://www.insanelymac.com
Good luck with your build everyone, you won’t regret it. These things are FAST and stable, just read up and build one right.
Yes yes yes yes yes, I did it!!!! And it works like a charm. Leopard 10.5.2 in a 19″ rack is up and running:
• Motherboard: Asus P5W
• Processor: Intel Core™2 Quad Q6600 LGA775
• RAM: Mushkin 4×2GB DDR2-800 PC2-6400
• Video Card: eVGA eGeForce 8600GTS w/256 Megs RAM
• Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 640GB SATA. 7200RPM. 16MB buffer
• DVD Drive: Samsung WriteMaster DVDWriter SH-S203P, DVD-DL, SATA
• Case: Compucase S4UT6, 19″/4U
I had to patch the Finder.app and some other apps to complete the german language pack. All applications are running very fine, woooohooow!
Recently, I bought a MacBook and a iMac, so I can salve my consience
Thank you for support.
Pim
Is there a Tiger OS X build for a hackintosh? I use Macs for music production and Leopard is not compatible with all of my programs.
@musicman83
Well not that you could easily get a hold of anyways. You’d have to have the original disc (at the time of the intel macs release), and most people are just getting leopard. You might just have to wait til the developers upgrade the music software. But basically you won’t likely find Tiger, prepatched and precracked for a hackintosh setup like you will find leopard at times.
Thanks….I have an Intel-Tiger OS X disc that came with my macbook pro. I’ll try to patch that dvd. Am I going to be able to use this hackintosh as a slave cpu to give my macbook pro more power or visa-versa?
hi, i have the same build, P5W DH Deluxe & q6600, same MB and CPU. re BIOS settings above, IDE Detect Timeout (Sec) [0] i found that with set to zero then the internal sata DVD reader was not seen by the system, set it to at least 5. and ALPE and ASP [Disabled] i found this prevented wake from sleep, set to enabled.
la la la
test2
Ditto on having the same board, these BIOS tweaks helped. I am running an almost completely vanilla retail install on my machine and everything works, especially sleep! Thank you.
Also for SirToby, you need to use the EFI route (check Netkas) as I am installing from a retail DVD, no hacking required! I have had to change a few files after the install and had to read up on how to get the system to recognize my built-in ethernet, HD audio and nvidia 8800GT video card on startup(secret is EFI strings…again from Netkas’ forums) but I can assure you, this system is fully updateable. When it comes to a major system update, I’d probably hold off and check the forums furst, but then if it ain’t broke, why fix it.
This is uncharted territory for Apple and it shall be interesting to watch what they will do about all those clever folks who bypasses their vendor lock inn. I aim to gradually move to FOSS for all my computing needs and pre installed Ubuntu machines from Dell are priced for my sort. If the dual core £350 computer can run OS X Tiger then it’s bye bye Apple store. This Hackintosh thing is great fun, keep sticking it to “the man”.
yea. I just installed Leo 10.5.2
yea. I just installed Leo 10.5.2 on my spare laptop. its a factory built IBM T40. so compared to your like “God Comps” this one works well. its got 756 mb of ram, 40GB of hard disk, and an ati mobility w7 7500 graphics card. using the 10.5.2, i got the system up and running(it takes like 5 minutes to boot thou, not a problem for like $1000 U.S. cheaper) the sound works off the bat, video worked. I use the speedstep kernel just because it said laptop
. i still have to get the graphics drivers and the atheros drivers working, but everything works. and as far as the bios, the only tweaking I did to it was what i did to get Debian Lenny to work. cd before hd and everything worked.
My Hackintosh is working perfectly and, the most important thing, it cost just a little bit more than 1/2 the best IMac. I upgraded to 10.5.3, next to 10.5.4.
Motherboard: Asus P5W DH Deluxe.
Processor: Intel Coreâ„¢2 Quad Q6600 LGA775 (Retail Package).
RAM: 4GB DDR2 5300 @ 667 Mhz.
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 2600 Por 512 Megs Ram.
Hard Drive: Seagate 500GB SATA II. 7200RPM. 32MB buffer.
DVD Drive: LG HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH20NS10
Thanks
Pretty cool article. I build my machines to my own personal specs and would never buy an overpriced Dell, Sony, Lenovo, or Apple. Those of us who build our own systems know we can outperform for much less money. For most of us its mostly about having ultimate control over our choice of hardware, operating system(s), performance and options. Flexibility. Upgradability.
