26 ms·

My 2020 Hackintosh Hardware Spec

334 points by morid1n 7y ago

Tepix 7y ago
I think AMD offers the better bang for the buck right now and thanks to amd-osx.com it's not that hard to build a Ryzen (including Threadripper) based Hackintosh.
- nik736 7y ago
  Until you need to use the Adobe Suite.
  - PedroBatista 7y ago
    So what's the problem with Adobe exactly? Is there any fix on the horizon?
    - calypso 7y ago
      Adobe products were not written to take full advantage of high thread counts not GPU bound tasks. This is why their products run much better on Intel chips because they have higher single core speeds.
    - JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
      In short, some software (Adobe included) makes use of features that are available on Intel processors but not on AMD. Whilst both AMD and Intel are x86-64 they do both have their own unique features. For example, on Intel you've got fast memset, which doesn't exist on AMD.
      - PedroBatista 7y ago
        But Adobe apps run on Windows with AMD, which means they custom build/compile their apps for each OS ( which is perfectly normal ) and since Apple only deals with Intel CPU's it's understandable. Maybe it would be better to check for CPU capabilities at runtime and have a more portable app, but what do I know, obviously Adobe PMs will not pay the cost just so some mutts can run hackintosh.
        JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
        My understanding is it's actually a limitation of the Intel C++ compiler they use but I can't confirm this. On Windows it bakes in some conditionals to check if the CPU is GenuineIntel before doing some things, on macOS it doesn't bother.
  - timbit42 7y ago
    Someone else in this thread mentioned there are patches available for Adobe products.
- ActorNightly 7y ago
  I am pretty sure that bang/buck is completely irrelevant when it comes to Apple
  - Tepix 7y ago
    This isn't Apple. This is for people who want more bang for the buck and/or options
anotheryou 7y ago
and the price?
- morid1n 7y ago
  See one my of other comments please.
signa11 7y ago
tangential: i am _seriously_ considering getting an eizo monitor for personal (non-gaming) use, and was wondering if anyone here can chime in with some personal experience. a bit hesitant given the price tag. thanks !
_def 7y ago
Is it worth it building a Hackintosh? Are there any downsides comparing to Apple hardware? (in terms of using OSX)
- phoe-krk 7y ago
  Upsides: price, upgradeability, repairability.
- motdiem 7y ago
  The main downside is you have to be super careful when applying os updates - and recent macos tend to be updated more frequently.
- dana321 7y ago
  I thought about myself, but OS updates / upgrades are risky.
- morid1n 7y ago
  Depends on a persons needs. Worth it for me. It’s faster than an 8-core 6000 USD Mac Pro and a 10-core iMac Pro. Downsides are maintenance, knowing what you’re doing, checking if it’s safe to upgrade to a newer version of macOS.
- prophet_ 7y ago
  I spent a lot of time setting up Hackintoshes and, in the end, I always ended up asking myself: why did I bother doing all this? The time you have to spend maintaining it can amount to a lot. In my case, the machine would always feel sort of unstable with random freezes, etc. You just never really know 100% what's going on behind the scenes, it could be the wrong kext, or the wrong graphics card, or the wrong os patch, the wrong iso used, etc. If you have plenty of time to play with it, I would say go for it. But if you just need your machine to do work and cannot afford having a computer that may suddenly stop working (and requiring a lot of time to get it going again), just save your time/money and buy an actual apple device. The idea of having a fast and custom made computer running macOS is pretty enticing, but it's a lot more time consuming/intricate than one would like to admit.
this_is_not_you 7y ago
Would have been curious to see a price comparison between the build and a Mac Pro with the same specs.
- morid1n 7y ago
  This build cost me around 1600 USD (I moved over a few parts from the old hackintosh (2x HDD, WiFi card, GPU). So around 2000 with those. I already had the two monitors (for many years now) too.
  - morid1n 7y ago
    A Mac Pro with the 8-core CPU, 48GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, the Promise bay for 2x HDDs runs around 7200 USD.
    - alkonaut 7y ago
      Perhaps the closest comparison is to throw in a 5K screen making it (say) $2500 with the Hackintosh and compare with an iMac (Non-Pro) with 64Gb non-ECC. It’s around half the cost, plus you get to keep the screen.
