$295 "PovoMac" — The Cheapest "Hackintosh" Ever!

[giacomo892]

This what you need
The motherboard is not very recent so it's not easy to find

 

[Domokun]

Firstly, I know there are many of you desperately trying to get the original "PovoMac" to work with Mountain Lion (10.8). As much as I want to assist you with your struggles, I can't. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the hardware in the original "PovoMac" and I cannot replace it directly, as the GA-H61M-D2-B3 has been superseded by the GA-H61MA-D2V in Gigabyte's motherboard line up and is no longer in stock within Australia. The original "PovoMac" was intended to run Lion (10.7) and — at the time — I couldn't anticipate compatibility issues with future OSX versions. However, "Mefin2" appears to have come up with a decent solution.

Secondly, there isn't much to report with "PovoMac" 2.0... yet. The reason for this is because I was waiting to see where the chips fell in regards to the "Ivy Bridge" (22nm) processors, the B75/H77/Z77 motherboards, and the "Kepler" (28nm) video cards. The good news for "PovoMac" 2.0 is that it is going to be flexible. There will be a basic (i.e. cheapest) model which can be expanded/upgraded to fit the desired budget and requirements. At this stage, it looks like the basic model will be made up of the following core components: Intel Celeron G530, Gigabyte GA-H61M-D2V, and Nvidia GT 520/610. Unfortunately, the "Ivy Bridge" (22nm) Celeron/Pentium processors will not be out until the last quarter of 2012, so the extra cost of the B75/H77/Z77 isn't justified at this stage (in my opinion). In addition, there won't be any entry-level "Kepler" (28nm) video cards lower than the GT 640, as the GT 610/620/630 will merely be rebranded "Fermi" (40nm) video cards.

The good news is that SSD prices have dropped significantly since the original "PovoMac" was created, hence, the basic model will feature a SSD. This will result in a Hackintosh that is both cheap and fast (for most tasks). Honestly, those that claimed the original "PovoMac" was too slow (which it wasn't) will be eating their words. Stay tuned!

 

[Willistuder]

Hello,

I am assembling the Povo Mac with identical components as in your spec and wish to install Snow Leopard.
which Multibeast settings should be used

these are for Povo Mac on Lion:
http://legacy.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=49797

Which of the two MultiBeast settings to use to install Snow Leopard on Povo Mac?
Thank you in advance for your kind response.

 

[Willistuder]

Is the F10 DSDT good for installing Snow Leopard, too? My mobo is about to arrive so it might have the latest BIOS version in it.

 

[Domokun]

Which of the two Multibeast settings to use to install Snow Leopard on Povo Mac?

Try the settings in the original post. If problems arise, then we can troubleshoot them.

Is the F10 DSDT good for installing Snow Leopard, too? My mobo is about to arrive so it might have the latest BIOS version in it.

Well, unfortunately there is only a DSDT for the F8 BIOS here on TonyMacX86. So you have two choices:

1) Flash the BIOS from F10 to F8 and use the F8 BIOS DSDT from TonyMacX86.
2) Try your luck with the F10 BIOS DSDT that "Mefin2" has linked to above.

 

[Willistuder]

Try the settings in the original post. If problems arise, then we can troubleshoot them.


Well, unfortunately there is only a DSDT for the F8 BIOS here on TonyMacX86. So you have two choices:

1) Flash the BIOS from F10 to F8 and use the F8 BIOS DSDT from TonyMacX86.
2) Try your luck with the F10 BIOS DSDT that "Mefin2" has linked to above.

With the Flash Utility permitting, I will downflash the BIOS to F8. Components arriving tomorrow, will keep the forum posted. Thank you.

 

[veseliburek]

So, which motherboard would you recommend now? GA-H61MA-D2V (rev. 2.1) or GA-H61M-D2-B3 (rev. 1.1)? It seems I can get them both, and I plan to install Mountain Lion, so I was just wondering which procedure would be less painful, as I would like not to take any chances with this...

 

[SystemZ]

functionality?

Hi one and all, I was curious about the functionality of the system. Supposedly it works rather well, but let's say I want to push it or abuse it. You can usually do this with this hardware running windows. I mean could I use this as a production system is it stable enough to handle some fairly heavy but not too heavy tasks? Or does that fall into an upgrade for the processor

Thanks guys

 

[Willistuder]

Once they are up and running, Hackintoshes are as stable as genuine Mac computers, so this is not an issue at least in my experience. I can't say anything about this particular build yet but, depending on the load, you just might find it slow, but that is a processor thing. Again, it will depend on the task you put on the system. If I remember well, somebody wrote that it performs very well on Adobe Photoshop. You can also find the benchmark scores at the beginning of the thread.

 

[Domokun]

So, which motherboard would you recommend now? GA-H61MA-D2V (rev. 2.1) or GA-H61M-D2-B3 (rev. 1.1)? It seems I can get them both, and I plan to install Mountain Lion, so I was just wondering which procedure would be less painful, as I would like not to take any chances with this...

Well, the less painful process will be with the GA-H61M-D2-B3 motherboard as it has the appropriate DSDT file. Ideally, both the GA-H61MA-D2V and GA-H61MA-D3V motherboards will work as well, but there aren't any appropriate DSDT files created by TonyMacX86 (I'm unsure why there haven't been any DSDT files created for the Gigabyte EFI motherboards). Therefore, I'm not recommending it until such time as I have it in my possession and can create a custom DSDT (which I will need to research to ensure I am going about the right process).

I was curious about the functionality of the system. Supposedly it works rather well, but let's say I want to push it or abuse it. You can usually do this with this hardware running windows. I mean could I use this as a production system is it stable enough to handle some fairly heavy but not too heavy tasks?

It's all relative. What is your definition of "heavy tasks"? Admittedly, if your gig is 3D rendering or video processing, you're not going to reach the performance level of a $2-3K computer for under $300. However, "PovoMac" is surprisingly fast (I'm starting to sound like a broken record). If you replace the HDD with a SSD (which is recommended now that SSD prices have significantly decreased), it will fly for most tasks. As previously mentioned, I used "PovoMac" to utilise Final Cut Pro X, Photoshop, and Xcode, all worked fine without issue. As long as your hardware isn't faulty (i.e. you stress test the CPU, GPU, RAM, and SSD independently), OSX should be stable.

To put things into perspective, boot times and application launch times were quicker on "PovoMac" (with a SSD upgrade) than my primary — and much more expensive — computer (which has the following components: Intel Core I7 3770 @ 3.9GHz, ASUS P8Z77-I-D, 16GB DDR3 1600MHz, GTX 680 2GB, and SanDisk Extreme 240GB). Obviously (and as to be expected), in multi-threaded tasks (i.e. that use more than two cores/threads) "PovoMac" falls behind.