I say if you have the technical know-how to do this then go for it. You don’t have to eat what Apple is feeding you. You can do it better and for half the price. The same applies to Dell, Lenovo, and Sony, although at least those PC makers allow some ability to upgrade and customize.
Just found this site, REALLY INTERESTING. As this will be my first time in building a “PC” i was just wondering – if i buy a mac case will the motherboard still line up correctly? Also i intend to install several network cards in it – will i need MAC enabled ones or will the PC ones work? Sorry to ask such basic qusetions but hey..
1st off few people mention gaming with this. SupCom:FA would makes this system its bitch. THere are other things to note too. You are comparing normal ram the ECC server quality ram. You are not considering futureproofing. A top Mac Pro would be a viable system for what? 5 years 10 maybe? If you dont game, you wont need more power for a while. Unless you HAVE to have the latest and greatest. A top Mac Pro will run almost ANYTHING you want. OS9, OSX, Vista, XP, Unix or you can emulate whatever. WHat is the benchmark for OSX now? How the hell can you top a 8 core 3.2ghz system?
Jesus. I did not even read the whole “tutorial” Since when is “right up there” mean a 24% lower score? Pull your head out of your ass and try to build a system that REALLY compares to the mac pro. You will end up spending about 300$ less and will have to install and configure everything by hand (not to mention potential troubleshooting. That is barely a IMac comptetior.
@Ganga_Jim
No, you won’t be able to get a standard mainboardintoa Mac case. I had a look at one a while ago (admittedly an older G5 Power Mac case) and there’s no chance, unless you’re very savy modifying cases.
@AmanO
How do you expect a quad core system to top an 8 core? Compare the same with the same and things look quite a bit differently. For starters, there still is a 4 core Mac Pro (only one CPU) and secondly, the older Mac Pros are only running 4 cores as well (2xdual core). Compare the results of these machines with the one here and things look much better.
I’ve been running my Hack for a few months now and it is by far the fastest and most stable machine I’ve ever owned. I’ve been working with a plethora of Macs over the last few years and besides the 8 core monsters, I couldn’t tell a difference between a real Mac and my Hack. Compared to the G5 Power Macs, the Hack is a bloody fast piece of hardware and quite on par with the 4 core Intel-Macs.
Don’t rely on Benchmarks alone. It’s the everyday performance that counts and that is great. Even if the difference was the 25% the benchmarks suggest, it is still worth the price difference. My Hack cost me all in all (motherboard, CPU, RAM, discs, DVD, case, Video and PSU) about 1000 Aussie dollars. The cheapest Mac Pro with comparable hardware (4GB RAM, 320GB + 500GB HDD) costs 4.289 Aussie bucks. Now would the extra 25% more performance (which it hasn’t) be worth the extra 3 grand+? And as for the life span, I’ve seen 4 y/o Power Macs die (leaking coolant, faulty logic boards). If the Hack only lasts 2 years, then who cares? It’s still cheaper than replacing a real Mac which cost quadruple the money.
Oh, btw. I’d really like to see how you get OS9 to run on an Intel-Mac. Natively it can’t work and “Classic mode” is not supported on Intel-Macs.
@AmanO, I built a similar system over a year ago. After getting all the parts overnight delivered to my house it only took me 2 hours to get the thing put together and up and running with 10.5.1 stable. Most of my time was spent just getting the system put together and as a matter of fact OSX installed faster than Vista.
Today I’m running 10.5.5 perfectly stable. In 64bit Geekbench 2 my system outperforms a 2.8GHz QUAD core Mac Pro which, with nearly the exact same configuration but a weaker GPU, costs $4000 right now. My system costs $1300 last year (including the cost of cooling and a retail copy of Leopard) and well under $1000 right now. The savings, even considering the time I’ve invested into getting it running, is very significant.
What’s more, with Skulltrail and Intel’s line of dual socket server boards one could easily build a compatible 8-core system at significant savings which would also support greater than 8GBs of ram. As I said, my system is perfectly stable, I use it with Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Painter X, Artrage, DVD Studio…I’ve yet to run into something that doesn’t work as it should.
