What was your primary reason for building a hackintosh?

[rheneas]

As an Amiga and Mac user circa the late 1980s, I was put off by the Windows experience through Windows 8; however back then Macs were expensive and applications somewhat limited. When I decided to have a custom desktop built with selected components in 2008, I thought it would be fun to try Hackintoshing (OS 10.4). The first time my Hack booted I felt a rush that hooked me for good, and I've learned a lot about hardware and systems that I never would have otherwise. Now using my third build. Updated Build 2 to 10.12.4 yesterday. (Also finally acquired the real thing: 2015 MacBook Pro "just because.")

 

[Daiphiron]

Its a little bit of all. My needs are very easy:

1. I need enough power to run several VM's (more like a lab enviroment)
2. I need Microsoft Office (for reasons)
3. And finaly it should run Battle.Net and Steam
4. Native ZSH (more or less)
5. Native PenTest Tools

Since i already have an old z220 with 32 GB of Ram i could run either Linux, Windows (and with the latest bios) macos.
Usualy i prefer vm workstation for virtualization but virtualbox does the job as well so every system fits.
Office can be run on each system as well but since i use office 365 i count on the native support for macos and windows
Battle.net / Steam yes can be run on each system but blizzard starts ban Linux user -> not my plan
ZSH over brew or nativ linux -> same same for me (babun doesnt work as i hoped and the ubuntu on windows stuff is somhow wierd for me)
PenTest Tools nativ ... thats not the real point since i have a virtualized Kali running... but still open the console in macos and just type is lovely ...

So there is no real winner for me ... but since the battle.net and office story i headed towards macos.

For me the greatest reason was to get my old z220 running with macos... havent had so much fun since a while with such a basic thing ...

 

[andrewosei]

I built my desktop to replace my MacPro5,1 because I didn't like the MacPro6,1. I spent approx $1600 on components to build it. For me, it was most definitely not due to cost but to get a system with the specs I wanted. The fact that I did save some money was just a byproduct.

On the other hand, for my laptop which I have very modest needs for, cost was a major factor. Surfing represents about 90% of what my laptops are used for. I wanted something to replace my very old MacBook5,1 (2008 model) and I wanted 16GB. Since Apple only offers 16GB on MacBook Pros, I was faced with spending at least $1700+tax. My other option was to purchase used which didn't appeal to me because of fear of losing supports for macOS updates too early.

So, I purchased a used Dell laptop for $190 instead and it has been perfect for my needs. Additionally, I have been extremely impressed with how cool and efficient the Broadwell CPU runs as opposed to some of the temps I've seen from older generations of MacBook Pros.

If you don't mind and because i'm lazy like that, i'd like your clover efi folder to use because i'm getting the same laptop you are using soon

 

[tonkpils]

I did my first one almost 10 years ago now on El Capitan. I use it mainly for music. I own 2 MacBook, and will always invest in MacBook. but for desktop i prefer the hackintosh, so that i can build my specs and have a more "scale-able" machine. I'm purchasing the last pieces in May (case, RAM, Power Alim) then I'll build a brand new machine with 6th gen i7.

Specs will be:
- GA-Z170X-Designare
- i7 6700k Skylake
- 32GB Ram (Corsair Dominator DDR4-2666 - Still to be ordered)
- Nvidia GTX680 2GB (Already owned, not installed at the moment. will try 3 monitor setup with one card)
- 500Gb SSD Samsung EVO (El Capitan)
- 250Gb SSD Samsung EVO (Win 10)
- Case Phantek Eclipse Tempered Glass Edition (still to be ordered)
- Alim 850w Corsair Modular (Still to be ordered)

Should be OK for long time with this..

 

[pastrychef]

If you don't mind and because i'm lazy like that, i'd like your clover efi folder to use because i'm getting the same laptop you are using soon

Yes, I'd be happy to help, but this is the wrong thread for it..

 

[Beasley]

I got annoyed with Windows on my DAW system, but there is no current mac with an i7, 64GB of memory, and 4 x SSDs. I certainly don't care about video performance enough to pay for dual GPUs.

 

[garner]

Apple stopped selling computers with CD drives.

Plenty of other reasons since, and I'm very glad I fell down the Hackintosh rabbit hole, but if Apple hadn't removed the optical drive from the iMac I'd have bought one of those and never would have considered building my own.

 

[MeemoUK24]

To edit videos, and because I would rather spend 2K and build myself a pc rather then buying hardware that gets outdated as soon as you buy it.

 

[AlphaFox]

I grew up on PCs - got my parents old 286 and tinkered with it as a kid - installed 2 video cards, a CGA and had a built in mono card. loaded windows 3.1, broke it, fixed it, tinkered, fun. started working for a local IT company and it was initially a challenge at first in the late 90's, but since then its gotten boring. like others had been saying, anyone can make windows work, its not a challenge. I had not always been interested in Macs but I always liked the way they looked and once I got the iPhone 3G, I started looking into them more and liked what I saw. Since then I have built 2 hackintoshes, one for my brother and one for me - the first using a modded G4 quicksilver case that turned out really well, and finally mine which I made with a MacPro 1,1 case and its awesome! I love the case and have tried to keep it as Mac looking as possible:

See my sig for the thread I made

 

[TheUNCONN3CT3D]

Final Cut Pro. It's how I get work done, without paying the stupidly expensive prices of a Mac. Plus since I have an iPhone, the integration with the Apple ecosystem is really useful.