    - this_is_not_you 7y ago
      Thanks a lot!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
gempir 7y ago
I have heard good things about Hackintosh on Ryzen does anyone have more Info? How viable is it? I'm using a 15 inch Macbook Pro but it struggles with 3 1440p monitors but my PC with a Ryzen 3800x and RTX 2080, 32gb RAM runs like a beast on Windows.
- hivacruz 7y ago
  It's getting better and better every month. The AMD community really made it easier the last few years to use AMD's CPUs on Hackintoshes. You can find plenty of builds on the dedicated subreddit. If you plan to Hackintosh your PC though, your RTX 2080 won't work.
  - gempir 7y ago
    Oh won't work at all? I thought Nvidia released drivers for macOS
    - hivacruz 7y ago
      Nvidia released drivers for macOS up to High Sierra indeed. After that, we don't know exactly what happened behind the scenes, but apparently Apple would not approve the Nvidia drivers for later macOS releases and switched completely to AMD GPUs.
    - jannes 7y ago
      > We've spoken with several dozen developers inside Apple, obviously not authorized to speak on behalf of the company, who feel that support for Nvidia's higher-end cards would be welcome, but disallowed quietly at higher levels of the company. https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management-doesnt-want-nvidia-support-in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management...
- Nursie 7y ago
  IIRC it's a little more tricky than on intel because the processors aren't officially supported. It may take some sort of kernel hackery to get going, and then you need to be careful about updates. I have a similar build (64GB and a 2080 Ti) but the lack of Nvidia support is keeping me from giving it a go.
laurent123456 7y ago
> this is probably the last time I’m building this sort of computer, before MacOS is locked down forever Any info on how they will lock it down?
- morid1n 7y ago
  With the T2 chip which is already present in other Macs. It’s optional at the moment but I assume at some point it will be closed off. And then there’s the ARM CPU argument - we could get those soon.
  - slantyyz 7y ago
    According to a Linus Tech Tips video[1] that I saw a a couple of days ago, you can use PCI nvme drives on the new Mac Pro, but it won't even boot unless one of the proprietary Apple SSDs is connected (because of the T2). [1] https://youtu.be/mIB389tqzCI?t=180 https://youtu.be/mIB389tqzCI?t=180
    - derefr 7y ago
      Which makes sense: it needs to load firmware/EFI from somewhere; and in a setup where you expect your own SSD to be a fixed resource in the system, there's little reason to have separate BIOS flash.
    - morid1n 7y ago
      You should be able to turn off the T2 function Secure Boot which blocks booting from other drives: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208330 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208330
      - slantyyz 7y ago
        According to this newer Linus Video [1], one of the T2 SSD slots still needs to be populated with an Apple drive to boot from other drives. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcLbSCinX3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcLbSCinX3U
- 7y ago
keyle 7y ago
Mac mini too expensive? I'm not sure. Also I've ran some benchmarks against my friend's hackintosh and smoked it. I mean read his specs, it's not cheap at all. Fractal cases are not cheap, and the RTX 580 that he will upgrade once he gets to Catalina? Right, that's cheap. Those little mac minis are beasts if you ask me. Mine is called minibeef ;) I've added an eGPU to it and it's powerhouse for all of my work, in spades. Edit: my geekbench score is 5547 single and 23621 multi, that seems to be much higher than the posted specs.
- morid1n 7y ago
  A comparable Mac Mini spec, without an eGPU, HDDs, a Core i7 instead of an i9, costs 2700, which is 1000 USD more expensive than what I paid for this build. The CPU is also slower. Add an eGPU and we’re talking another 500-600 USD and still slower than an i9.
- omegabravo 7y ago
  Something appears to be wrong with your benchmarking. You should be in the vicinity of 1100 ST, 5600 MT
  - morid1n 7y ago
    Older version of Geekbench.
- nik736 7y ago
  The Mac Mini has no integrated GPU and is dead because of this reason. Why would I buy such an elegant device if I have to hook an ugly eGPU case.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > The Mac Mini has no integrated GPU They do - they use Intel UHD Graphics 630, which is an Intel GT integrated GPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology. How did you think they were running the display? They can't squeeze a tiny discrete graphics card in there!
bitxbit 7y ago
It would be nice if Apple opened up OS X a bit. I _know_ that goes against brand principle etc but they also lost a lot of ground back to Windows in the past five years. I used OS X from launch but switched to Windows three years ago because it was simply a better package for me. Cloud computing has pretty much eliminated the need/preference for OS X.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > they also lost a lot of ground back to Windows in the past five years Is this just you and some people you've seen online, or is there some study showing them genuinely losing significant market share to Windows?