My system:
GA-P35-DS3L
Q6600 Quad Core 3.6GHz
8GB DDR2 800MHz
nVidia Geforce 8800GTX 768MB
I don’t pretend to think everyone ought to just run out and start building hacks. For one thing, it does require some technical savvy (although not much) and you’ve got to be ‘ok’ with the fact that you are violating Apples EULA. It’s not for everyone. Nevertheless, asserting that the performance and savings don’t add up is just false. My system outperforms a similarly configured current Mac Pro and costs thousands less while not taking significantly longer to set up. The choice was obvious for me.
@sneezymarble
Try closer to $2,299.00 for the price of the mac pro with 4 cores. But yes its still cheaper. The mac pro is a sweet price for what your getting though.
Jayden, $2,299 doesn’t get you a Mac Pro with a similar configuration as the system I’m currently running. Note that for $2,299 you’re getting only 2GBs of ram, a single 320GB SATA drive, and an ATI Radeon 2600 XT 256MB.
If a person buys this “barebones” quad core mac with the idea of upgrading it themselves they’ll end up spending, on the low end $250 to get the system up to 8GBs, at least another $150 for a comparable video card, and another $100 or so to match my HD space. That’s being very conservative and you’re closing in on $3000 in the thriftiest of scenarios.
However, check again, because buying a quad core, 8GB, 8800GT system with an extra HD is over $4000 directly from Apple. However, as you say, no matter how you look at it, buying just the barebones system, buying the barebones system and then upgrading, or buying the similarly configured Mac Pro from Apple, you’re saving a significant amount of money. In the thriftiest scenario you still would save nearly $2000!
does someone know what ’s inside (hardware) the new mac pro 8 core? here the link
http://www.apple.com/macpro/
and does anyone tryed / think that it is possible to built this machine, or are they new hardware security to avoid it?
is it the same with the mac os x leopard 64bit, is it a new ‘locked’ version or could it work as well?
I would like to built that new machine, not really interrested to built an old one…
any tips, link…?
M.
@m
Yes it could be done. But if you want the xeon CPUs you may as well buy from apple. they fetch a pretty price. The CPUs alone fetch you anywhere from $823 to $1249. And you need two. Plus a motherboard, and FB-Dimms. Before you know it Apples price looks smilier. So if you want the same hardware go with apple. If you want something non server line then you could build your own.
You’re Right Jayden,
I had a look on normal hardware sites, and the processor isn’t even available! by the way the price is incredible! :S
What would i need for a config to use photoshop / Dxo /Logic pro /aperture …
if i understand good, we can change the size of the ram, processor speed, hard drive size (& type), video card…without problems? the apple system should not make any detection (or conformity?) to work.
M.
I saw a hackintosh (quad core) where the spotlight caused it to freeze. Do you have this in your system?
I am trying to build a hackintosh. I am not looking to build SUPER best, Just something that runs osx stable. The motherboard I am guessing is the BIGGEST part to a stable machine. I keep seeing the Asus P5W DH Deluxe being used but it isn’t made anymore.. is there a new version that uses just as well. Thanks
[...] hackintosh has the potential to out perform an imac significantly, depending on the parts [...]
Thank you for the information. I spent the past week getting all the stuff that was needed. We were going to put it together on a Saturday morning but the CPU was late in coming by snail mail. It arrived in the late afternoon when every one left. I put it all together. By the next day Sunday it was loaded with 10.5.5 and everything worked. The cost was just under 600$US. Now I have to add more drives. I did put it in a “low end case” but it look like a Mac Pro from newegg so I slapped on to white logos so as not too feel guilty. Our computer club has demo night this October 2008. http://www.cuerie.com
Again thank you and to OSX86 community for sharing this knowledge.
Ciao,
Lou
I finally found a Geekbench result for a 2008 Quad Core Mac Pro. Note that the system would cost at least $2800 from Apple.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/68740
Below is the Geekbench result for my Hack Pro which cost $1300 and has significanly higher specs with regard to hard drive space, video card, and twice the amount of Ram.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/81633
The first thing to note is that my CPU is running at nearly a full GHz faster than the Mac Pro’s CPU. If I downclock my CPU to 2.8 then I get virtually identical performance. But, the point is to see what kind of performance I can get for less than the cost of a Quad Core Mac Pro. It’s just unfortunate that it’s not possible to overclock Mac Pros as it would certainly increase their value in my mind.
It’d be interesting to see if somebody with a skulltrail board could, with two of the cheapest Quad Core Intel CPUs (Q6600), match the performance of the most expensive Mac Pro with 8 3.2GHz cores.
