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What Laptop to buy for first Hackintosh?

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Oct 12, 2023
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Hi guys, i need to change my alienware since is 14 years old. I was think about a Mac but i dont want to don't have Windows, and i find out about Hackintosh. I read around but still a little confused about what to buy. I was think about legion y520 but i read the graphics card is not supported. What laptop you suggest?
Thanks to who reply ;)
 
Hi guys, i need to change my alienware since is 14 years old. I was think about a Mac but i dont want to don't have Windows, and i find out about Hackintosh. I read around but still a little confused about what to buy. I was think about legion y520 but i read the graphics card is not supported. What laptop you suggest?
Thanks to who reply ;)
up to 10th gen intel with intel gpu is supported
 
up to 10th gen intel with intel gpu is supported
yes, but i mean dedicated card is not supported. It was a 1060 so nvidia. I try search a laptop with Radeon, but is worth? Or i can just use dedicated?
 
yes, but i mean dedicated card is not supported. It was a 1060 so nvidia. I try search a laptop with Radeon, but is worth? Or i can just use dedicated?
no
 
so what i need to see when i choose the laptop with this in mind? Because for my personal taste i will stick with alienware, but doesnt want to spend maybe the double of money and don't have possibilities of install it. Or even a link of a trusted source where i can see a list of compatibility laptops
 
so what i need to see when i choose the laptop with this in mind? Because for my personal taste i will stick with alienware, but doesnt want to spend maybe the double of money and don't have possibilities of install it. Or even a link of a trusted source where i can see a list of compatibility laptops
make sure it has a 10th gen intel cpu

and with intel gpu, if it also has nvidia or amd, that can be disabled so you just use the intel gpu
 
make sure it has a 10th gen intel cpu

and with intel gpu, if it also has nvidia or amd, that can be disabled so you just use the intel gpu
but performance is worse or is usable? Keep in mind that i plan to multiboot so if i need gaming will switch to win
I need Mac operative system for record music.
So basically i7/i9 (and is worth spend more for i9?) until 10 gen and radeon better but even nvidia con be good.
Also some brand i should avoid?
 
but performance is worse or is usable? Keep in mind that i plan to multiboot so if i need gaming will switch to win
I need Mac operative system for record music.
So basically i7/i9 (and is worth spend more for i9?) until 10 gen and radeon better but even nvidia con be good.
Also some brand i should avoid?
your choice of brand
 
The point is that if you want to dual boot on a gaming laptop with a dedicated graphics card, you have to deactivate the dGPU when you are booting macOS, but keep it activated when booting Windows. Some SSDT/DSDT hacking will be required here. For desktops you will see that online sometimes, but for a laptop I have never seen it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was not possible for a specific laptop with a dGPU, due to some BIOS shenanigans.

In the past, there were some laptops with an Intel CPU and Radeon GPU, where you had the rare case of the dGPU being implemented like a desktop dGPU - and then you could actually use the dGPU under macOS. I think the example was an Alienware laptop with a Radeon 5700M. However, since those laptops are rare, used pricing will be steep and you will have problems finding EFI folders or any kind of help online.

If I was you, I would get rid of the idea to have a dGPU in your laptop. I recently had a pleasant experience installing macOS Ventura on a HP Probook 450 G5 with a i7-8550U CPU. No dGPU, obviously, but for audio projects that should be good enough. That laptop is easy to maintain thanks to a maintenance access door with only one screw on the bottom, which allowed me to work on the wifi card, SSD, and RAM. The wifi card can be swapped for a Broadcom card. You will find a EFI folder for that specific laptop online, but I could also give you mine.

Alternatively, you could build a desktop of course. Last year I built a low cost hack for a friend of mine with two SSDs, one for macOS and one for Windows 10. No SSDT/DSDT hacks required here, since the Radeon 580 dGPU obviously works on both OSes, and Windows drivers for the Broadcom wifi card are available, too.
 
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