  - ksec 7y ago
    Not OP, My hypothesis. In 2014 Apple Announced they had around 80M Active Mac Users. In 2017 They had over 90M Active Mac Users. In 2018 They Reached 100M Active Mac Users. Apple has a fairly stable Mac business, and ships 18 - 20 Million unit over the past few years. They are also very proud of their consistent ~50% of Mac sold are first time Mac user. If no one was leaving the Mac ecosystem, you would have expected 9 to 10 million increase of active user per year. Except it didn't happen. The growth rate has slow down dramatically. They are gaining ~5M user per year. There is also another stats Apple gives out, nearly All of the New Mac user were from China. And that is not surprising given the whole iOS ecosystem and games development requires Mac along with the rise of middle class. But this also tells you most of the New Mac User are from China. This hypothesis doesn't takes into account how Apple measures its "Active Mac Users", but suggest Apple is losing millions of Active user outside China. And since US has the largest Mac user base, I would not be surprised if it lost ground to Windows was an observation from a US users perspective.
    - derefr 7y ago
      That presumes constant growth of desktop computers (/computers running desktop OSes.) What if it's just mobile growing at the expense of desktop generally? I know that in e.g. education, computer labs have been replaced with carts full of tablets.
oauea 7y ago
Can someone explain why you would want to run an operating system that actively tries to prevent you from running it? Apple clearly doesn't want to support third party hardware and from what I've heard, you have to live in constant fear of updates.
- morid1n 7y ago
  It’s that good. And the software on it is even better.
- lawik 7y ago
  I think there are plenty of reasons. You might like the OS a lot but not care about Apple's feelings. Spite is another one. Or fun. It's a neat thing to do. Hacking-wise. You might want the high performance hardware without the premium price. I've considered it but will probably go Linux for my next desktop work machine.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Spite is another one. This is a bad reason to spend any of your life on something.
    - jacobush 7y ago
      If in earnest, yes. But if more like in jest, than actual hurt feelings spite, why the heck not. It can be fun. My somewhat humorous take back in the day - the terms said the OS must only run on Apple labeled hardware. So I labelled the hardware with a couple of Apple stickers. That should do it, right?! :-D (If I recall correctly the stickers even came with the Snow Leopard DVD...)
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    > I think there are plenty of reasons. You might like the OS a lot but not care about Apple's feelings. Apple is a company. Companies do not have feelings; they have interests. Who are you (financially) hurting by running Hackintosh?
- 7y ago
turshija 7y ago
I've started building my own "budget" hackintosh yesterday actually! It is pretty straight forward if you are purchasing components specifically for hackintosh (instead of trying to salvage your current PC). Here is my geekbench 4 benchmark: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/15176970 https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/15176970 (slightly better compared to new 16'' macbook with i7) And these are components that I've bought and for which prices: Motherboard: ASUS TUF Z390M-PRO GAMING - 144 euro CPU: i5-9600K - 208 euro RAM: Predator 2x16gb RGB - 184 euro NVMe: SILICON POWER 512GB P34A80 M.2 PCIe M.2 2280 SP512GBP34A80M28 - 81 euro PSU: THERMALTAKE Smart Pro RGB 750W Bronze - 89 euro GPU: ASUS Radeon RX 580 4gb - 166 euro I still have to see how stable this will be, and if it can replace my 2015 iMac. Here are useful links I used: https://github.com/alienator88/ASUS-TUF-Z390M-Pro-Gaming-Hackintosh https://github.com/alienator88/ASUS-TUF-Z390M-Pro-Gaming-Hac... Also Google: hackintosh asus tuf z390m
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  > It is pretty straight forward if you are purchasing components specifically for hackintosh Definitely this. There are "golden builds" where people have ironed out components and steps exactly so there's barely any more pain than installing Windows.
Snelius 7y ago
Is it a dual boot box with macos and windows? Or do you use two boxes? Then how u do switch between with one keyboard/mouse? What kind of kvm or so?
