Hackintosh - The Journey Part 1
When the old PVR box (damn propietary power supply) gave out a few months ago, I decided that I needed a new computer. The PVR box was originally going to be our media box to use for recording TV shows and hosting music and videos and such. It was kind of a failed project, as it was never really stable to begin with. So I used as my little box that just ran World of Warcraft and did some internet browsing. Its hardware was pretty out of date by today's standards, that and it had the annoying BSoD that I could never really diagnose.
Ok, so I definitely needed a new computer. What OS do I want to run? Linux of course is awesome, but I haven't exactly found the perfect distribution for me. Windows? Bleh. Windows has its own set of issues besides I don't want to run Windows Vista exclusively. Mac OS X? I love my iMac at work, but I didn't think I could afford to buy real, honest-to-goodness Apple computer for its price premium.
While I honestly considered getting an iMac at least $1500 (EXPENSIVE!), I decided I would be a fun experiment to see if I could build my very own Mac using standard PC hardware. Enter the Hackintosh. The first place I started is where I first heard the term Hackintosh - Lifehacker.com - Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800.
Sweet, I could build a computer that could run Mac OS X for half the cost of a real Mac. And it had the added benefit of being able to run other operating systems too. The Lifehacker article was a good place to start, however the hardware list was kind of out of date. Like any good googler, I found a couple of really great forums to look at to get some more help with picking the right hardware. Some really good resources I found for this was the OSx86 project. Their wiki page includes some really great installation guides and a HCL (hardware compatibility list) that I was able to make some decisions about. The InsanelyMac Forums were also a great resource for tutorials and advice.
I had a few requirements for building my Hackintosh:
1.) Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. It seemed there was more support for OSx86 for the Intel side than the AMD side. Besides I had never built an Intel box before.
2.) The hardware had to closely match the HCL List on the Wiki. No digging around for obscure drivers or patches.
3.) The installation had to be easy, since I was a newbie.
With those requirements in mind, I browsed through a lot of forums and on the HCL wiki to see what was a consistently used motherboard - one that had been proven to work well. Once I had the motherboard picked out it was just a matter of finding components that fit my budget. I also had a few components that I could reuse from the old PVR box that I could use in the new hackintosh to save some money.
Old Components:
- Full ATX Case (used to be my old desktop case before I used the PVR box)
- 200 GB Western Digital Hard Drive (from PVR box)
- PNY nVidia 8600 GT / BFG Tech nVidia 7600 GT. The PNY card was originally Matt's, but needed to be RMA'd because it was flaky. The 7600 GT was in the PVR box and it worked pretty well. More on this later.
- SATA Sony DVD/CD Writer (from PVR box)
New Components:
- ($190) Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor. This is the at the price break between the low end Core2 Duos and the high end Core 2 duos and quads. I briefly considered the quad processor for $30 more, but decided even I didn't need that much power
- ($96) OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500). Highly rated by Newegg and relatively inexpensive. I was originally going to do 2 GB, but found there wasn't much cost savings by doing that. FYI, Windows XP can't natively support over 3 GB.
- ($100) SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-550HT 550W ATX12V. I've been using Antec products mainly for my builds in the past, but the power supply going out in the PVR box really peeved me off from Antec. This PS is steady as a rock, voltage swings are not nearly as bad the Antec.
- ($110) ASUS P5K PRO LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail. I've had good success with Asus in the past and it came highly recommended. Only thing I wish I could have done is gotten this board with the built in WiFi.
So for a grand total of $496, the Hackintosh I was going to build was going to have better performance than a $3000 Mac Pro. And even if Mac OS X didn't work - it was still going to be a pretty potent Linux or Windows machine.
For Part II I'll include some information on the build and the installation of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). That's for you Joe.