Confused by buyers guide... - Old Hackintosher back for round 3!

[bendelaurence]

Hi!

I was about to pull the trigger on an M2 Mac mini earlier. Base model seemed a great price.

Then I realised SSD speed issues with 256Gb, and only 8GB of ram. After upgrading these, the price didnt seem too appealing anymore. So I can back here to see what I could build for the same money.

I found a build on YouTube which seemed to smoke even the M2 PRO so used that at a starting point.

Questions:

-Buyers guide is still recommending old SATA SSD'd (EVO860) - any reason why we're not using super fast NMVe's yet?
-Buyers guide only has mega old GPU's - any reason why RX6600 isn't on there? (ive seen it in loads of builds
-buyers guide has no Z790's - any reason?
-BG uses 10th get processors - plenty of builds around with 13th gen, any reason?

And just generally - Buyers guide seems very out of date. Is this because of compatibility? Or is it actually just out of date now?

Thanks

 

[trs96]

any reason why we're not using super fast NMVe's yet?

Most everyone is using them. The BG does have two listed but there are still newer versions than those. See the Deals of the day forum for many more NVMe choices.

any reason why RX6600 isn't on there?

Yes, it should be added. Remember that it only has support in Monterey or newer. If you know it's supported and you'll install Monterey or Ventura, buy it anyway. Doesn't have to be in the BG to use it.

buyers guide has no Z790's - any reason?
-BG uses 10th get processors - plenty of builds around with 13th gen, any reason?

Apple has never supported any chipset newer than the Intel 10th gen. It doesn't mean newer chipsets can't work, just that none of the 11/12/13th gen chipsets have native support.

 

[bendelaurence]

Most everyone is using them. The BG does have two listed but there are still newer versions than those. See the Deals of the day forum for many more NVMe choices.

View attachment 564744

Yes, it should be added. Remember that it only has support in Monterey or newer. If you know it's supported and you'll install Monterey or Ventura, buy it anyway. Doesn't have to be in the BG to use it.


Apple has never supported any chipset newer than the Intel 10th gen. It doesn't mean newer chipsets can't work, just that none of the 11/12/13th gen chipsets have native support.

Thank you for the reply sir. I missed those ssd’s I see them now.

Re chipset - I want to go down the route of “as easy as possible”. I’m far too old to be pulling all nighters trying to get a USB port to work . So with this considered, 10th gen would be the best option right? Less messing about?

I’ll have an another search, but if you have any info on the newest/supported GPU’s that would be handy. I will use the most up to date OS.

I’m not sure if this feeling in my stomach is dread of excitement

 

[trs96]

if you have any info on the newest/supported GPU’s that would be handy.

The AMD 6000 series (specific models) are the newest supported cards.
RX6600, 6800 and 6900 cards are all natively supported including the XT variants.
As far as brand goes, most of them will work. Top three brand choices are Sapphire, Gigabyte and Asus.
I've also heard good things about MSI and Powercolor. CaseySJ likes the latter.

So with this considered, 10th gen would be the best option right? Less messing about?

Yes, tenth gen is the way to go for the highest level of macOS compatibility.
The USB port mapping still needs to be done and is trivial when you use the Hackintool app.

Just remember to install Catalina first, use the iGPU. Map the ports to your specific PC case and then it's
very easy to upgrade to Ventura from there and use your 6000 series AMD card. Remember that you'll
need this agdpmod=pikera boot argument in your config.plist to boot with the AMD card.

No sleepless nights needed.

 

[trs96]

If you can find one of these boards https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/gigabyte-z490-vision-d-thunderbolt-3-i5-10400-amd-rx-580.298642/ CaseySJ has done most of the work already. The Vision G usually costs less and the same guide can be used to set that up. These are out of production so are rather difficult to find new.

 

[remington]

Re chipset - I want to go down the route of “as easy as possible”. I’m far too old to be pulling all nighters trying to get a USB port to work . So with this considered, 10th gen would be the best option right? Less messing about?

I would recommend getting a Z470 or Z490 motherboard to get nearly full macOS support. There are plenty of guides here to get it up and running. Yes those boards are difficult to find new. I got mine from Newegg shipped from China. The motherboard manual was in Chinese so I downloaded the manual in English from ASUS website.

 

[etorix]

I will use the most up to date OS.

I do not want to rain on your parade, or ruin the excitemnt on a new own build, but if keeping with the latest version of macOS is important to you, there's more future in an AppleSilicon Mac mini (with RAM and storage slightly upgraded over base) than in any Z490 or Z690 build.

 

[bendelaurence]

I do not want to rain on your parade, or ruin the excitemnt on a new own build, but if keeping with the latest version of macOS is important to you, there's more future in an AppleSilicon Mac mini (with RAM and storage slightly upgraded over base) than in any Z490 or Z690 build.

You’re not raining on anything . I’m really in 2 minds here.

I’m not a power user anymore. Very unlikely I’ll be doing huge renders ever again. It’s going to be web browsing, accounts, a little video editing and gaming here and there.

Here is where I’m at after a few days research:

-Mac Mini M2 with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD is fast, easy, and probably good for 10 years. I see no benefit for my current work buying an M2 pro. Most of the improvements are media encoding. The rest are the same or better on the non-pro. So I’m looking at £1000

-Hackintosh. Yes - as far as benchmarks go, I could build a faster machine for the money. But again, most of the speed is only really realised when media encoding. We’re only good for as long as apple supports Intel (3-6 years from today ish). Mild build headache. Not as pretty. And update anxiety.

All things considered, I think it’s probably time a grew up and bought a Mac Mini.

If I was doing a tonne of media work still, it would be a No brainer - Hackintosh. But I’m not. I’ll take a week to mull it over.

 

[Jamesbond007]

You’re not raining on anything . I’m really in 2 minds here.

I’m not a power user anymore. Very unlikely I’ll be doing huge renders ever again. It’s going to be web browsing, accounts, a little video editing and gaming here and there.

Here is where I’m at after a few days research:

-Mac Mini M2 with 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD is fast, easy, and probably good for 10 years. I see no benefit for my current work buying an M2 pro. Most of the improvements are media encoding. The rest are the same or better on the non-pro. So I’m looking at £1000

-Hackintosh. Yes - as far as benchmarks go, I could build a faster machine for the money. But again, most of the speed is only really realised when media encoding. We’re only good for as long as apple supports Intel (3-6 years from today ish). Mild build headache. Not as pretty. And update anxiety.

All things considered, I think it’s probably time a grew up and bought a Mac Mini.

If I was doing a tonne of media work still, it would be a No brainer - Hackintosh. But I’m not. I’ll take a week to mull it over.

I agree your best choice is to get a M2 Mac Mini. You are going to have to switch to Apple Silicon if you need to run an updated version of MacOS anyway. So why not now? Save yourself the hassle of the necessary efforts to setup and maintain a hackintosh which will be out of support in a few years.