- morid1n 7y ago
  Dual boot. Two SSDSs.
mskalski 7y ago
In my case I'm running macos in kvm VM on my home server based on SuperMicro X10SDV-6C-TLN4F. Seems to work ok but with some exceptions. First is the graphic card which I pass through to VM, it is geforce gtx 1060 and unfortunelty it limits me to use only high sierra, which seems to be the last version of macos for which nvidia web drivers are available. Both video and sound goes through hdmi cable connected to my tv. Other is network card, if you are ok using kvm emulated nic like e1000-82545em then you are set, if you are trying to pass physical interface, or sr-iov vf you may have to deal with bunch of kexts or flashing NIC eeprom to been seen as a card supported by drivers like the one provided by smalltree. If someone want to try, here is with what I started https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM
- ngcc_hk 7y ago
  Surprise. Would try it with my intel nuc Ubuntu tmr.
loraa 7y ago
Last time I did that, when all was said and done, it turns out Linux was a better choice.
unnouinceput 7y ago
Quote: "The SSD is more than fast enought for my needs. Funny thing is that it’s even faster under Windows (3.5 GBps read and 3.3 GBps write)." Also OP is showing ~2.5 Gbps in an image. Funny thing, I run my Macs in virtual machines (VMWare), and the speed is identical to Windows (host OS), while all other OS'es (Linux / BSD / other Windows') show slower speed. I wonder why.
- morid1n 7y ago
  Screenshot shows 3 GBps for both read and write under Windows. Windows has 3.5/3.3.
  - unnouinceput 7y ago
    Correct. Also for curiosity I did a test on my host and Mac VM. Program reported on both Windows and Mac VM same speed of ~500 MB/s (which translates into 4.8 Gbps for OP style). On Linux I got ~450 MB/s. I used Total Commander in all cases (my normal file manager) and used my Witcher 3 .iso file as test (66 GB in size).
    - paranoidrobot 7y ago
      > which translates into 4.8 Gbps for OP style I think you are misreading/misunderstanding the performance of modern NVMe SSDs. SATA based SSDs which it sounds like you have, top out at around 550MByte/sec. However a PCIE 3.0 NVME can easily achieve 3500 MByte/sec throughput. That's saturating the PCIE 3.0 x4 link. PCIE 4.0 based SSDs are even faster, with advertised 5000MByte/sec throughput (but in testing may top out slightly slower than that) Yes, modern SSDs are stupid fast. [0] https://www.techspot.com/review/1893-pcie-4-vs-pcie-3-ssd/ https://www.techspot.com/review/1893-pcie-4-vs-pcie-3-ssd/
      - unnouinceput 7y ago
        Aye, it's SATA. PC is from 2013, old badly, planning this year to make a new one. But it covered me in past 7 years quite nicely. I made a quick math with my wife when she complained why I need a new one since this one is still good. Calculated that in past 7 years she paid 20% more in her cell phone subscription then me in buying/upgrading the PC all these years. And it was the work horse with at least 10 hours daily running, average of 16 and plenty of times stayed on for days.
mikece 7y ago
What exactly would Apple lose if they offered A subscription service ($199/year? $19/month?) that allowed registered developers the right to install macOS either on bare hardware or a VM? I can’t speak for everyone else but the only reason I bought a MacBook Pro was for iOS development; I have to imagine there is a number where Apple would be fine with dispensing with making/shipping/selling/supporting the hardware and would just sell the software. Heck, I’d be fine if it was a developer-only stripped down macOS that only ran Xcode and tooling that required Xcode (Xamarin, Flutter, and Ionic development and IPA compile step). Seriously: what is the harm to Apple is allowing/selling this?
- diffeomorphism 7y ago
  They would lose branding(the "best" Mac is this build + subscription not their top of the line model), would have to support lots of additional hardware, would have to support the setup, offer tech support, training for their support etc. . In short, not likely. Instead they may considering offering cloud instances for running XCode etc. that they can rent out.
- citboin 7y ago
  Check out macincloud.com
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  It's actually not too bad to run macOS in a VM -- this is an option Apple doesn't explicitly support, but they also realize how useful it can be for automated testing of apps and browser compatibility. The company line is that they only support macOS on a VM on a "legitimate" Mac, but realistically it's not hard to find guides on how to virtualize it on a Windows host.