I have to imagine it would perform exceptionally well. Even with the older Q6600 compared to the Mac Pro offering when overclocked.
i cannot believe someone would actually build a hackintosh. if you look at the benchmarks, the current mac pro is much faster than the hackintosh. also, why not get that “real” apple? you will feel the difference. a mac is a mac, and nothing can beat that!
MAC THE WORLD!
MAC USERS SWEAR BY THEIR COMPUTERS, PC USERS SWEAR AT THEIR COMPUTERS!
where do i find a tutorial on building a mac pro w/ 2 cores?
Apple Fan wrote: “i cannot believe someone would actually build a hackintosh. if you look at the benchmarks, the current mac pro is much faster than the hackintosh. also, why not get that “real” apple? you will feel the difference. a mac is a mac, and nothing can beat that!”
You really drank the Kool Aid, didn’t you?
People build it to save over a grand. Many people don’t need all of the speed of a Mac Pro. You’re a good example: There is nothing you do of value on your Mac that you need the speed of a Mac Pro for (I know, because if you were a professional using the Mac Pro for business, you would not be wasting billable hours posting drivel like what you wrote on here).
I have a Mac Mini. I want support for dual monitors, standard size optical drives, space for at least three 3.5″ hard drives, a modern 3D video card, and the ability to support at least 4GB of RAM.
I don’t need quad core Xeon CPUs driving the price up over two grand.
Apple really missed the boat by having nothing between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. I’m not interested in some all-in-one iMac or a notebook, so I either build my own system or settle. I’m not willing to settle.
i can’t find tutorials on what pieces to buy for a 2 processors hackintosh mac pro, any ideas?
@Joan & Daniel
You can use the same parts people used to build their quad cores. Simply use a dual core CPU instead.
To find the most suitable hardware, checkout the OSX86 Wiki at http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. Check the compatibility lists for recommended Boards, CPUs and Videocards.
Here is my 2 cents in this debate toward Hackintosh. First, thank you for helping people learn what you have and sharing your experience with your finding, Great job. Now for the morons who complain when someone shares knowledge with educated people, how did you find this website? I sure like everyone else, you are trying to search for a way to better your experience with Macs and you found this site. Unlike everyone else, your life consumes you to pass judgement on others because your experience with site is poor, (possiblely because the lack of your education).The answer here is simple, “Do Not Post”, “If You Can Say Nothing Nice, Shut Up”.Sorry but this still ticks me off when I try to learn something like this individual is trying to share and posers have to screw it up for everyone. With that said, Great job on the tutorial and I will keep tuning in for great information. As for the replies after this message, do not bother.No one cares about your judgmental opinions. Get a life !!! Thans again, Hacintosh.
@sneezymarble
After much searching, you are finally the kind of person I’m looking for: someone who built for performance. I edit HD footage and need a big ‘un.
Looking to build the best MacPro under $3000. What would be your dream configuration?
You’ve mentioned before
- skulltrail board
- two Quad Core Intel CPUs
Would like the most amount of RAM possible. I’d be eager to purchase parts and report on the results.
Thanks.
“i cannot believe someone would actually build a hackintosh. if you look at the benchmarks, the current mac pro is much faster than the hackintosh.”
What is “the hackintosh”? Hackintoshes are not a single computer. A Hackintosh is just any computer I build myself on which I install OSX. Furthermore, when I look at the benchmarks, specifically those run on my own Hackintosh, I see that my system absolutely wipes the floor with a similarly configured Mac Pro. You obviously failed to read my last post. I’ll post the pertinent information for you again.
Below you will find the Geekbench 2 scores of a current quad core Mac Pro.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/68740
A Mac Pro as configured in the above Geekbench score would cost, at the very least, $2299 from Apple. To match the specs of my system you would then have to install an extra 6GBs of ram, an extra 650GBs of hard drive space, and a better video card. Configuring the quad core Mac Pro from Apple with the specs to match my quad core Hackintosh would cost $4249 or, if you bought it bare bones for $2299 and added the components yourself it would cost you at least $3000.
Now, here is the Geekbench 2 score of my Hackintosh.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/86260
My system, including overnight shipping for the parts, cost $1300 to build last year. So, my quad core Hackintosh which cost $1300 is beating Apples quad core Mac Pro which cost at the very least $2299 by 2000 Geekbench points!
At least in this case your statement is false. Even current Mac Pros are not always faster than cheaper Hackintosh computers.
