- Joined
- Apr 11, 2017
- Messages
- 42
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte Z270MX-Gaming 5
- CPU
- i7-7700K
- Graphics
- GTX 770
- Mobile Phone
Hey all,
I am a brand new member here, but I have had the board bookmarked for many years. In the past, I've come here when I am about to buy a new Apple computer, always hoping to find an easy, new solution to building a Hackintosh. The time has come again, I am ready to buy a new Mac. As history tends to repeat itself, I am back here...hoping. In the past, it always seemed difficult and unreliable to build your own Mac. Today, it seems more achievable. I have to preface this post by noting that I have never built a computer before. I am a total beginner. I do work on machines for a living, and amateurishly work on my own car. So I know how to do precision work and follow instructions very well. I have also been rooting my Android phones for many years, but always had to have a guide to follow. So I have come to see if the members here think it is possible for me to pull this off. Also, as a bit of a test, to see if the responses from this post give me enough courage to try it. I have high hopes, but I am not holding my breath yet.
What has drawn me back and made me serious enough to join the conversation, rather than just lurking here again, is the downward spiral that Apple has taken. I'm sure we all agree on that, otherwise tonymacx86 wouldn't exist. It looks like Apple might pull itself out of this one, but only time will tell. I am not willing to wait.
I recently purchased a 2015 imac 5K and returned it due to a small problem, a strange colored screen was appearing on shutdown. Even though Apple support had no idea what the issue was, I have since found out this is a known issue happening to many users since upgrading to Sierra. So it turns out to be a software glitch, rather than a hardware problem I though it might be. I could just buy the iMac again and ignore the issue until an update resolves it. But this was my first experience having any problems with a brand new Mac. Since returning it, the announcement was made about the upcoming iMacs and Mac Pros. This got me thinking about turning around and buying that iMac again. It's two years old already, which means in a few years, I have a five year old machine. Lately, 5 years seems to be long enough to make a powerful Mac into an aging museum piece. Which leads me to where I am now. Also, the lack of expandability to even upgrade or replace my own hard drive has me wondering if I want to bother with Apple branded machines any more. I have never gone to an iPhone because a rooted Andorid with removable battery and SD card has been a longstanding requirement. If I require that of something as simple as my phone, and am willing to take the steps to learn how to do that, I had to ask myself why I am willing to let Apple's computers control my freedom of having to same upgradability withe the device that is far more important to my livelihood, my computer.
The iMac worked well for what I need. It was a 27", 4.0ghz i7, with R9 M395 2GB GPU, 1TB PCIe flash drive and 16GB of RAM. I do a lot of photo work with Lightroom and Photoshop, along with design work in Illustrator. With that iMac 5K, I felt confident it would do the job after 2 weeks of testing it, but I lack confidence of it for the future. So, I am looking here to see if I can find the components to build something with at least the specs of that machine, or something in between that and a Mac Pro. I would hope to spend less money, and I am fine with going to a 4K display instead of the 5K. My biggest concern is having to fix incompatibility of hardware, and having to do it every time I want to update. So I am looking for the most Apple compatible build I can do. This computer will be used for work, so while I don't mind a little work to do the upgrades (even though I rarely do them, still running 10.8.5 today), I need to be confident that I can do upgrades in the future with a little patience and willingness to learn. It seems the "Hackintosh" community has become very supportive in the recent years, so I feel pretty confident that the support will be there. Someone please correct me if I am expecting too much.
I have looked through the buyer's guide here and it seems simple enough to build the CustoMac Pro for not much more than $2000 with a 4K display. The question is, is that truly simple enough for me to do with help from you all? And if so, will the savings in price be worth it with the added time to setup, maintain and fix problems in the future? Or should someone like me who needs this computer to work just stick with buying Apple products?
Looking forward to seeing what you all think. If I end up going the CustoMac route, I'll document the build on the forum for others like me to follow in the future!
Thanks,
Ghotix
I am a brand new member here, but I have had the board bookmarked for many years. In the past, I've come here when I am about to buy a new Apple computer, always hoping to find an easy, new solution to building a Hackintosh. The time has come again, I am ready to buy a new Mac. As history tends to repeat itself, I am back here...hoping. In the past, it always seemed difficult and unreliable to build your own Mac. Today, it seems more achievable. I have to preface this post by noting that I have never built a computer before. I am a total beginner. I do work on machines for a living, and amateurishly work on my own car. So I know how to do precision work and follow instructions very well. I have also been rooting my Android phones for many years, but always had to have a guide to follow. So I have come to see if the members here think it is possible for me to pull this off. Also, as a bit of a test, to see if the responses from this post give me enough courage to try it. I have high hopes, but I am not holding my breath yet.
What has drawn me back and made me serious enough to join the conversation, rather than just lurking here again, is the downward spiral that Apple has taken. I'm sure we all agree on that, otherwise tonymacx86 wouldn't exist. It looks like Apple might pull itself out of this one, but only time will tell. I am not willing to wait.
I recently purchased a 2015 imac 5K and returned it due to a small problem, a strange colored screen was appearing on shutdown. Even though Apple support had no idea what the issue was, I have since found out this is a known issue happening to many users since upgrading to Sierra. So it turns out to be a software glitch, rather than a hardware problem I though it might be. I could just buy the iMac again and ignore the issue until an update resolves it. But this was my first experience having any problems with a brand new Mac. Since returning it, the announcement was made about the upcoming iMacs and Mac Pros. This got me thinking about turning around and buying that iMac again. It's two years old already, which means in a few years, I have a five year old machine. Lately, 5 years seems to be long enough to make a powerful Mac into an aging museum piece. Which leads me to where I am now. Also, the lack of expandability to even upgrade or replace my own hard drive has me wondering if I want to bother with Apple branded machines any more. I have never gone to an iPhone because a rooted Andorid with removable battery and SD card has been a longstanding requirement. If I require that of something as simple as my phone, and am willing to take the steps to learn how to do that, I had to ask myself why I am willing to let Apple's computers control my freedom of having to same upgradability withe the device that is far more important to my livelihood, my computer.
The iMac worked well for what I need. It was a 27", 4.0ghz i7, with R9 M395 2GB GPU, 1TB PCIe flash drive and 16GB of RAM. I do a lot of photo work with Lightroom and Photoshop, along with design work in Illustrator. With that iMac 5K, I felt confident it would do the job after 2 weeks of testing it, but I lack confidence of it for the future. So, I am looking here to see if I can find the components to build something with at least the specs of that machine, or something in between that and a Mac Pro. I would hope to spend less money, and I am fine with going to a 4K display instead of the 5K. My biggest concern is having to fix incompatibility of hardware, and having to do it every time I want to update. So I am looking for the most Apple compatible build I can do. This computer will be used for work, so while I don't mind a little work to do the upgrades (even though I rarely do them, still running 10.8.5 today), I need to be confident that I can do upgrades in the future with a little patience and willingness to learn. It seems the "Hackintosh" community has become very supportive in the recent years, so I feel pretty confident that the support will be there. Someone please correct me if I am expecting too much.
I have looked through the buyer's guide here and it seems simple enough to build the CustoMac Pro for not much more than $2000 with a 4K display. The question is, is that truly simple enough for me to do with help from you all? And if so, will the savings in price be worth it with the added time to setup, maintain and fix problems in the future? Or should someone like me who needs this computer to work just stick with buying Apple products?
Looking forward to seeing what you all think. If I end up going the CustoMac route, I'll document the build on the forum for others like me to follow in the future!
Thanks,
Ghotix