  - jedieaston 7y ago
    With the ever notable exception that graphics acceleration straight up does not exist at all in macOS in a VM. The only way to get it is to use virtIO on a Linux box to pass through a secondary AMD card, I believe.
brobot182 7y ago
I have almost the exact same setup as you: same CPU cooler, same CPU, and the pro WiFi version of the Z390. However, when I’m doing a long-running clean build that uses the 16 logical cores, the temperature for each core gets up to 80 C. Any thoughts why that would be?
- Macha 7y ago
  Is your environment 10C higher than OP's? Most reviews compare coolers in terms of the temperature increase over background temperature to control for this. 80C for a 9900k under sustained high load would not concern or surprise me. It's a high end power hungry CPU. 100C is the cutoff temperature so maybe more cooling might help it turbo more but I doubt you even get throttling at 80C.
hootbootscoot 7y ago
you are only prolonging their foul empire, lol... I mean I get you (pity and understand) if you are stuck in Logic or Final Cut Pro land with no painless way out, welcome to the state/reality of proprietary media production workstation software lockin, which is arguably nearly as tight of a lockin as obscure scientific instrumentation and machine control driver lockin etc... "yeah, you'll need a working install of NT4.0"
rickyc091 7y ago
Haven't made a Hackintosh in a while, OpenCore is new to me. Does anyone know if Messages, Apple Store, etc. work or do you still have to hack it with a real serial?
- djmobley 7y ago
  OpenCore works in the same way as Clover in this respect. You still need to provide a serial, MLB, etc. If you configure everything correctly, you should have no issues using Apple services.
- JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
  You still need a real serial but you can generate one pretty easily. Just need to check on Apple's website if it validates. I have my PC with an AMD Ryzen 3900X running with macOS with working iMessage / App Store etc.
asadkn 7y ago
The last hackintosh I made was in 2017 and it's still a beast. Maintenance was relatively easy However, the future of pain-free Hackintosh doesn't seem very likely. It's rumored (or confirmed?) Apple will do its proprietary ARM system as MacOS eventually moves onto that [1] (maybe not this year, but in the near future). And then there's the T2 chip. I have been slowly moving away from Mac in general as I have no need for it (not a Mac/iOS developer). The alternatives are just as good or better for my taste. [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-mac-arm-cpus-2020-intel,38668.html https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-mac-arm-cpus-2020-in...
- JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
  Thing is, I'm not a Mac or iOS developer either, but I find that even if alternatives exist, they're rarely as polished as what's available for macOS. Consider Paste - Ditto exists for Windows, but it's just not as nice in my honest opinion. Or BetterTouchTool, I'm not aware of a Windows alternative.
  - jdhawk 7y ago
    CopyQ, Touchégg and ElementaryOS (Ubuntu LTS based) give it a roll.
    - innocentoldguy 7y ago
      Then you lose the ability to run things like DAWs and Adobe products. I've used Linux since 1994, but it just doesn't have the commercial software support necessary to make it a serious desktop contender, which is unfortunate.
      - JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
        This is a big part of it for me. I love Logic Pro / Cubase / Ableton, and having access to those is pretty important. Admittedly part of the reason I prefer macOS to Windows is that I find pro audio software tends to get more love on macOS.
pram 7y ago
I have the same, 9900k with a 5700XT. Catalina works with SIP enabled, FileVault 2 works perfectly, etc. Been doing hackintosh since 2016. With that said I’m pretty much done with it now that they made the 16 inch MBP. I bought one with the i9 and 64GB of ram and the experience is way better. I don’t need to mess around with clover or update random kexts anymore. It gets old after awhile!
- JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
  Do you not ever miss the added power of your hackintosh though? I have a 2017 MBP and it's a great machine but I still love having my big ridiculously powerful desktop with three monitors for when I want that.
  - pram 7y ago
    The desktop is undeniably faster, but because of what I mainly use it for these days (digital art) I only really get benefit from single core performance and lots of memory. The difference between the 9900K and the 9980HK in this regard is imperceptible. I'm just going to turn the desktop into a Windows gaming rig now :V
  - WaltPurvis 7y ago
    The new MacBook Pro is pretty powerful. I have four monitors hooked to mine and the machine is much faster than my five-year-old Hackintosh. I could build a new Hackintosh that would have somewhat better performance than the MacBook, but for me the difference is no longer worth it, so like the previous commenter I'm probably done with building Hackintoshes for now.
    - JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
      I totally get that. In all honesty, in a rational world a MacBook is more than enough performance for me (and it's actually what I use at work), but there's still very much an enthusiast alive in me that loves my over the top desktop.
ng7j5d9 7y ago
> Replacing an iMac also means getting rid of a perfectly good monitor. This is the thing that absolutely friggin kills me with the Mac lineup. As a developer I see monitors and computers as the perfect example of loose coupling. And I've absolutely had different lifecycles for monitors and computers in the past. My Mac mini that was once my primary desktop machine is now a media center hooked up to a TV. But if the Mac mini doesn't meet your needs (fast CPUS, storage bays, whatever), and the Mac Pro doesn't fit your budget, Apple gives you a big ol' middle finger. I mean, I COULD buy an iMac, but then 8 years down the road when I want a new desktop, I've got this unwieldy all-in-one where that big screen feels like more of a hindrance than an asset. I haven't built a Hackintosh myself, but every time I look at the desktop Mac lineup I think about it.
- pier25 7y ago
  Yeah Apple is missing a huge market opportunity there. I've always wanted a tower mac but the new Mac Pro is not the machine for me. I just want the specs of an iMac on a tower. A couple of years ago I ended up buying an iMac 5K since I needed to upgrade my old MBP and the Apple laptop landscape was so desolate. I'm very happy with it for dev and design work but I tried to use it for music production and it's not the machine for that. Cooling is bad for anything other than short bursts. Even at 30% of sustained CPU work for audio the fans turn on and are quite annoying. I ended up building a Ryzen Windows PC which cost me as much as an i7 Mini but is even more powerful than the base Mac Pro.
  - sixothree 7y ago
    I feel like I exist in the "enthusiast" segment which Apple completely ignores.
    - sneak 7y ago
      Apple enthusiasts buy Macbook Pros or iMacs. There’s nothing wrong with integrated displays. In fact, it saves on a ton of cable mess, and they are usually worlds better than what you would plug a computer into anyway.
a012 7y ago
I've been working on a Hackintosh build since last 2 years, but since I don't need a video rig and/or compiling work horse, I reduced my self to a Intel NUC with Clearlinux OS. I'm getting familiar with Rawtherapee and Darktable workflow (instead of Capture One) since I'm a weekend photographer. Clearlinux has most of my needs, so I'm happy with it at the moment.
- 120photo 7y ago
  RawTherapee is great. I also use Digikam. Linux is great but I needed Photoshop (GIMP is not there yet). There are also a handful of mac OS apps without replacements. I upgraded my Hackintosh build and for a while had Arch Linux running on it. Runs great, but ended up running Windows 10 to get my Photoshop fix.
120photo 7y ago
Upgraded my 2011 Hackintosh last year: i7-950 -> x5680 overclocked to 4.25GHz (good enough can probably go up). Upgraded from 12GB RAM to 24GB triple channel RAM (can upgrade to 48GB). Also upgraded from a old 1.5GB video card to the Sapphire RX 580. It was too much of a pain to get mac OS to run with this setup so I gave Windows 10 a try. It works great. I only use it for photography and video work. This setup smokes my 2016 Macbook Pro. I was considering tossing the system but a couple hundred dollars worth of upgrades and new life to a old system.
jackhack 7y ago
interesting list of hardware and beautiful photos, but this blogpost missing one key item -- cost! HOW MUCH $$$ TO BUILD THIS MONSTER of a "mac", and how does that compare to a similarly-specified Apple product? Without this, it feels like a collection of thinly-disguised product placements.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  Well, for one, the memory is far cheaper and faster. 56GB of memory (going from eight to 64) will set you back $1,000 alone from Apple, or $252 from Amazon (and before anyone complains "but the Apple memory will be higher quality", unlikely. Same manufacturers. In fact, you can get far faster memory yourself, versus the 2666 on some Apple stuff).
  - larkost 7y ago
    But for the up iMacs (not the base models) you can put in third-party RAM. That is what I have always done to avoid Apples high prices on that (except on my laptop, where it is soldered in). But I would caution you about trying to mix in faster RAM, many non-third part. system only take one speed of RAM. That makes the system not only cheaper to build, but often you can tweak some more speed (really latency) out of it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- morid1n 7y ago
  I paid around 1600 USD for everything. Counting the parts I reused from my old hackintosh, around 2000. A similarly specced Mac Pro 8-core is around 7200 USD.