Now you might say “well, compare your Hackintosh to an octo-core Mac Pro”. I don’t mind doing that at all. However, it’s worth noting that any octo-core Mac Pro will have, by definition, twice as many cores, and cost even more than my Hackintosh. With twice as many cores it’s guaranteed to get better scores in the multithreaded benchmark tasks. If it didn’t, there would have to be something seriously wrong with the systems.
http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/86026
Above is the Geekbench 2 result of a 3.2GHz octo-core Mac Pro. Notice that my system, with only four cores, gets only 2300 Geekbench points less than the fastest Apple system with twice as many cores. But, the quad core Mac Pro, while costing at least twice as much as my system, gets 4240 Geekbench points less than the fastest Apple system with twice as many cores.
The point is, I’m getting WAY more bang for my buck. Additionally, if I wanted an octo-core system, I could build one for less than the cost of the Mac Pro quad core system which would perform better than the octo-core system! There’s simply no way for your statement to be true that the current Mac Pro is faster than Hackintoshes simply because it’s possible to build a faster Hackintosh for significantly less than the cost of the fastest Mac Pro.
“also, why not get that “real” apple?”
The reason not to get a “real” Apple is because, if you know a thing or two about putting a computer together you can get better performance while spending significantly less money.
“you will feel the difference. a mac is a mac, and nothing can beat that!”
You certainly will feel the difference. Your wallet will be lighter and you system will perform slower than if you were able to build your own system and install OSX on it.
(Back on the subject)
If you enable Memory Mapping in Advanced Chipset Setup in BIOS you can run Leopard in 64Bit mode as it should be. Otherwise you have a 4g ram limit.
Also overclocking settings in BIOS seem
totally unnecessary.
tremor7, does your budget include the cost of monitors or are you budgeting $3000 for the system alone?
Also, if you can, wait a few more months. Soon the Nahalem Xeon chips will be released. The Skulltrail successor for the Nahalem chips is already confirmed. If Apple goes with the highest clocked Nahalems in the new line of Mac Pros rumored for early next year and if the Nahalem chips overclock as well as early reports indicate you’ll probably be able to buy the cheapest Nahalem and, on air cooling, have a system that performs better than the new Nahalem Mac Pros for significantly less.
Anyway, since you’re asking about my dream configuration, I’ll assume you mean right now. If I had to build now here’s what I’d pick:
Skulltrail Motherboard
2xE5420 2.5GHz Quad Core Xeon
EVGA 9800GT
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200 SATA 3.0Gb
Corsair CMPSU 1000W PSU
Crucial 8GB FB-DIMM DDR2 800
Samsung 22x DVD+-R SATA w/LightScribe
Thermaltake Armor ATX Full Tower
That’ll run you around $2600 and be pretty dang fast even if you don’t overclock it. I think it’d be foolish not to though. Those 2.5GHz Xeons will easily get to 2.8GHz and I’d be willing to bet you could get them to 3.0GHz or even 3.2GHz with no problem at all on the Skulltrail motherboard. You’ve still got $400 left for things like a fancy keyboard and/or mouse or a fast 10000 or 15000 rpm HD to use as a scratch disk or something.
One last thing. If you’re serious about building a Hack I strongly encourage you to head over to insanelymac.com and browse the forum for useful information about building and servicing such a system. There are a few people over there with Hack octo-core systems and it’d be worth checking out what they did just to make sure you get things right.
Hello,
I actually built a Hackintosh using your specs. I have 2 LCD monitors which i would like to use it my Hackintosh, the same way you posted in the picture. I have one monitor connected to VGA and an other connected to DVI. But Mac doesnt detect 2 monitors, it detects only one and the same screen is displayed on both monitors.
I would really appreciate if you could help me with configuring dual monitors.
Naveen:
Quote:Hello,
I actually built a Hackintosh using your specs. I have 2 LCD monitors which i would like to use it my Hackintosh, the same way you posted in the picture. I have one monitor connected to VGA and an other connected to DVI. But Mac doesnt detect 2 monitors, it detects only one and the same screen is displayed on both monitors.
I would really appreciate if you could help me with configuring dual monitors.:Quote
***********************************************************
Look in System Preferences and click on Displays hit detect displays should give you a choice. Mirror and another choice?
***********************************************************
@sneezymarble
Thanks sneezy. Yes, box only. Waiting to see if there’s a refresh for Apple Cinema Displays next year, otherwise will probably get an NEC.
1) I created a list that was spot-on to your recommendations except for GFX card, where I went with x2 nVidia GeForce 8800GT (what the Apple MacPro’s use) What are your thoughts on gfx cards?
2) 10,000rpm scratch disk is genius.
3) Browsing the forums, but haven’t found too much quality material yet on insanelymac; would greatly appreciate any links.
4) On the hardware side, there’s a great tutorial for skulltrails at Techgauge. Not hackintosh specific, but get’s the hw side gravy.
http://techgage.com/article/building_an_affordable_skulltrail_system/2
[...] MacApper, build your Cheap Mac PC [...]
@ everyone about dual processors. I believe the MAC PROs are running dual xeon 54xx series chips. I would guess with an intel 5000x chipset (can anyone confirm that?). I’ve built similar setups for extremely high end PCs/servers, with RAID 10 and gigs of ECC DDR2.
Err..is there anything after the point in the article he says’ Next let’s take a look at some of the costs involved…’?
Cause I never read how much it costs…
Its at the beginning of the article anbout the cost. I kept mine just under 600$US but I have added a second sata drive. Just remember when you upgrade the OS save the Extension folder. I forgot and from 10.5.5 to 10.5.6 when I shutdown the cpu is halted and the drive stops but the motherboard does not shut off. In reality I seldom shut it off the same for the G5 Tower.
[...] · MacApper, build your Cheap Mac PC [...]
If you cant find the page with the costs enter 2 instead of 1 in the address bar and press enter!
ummm is it upgradeable ?
I have a MSI Wind U100 running Leopard.
Does the Realtek WLAN Client Utility 1.6.2 connect to any other wireless signal that doesn’t use WEP?
I am having trouble connecting to my Universities wireless that uses 802.11.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Lou Cioccio on January 11th, 2009 8:09 am I had the same problem on shutdowns. OpenHaltRestart.kext solved it for me. It´s from Psystar, I guess.
The Mac Pro have 2 Intel Xeon Quad Cores, and now the Xeons based on Nehalem…
this hackintosh is poweful but not as Mac Pro
Oh the flamewars! I dunno about benchmarks, people, but Xeons are server processors designed for the server use, and there’s not much sense in putting them to the home computers and paying much more. You don’t get ANY additional performance on top of other Intel non-server processors from the same generation.
The only justification of Apple’s processor choice is prolly marketing, like in good old days when Mac fans cryed that PowerPC processors are 999999 times faster than everything else on the market.
As for “32 GB RAM possibility”, I wonder how many of those, who say that, actually need so much RAM these days? 8 GB is more, more than enough unless you (as someone said here) render Hollywood movies. I’d rather consider a better video card.
I think Apple has lost its touch with Mac Pros.
THIS IS REALLY WINDING ME UP, HOW DO YOU GET ONTO THE NEXT PAGE???? IT SAYS: “Next let’s take a look at some of the costs involved…” BUT THERE’S NO LINK TO GO TO THE NEXT F***ING PAGE!!!!
@Anon
It’s an excerpt/summary (like almost every WP page). Just click the title and you’ll goto the full article.
That is exactly what I am hoping to do!
WTF… The article ,,, at least on my Safari ,, Just ends with ,,, and no the cost…..!!!
A G A I N ,,, W T F.. I have to search for the NEXT PAGE BUTTON endlessly 65 pages down,,, and WTF NOT THERE !
yeah has the article disappeared or what? clicking on the title just brings up this page again!
hey can u dual boot windows vista and os x on this setup and if so is the only way through bootcamp and will that even work
built mine around a p5w dh
curently 2gb of gskill 6400hz
q6600
will upgrading the ram cause problems with osx 10.5.6 and this board.
I would like to replace the 2gb with 4gb or even 8gb but will the osx use the extra ram???
or do hackintosh run in 32 mode not 64bit how can you tell???
do i need to remap the memory ? if i upgrade
Somewhat appropriately, to get to the rest of the article I had to hack around a little.
If you add a number 2,3,4 or 5 to the end of the url you can see the rest of the pages:
http://macapper.com/2008/01/19/diy-hackintosh-tutorial-build-a-mac-pro-for-cheap/2/
Good reading!!
Hi Guys! Here are P5W BIOS configuration for hackintosh. I got when this article was complete.