  - jackhack 7y ago
    thank you. A very useful contribution that neatly answers the question of why anyone would go through so much trouble. I would have guessed the difference in price was "only" a few hundred, and obviously would have been quite wrong! I never would have guessed 3.5 times!
cheunste 7y ago
Interesting. I actually started buying components to build a new hackintosh to replace my old El Captain one from 2013. Man, I can't believe how far SSDs have come. My current SSD is only 250 GB and now you can get a 1TB SSD for like 150 USD
ir77 7y ago
with all the mention of "getting the right components" what's a reference website where i can learn how to build my own system?
- agilebyte 7y ago
  https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-hackintosh-the-ultimate-buyers-guide/ https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-h... tonymacx86 has a list of supported components and has suggested builds as well. Been around for years.
  - ir77 7y ago
    thank you
jtwaleson 7y ago
I want to test Safari in a CI pipeline because a lot of our customers are using it, and the only way to do so seems to be by running a Mac. We can test Firefox and Chrome perfectly via docker containers. Should we build a hackintosh and connect it to our AWS VPC? Any tips?
- andruby 7y ago
  There are saas tools out there like browserstack.com that allow selenium testing on safari and other browsers.
  - jtwaleson 7y ago
    We're trying that, but the latency and proxying are making it slow and error-prone. We're taking thousands of screenshots per CI run and want it to be done within 5 minutes for our developer experience. We run about 20 to 40 of these CI jobs per day. The SaaS tools I've seen so far are also very expensive for this use case.
- PhantomGremlin 7y ago
  Should we build a hackintosh and connect it to our AWS VPC? Are you in a country with a laissez-faire legal system? What you are asking, in a commercial context, is whether or not you should violate your MacOS license agreement. At least by USA legal rules, anyway. I've never heard of Apple litigating over this, but it's something that businesses try to stay away from. IMO hackintoshes are for hobbyists.
  - jtwaleson 7y ago
    Hm, definitely not in a loose legal system, so hackintosh is not an option. Then the most affordable way is to either run a (used) Mac on-prem or use a SaaS solution for browser testing. I'm frustrated by how much more difficult this is from running Linux or even Windows on ec2.
rconti 7y ago
> The iMac has a build-in screen which likes go bad from dust, as do the components inside. First I've heard of this, but I guess it's a thing? (I've got a 2015 iMac 5k with no such problem, but, ironically, my screen is blue-taped in as I'm in the middle of adding a larger internal SSD) https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/did-you-know-about-dust-problem-in-27-imac.2122476/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/did-you-know-about-dust... https://hothardware.com/news/apple-class-action-lawsuit-dirty-macbooks-imacs-lacking-dust-filters https://hothardware.com/news/apple-class-action-lawsuit-dirt...
- morid1n 7y ago
  I had 5 or 6 screen replacements on mine. Most of my friends had this issue too.
- marmaduke 7y ago
  It's not a thing. It can happen but it's not a thing in the same way as macOS updates disappointing are are thing.
khalilravanna 7y ago
Kind of off-topic but can anyone weigh in on how a 2019 (2020?) Macbook Air fares for programming? Specifically frontend programming: running VSC, maybe a couple frontend build watch tasks, and a node server. Currently using a 2017 13" MBP and I assume it'd have similar performance? At this point in my career I spend most of my days running around in meetings so if I'm doing programming I'll usually do it on my desktop. My laptop ends up being a glorified note-taking machine with only light frontend programming so I'm really optimizing for portability. Interested to hear some thoughts from fellow engineers with the newest Macbook Air.
- morid1n 7y ago
  1. I’d wait for the new keyboards first. The Airs and 13-inch Pros still have the faulty ones. 2. I’d get a low-spec MBP13 or MBP14, whatever comes out next.
  - khalilravanna 7y ago
    The keyboard is a fair point. I had mistakenly assumed they fixed them with the recent update but there they are on the list of models with free keyboard replacements. As for 2, I already have an MBP13 2017 and I want something even more portable. That was why I was interested to hear people’s experiences programming with it’s lower spec CPU.