[Main]
Legacy Diskette : [Disabled] (se não for usar diskette, se for ajustar para 1,4 Mb)
[IDE Configuration]
Configure SATA As [AHCI]
ALPE ans ASP [Disabled]
IDE Detect Timeout (Sec) [35] (se for usar HD ATA, se não for ajustar para zero)
[Advanced]
[Jumper Free Configuration]
AI Overclocking [Manual]
CPU Frequency [333]
DRAM Frequency [DDR2-667Mhz]
[CPU Configuration]
Note: the top part of this section is grayed out.
Modify Ratio Support [Disabled]
Microcode Updation [Enabled]
Max CPUID Value Limit [Disabled]
Execute Disable Function [Enabled]
Enhance C1 Control [Auto]
CPU Internal Thermal Control [Auto]
Virtualization Technology [Disabled]
Intel(R) SpeedStep(tm) tech. [Disabled]
[Chipset]
Configure DRAM Timing by SPD [Enabled]
DRAM ECC Mode [Disabled]
Hyper Path 3 [Auto]
DRAM Throttling Threshold [Auto]
Memory Remap Feature [Enabled]
[Onboard Devices Configuration]
HD Audio Controller [Enabled]
HD Audio Mode [Non-Vista]
Front Panel Support Type [AC97]
Onboard 1394 Controller [Enabled]
Onboard PCIE GbE LAN_1 [Enabled]
Onboard PCIE GbE LAN_2 [Disabled]
LAN Option ROM [Disabled]
JMicron SATA/PATA Controller [Enabled]
JMicron Controller Mode [AHCI]
JMicron SATA/RAID BOOTROM [Disabled]
[PCI/PnP]
Plug And Play O/S [Yes]
[Power]
Suspend Mode [S3 Only]
Repost Video on S3 Resume [No]
ACPI 2.0 Support [Yes]
ACPI APIC support [Enabled]
[Hardware Monitor]
AI Quiet [Disabled]
[Boot]
[Boot Device Priority]
1st Boot Device [CDROM/DVD ROM]
2nd Boot Debice [HDD]
3rd Boot Device [Disabled]
I, for one, am really happy to see stuff like this. I realize that it must be upsetting for lil apple fan bois but really, apple’s hardware is much more expensive and breaks down as much as anything. The ability to choose our hardware is a new thing for us mac freaks, and I’m stoked to see it.
breaks down as much as anything???? I’m real Apple hardware owner and this is new to me.
the misunderstanding is about the title.. “Build a Mac PRO”
actually this spec are more like an imac(1 years ago) just without monitor..
if you want build a mac pro, u need a server like mobo at least, that can handle up to 32gb ddr3 and double quad cpu..or i7, plus an high end video card,
of course you gonna spend less than if you buy it from apple, like 40% discount if you count the sw..so is still a big deal.
i suggest to w8 for snow leopard to make a monster machine with i7, cuz they promise that the new OS will unleash the power out of i7 cpu, and finally start to use also gpu with openCL.
aniway also a normal hackintosh have a great performance, mine hack boot in about 10sec on a core duo, usually p5k series and intel cpus are the best to make an osx86
I guess the “Mac Pro” inthe headline refers to the fact, that the system is much more flexible and upgradeable than an iMac for example.
Also, don’t forget that the article was written quite a while ago, where iMacs and Mac Pros were alsoless “grunty” as they are today.
When I built my Hackintosh over a year ago, there was no DDR3 RAM in the Pros but the hellish expensive FB DDR2 ECC server RAM. Also, the older single CPU quad core Xeons in the last generation Pros were much more comparable to a C2Q than the newer Nehalems are. True, my slightly dated Q6600 isn’t the fastest chip out there anymore but it stillis a very powerful processor and in combination with the by now 8GB RAM inthe box, myHack doesn’t have to hide behind a comparable Mac Pro in terms of performance.
While the 32GB maximum of a real Mac Pro is pretty impressive, the 16GB limit of my board isn’t that bad either and in reality, machines with more than 8GB are rather rare and besides some special cases are a bit of an overkill. With the 8GB in my machine, I can run VMs with 3GB and still have plenty of RAM for anything I’m doing with the machine, so there is no need to slap more RAM into the box. If you don’t intend to run VMs or only VMs with smaller amounts of RAM, 4GB really is sufficient and in most cases already too much.
As for the performance, benchmarks are not everything. It is the everyday performance that counts and I guarantee you, that the difference between a quad core C2Q and a dual quad core Nehalem is felt way less than benchmarks indicate. Of course if you require the grunt, you’ll be able to tell but really, who actually needs the immense performance of 8 processor cores and 32GB of RAM? Most home users certainly don’t and professionals requiring such power will get a real Mac Pro anyway.
I’ve enjoyed my Hack for over a year now and I don’t doubt that I will keep enjoying it for quite a while longer.
@Rui
Sorry to tell you but I’ve seen plenty of hardwareproblems with Macs. Faulty powersupplies fo iMacs, leaking coolant in older G5 Power Macs and so on. If you have a look at some Mac user forums, there is a plethora of problems with Apple’s hardware.
I’m not saying that Apple hardware is crap, on the contrary but saying Macs don’t break is bulldust. Macs don’t break as often as other computers, but considering the price, that’s the least one can expect. Quite frankly, Apple hardware isn’t as good as the price tag would suggest. If you haven’t had any problems so far, good for you. Be happy about it. But don’t expect it to be true for everybody else.
SirToby if you knew how much i agree with you!!!!!!!!!! MacBook Pro…. brought in twice still under warranty. 6 months ago the logic board decided not to charge the battery anymore. I’ve been told it’ll be more then £500 to fix it. A new,homemade mac it’ll be the same price…. but a quad core!!!
[...] MacApper, build your Cheap Mac PC [...]
[...] MacApper, build your Cheap Mac PC [...]
I have all of the screws required to build the mac pro.
any interest. jtayala86 at yahoo
[...] MacApper, build your Cheap Mac PC [...]
[...] MacApper, build your Cheap Mac PC [...]
Dust…are you sure? A Mac Pro can start off with a single Core 2 Quad chip, 4 gigs RAM, etc. What you are describing is a high end machine. Best wait til Snow Leopard is out anyway to see whaat board is going to be most compatible.
has anyone ever tried using xeons to build an hackintosh? I am wanting to build one with xeons because I am a designer that cant afford a $6000 mac pro.
well, how to read further?
it only sais: Next let’s take a look at some of the costs involved…
TOny on July 17th, 2009 8:48 pm
Take a look at this:
http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=102288
Tony, yes I am using Xeons and they work perfectly!
if u people want to get to the next page
go to the URL bar and near the end
there is a page number(3) change it to 1,2,3etc
there u go:D
ive made a hackintosh and they r the best!!!!
fitzy on August 23rd, 2009 3:42 am
Thanks! Works perfectly.
For all those that are truly concerned with the eula buy a cheap ipod and it comes with two apple stickers (or just buy the stickers) place them on the machine and viola you have the required apple logo’d machine that is required by the eula make sure to purchase your software tho to make the whole thing legal
I can’t figure out how to see the complete article. It ends right after listing the parts. fitzy’s suggestion to change page numbers in the URL doesn’t work for me. Can somebody help? Thanks!
To see page number 2, go to
http://macapper.com/2008/01/19/diy-hackintosh-tutorial-build-a-mac-pro-for-cheap/2/
page 3
http://macapper.com/2008/01/19/diy-hackintosh-tutorial-build-a-mac-pro-for-cheap/3/
so on….
That’s too funny. I actually was watching cosby show re-runs with my sister hours before this. I actually thought this article was a prank just for me.
It’s slightly less illegal to use an EFI USB Dongle rather than the patched OS.
Who does your SEO work?
I’d give you a PR10 for sure LOL – nice work here.
Very Nice
Will It Support A 2 TB HDD ?
Hi, this is a great site, and very well thought out and well written.
compare this to a macpro??? ur nuts.
I have the original macpro n cant find this even close to that. Maybe bit faster for gaming.
Oh great… can you send me instructions on how to build my own car? And mabey while your at it could you include directions for a machine to make toilet paper for nothing.
If you would put your intelegence (sp) into something that could actually benefit humankind in a shareworthy manor you might impress someone to the point of actually being willing to pay you money for your talent. Get with the program you deadbeat. And I’m not talking about anyone elses program….invent your own if your 1% of the smart M..F that you think you are. Do something instead of being a rip off artist. Oh ya I forgot., I’m not talking to a poet, forget it your a useless F.
Patrick, I’m sorry but you’re an idiot.
Why can’t I find the next button on this site?
Figured it out. . . talk about counter intuitive site navigation. Damn . . .
[...] MacApper, build your Cheap Mac PC [...]