    - _bxg1 7y ago
      I haven't used an Air for development, but I do know that its power supply is 30w instead of the MBP's 100w. That's a big difference. Beyond the CPU's official specs, I'd bet some throttling happens there. That said, I recently upgraded to a new MBP because my 2013 MBP had gotten really laggy for certain things, particularly the web (and the inspector, etc.). This was weird, because on pure-compute tasks it still did pretty okay. But basic sites like Twitter were visibly laggy, and the Chrome debugger was like mud. I did some research and ended up concluding that it came down to the integrated GPU. The processor itself was still significantly faster than a brand-new Air, based on benchmarks, but integrated GPUs have made huge strides in the past 5 years (and web pages have gotten significantly heavier) and I guess that has a more noticeable impact on basic tasks than the CPU does. Anyway. If you're only doing the occasional, light web dev then I would guess you'll be fine. It'll be noticeably slower than your 2017 MBP, but probably still passable.
archi42 7y ago
Oh, I did expect a higher geekbench score TBH: My dual Xeon 2687W (v1) with 128GB DDR3 (2*4 channel) gives me 830 SC and 6000/10000 MC (1/2 CPUs). And that's with thermal limitation due 1U cooling solution. OS is Arch Linux on nvme with spectre&other mitigations disabled (compute node). Omitting disks, that system cost me just a little bit more than your mainboard ;-) Of course two dozen 40mm/7k rpm fans and 480W peak power draw (no GPU!) are quite a tradeoff. https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1046367 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1046367

334 points by morid1n 7y ago

I think AMD offers the better bang for the buck right now and thanks to amd-osx.com it's not that hard to build a Ryzen (including Threadripper) based Hackintosh.

nik736 7y ago
Until you need to use the Adobe Suite.
- PedroBatista 7y ago
  So what's the problem with Adobe exactly? Is there any fix on the horizon?
  - calypso 7y ago
    Adobe products were not written to take full advantage of high thread counts not GPU bound tasks. This is why their products run much better on Intel chips because they have higher single core speeds.
  - JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
    In short, some software (Adobe included) makes use of features that are available on Intel processors but not on AMD. Whilst both AMD and Intel are x86-64 they do both have their own unique features. For example, on Intel you've got fast memset, which doesn't exist on AMD.
    - PedroBatista 7y ago
      But Adobe apps run on Windows with AMD, which means they custom build/compile their apps for each OS ( which is perfectly normal ) and since Apple only deals with Intel CPU's it's understandable. Maybe it would be better to check for CPU capabilities at runtime and have a more portable app, but what do I know, obviously Adobe PMs will not pay the cost just so some mutts can run hackintosh.
      - JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
        My understanding is it's actually a limitation of the Intel C++ compiler they use but I can't confirm this. On Windows it bakes in some conditionals to check if the CPU is GenuineIntel before doing some things, on macOS it doesn't bother.
- timbit42 7y ago
  Someone else in this thread mentioned there are patches available for Adobe products.
ActorNightly 7y ago
I am pretty sure that bang/buck is completely irrelevant when it comes to Apple
- Tepix 7y ago
  This isn't Apple. This is for people who want more bang for the buck and/or options

anotheryou 7y ago

and the price?

morid1n 7y ago
See one my of other comments please.

signa11 7y ago

tangential: i am _seriously_ considering getting an eizo monitor for personal (non-gaming) use, and was wondering if anyone here can chime in with some personal experience. a bit hesitant given the price tag. thanks !

_def 7y ago

Is it worth it building a Hackintosh? Are there any downsides comparing to Apple hardware? (in terms of using OSX)

phoe-krk 7y ago
Upsides: price, upgradeability, repairability.
motdiem 7y ago
The main downside is you have to be super careful when applying os updates - and recent macos tend to be updated more frequently.
dana321 7y ago
I thought about myself, but OS updates / upgrades are risky.
morid1n 7y ago
Depends on a persons needs. Worth it for me. It’s faster than an 8-core 6000 USD Mac Pro and a 10-core iMac Pro. Downsides are maintenance, knowing what you’re doing, checking if it’s safe to upgrade to a newer version of macOS.
prophet_ 7y ago
I spent a lot of time setting up Hackintoshes and, in the end, I always ended up asking myself: why did I bother doing all this? The time you have to spend maintaining it can amount to a lot. In my case, the machine would always feel sort of unstable with random freezes, etc. You just never really know 100% what's going on behind the scenes, it could be the wrong kext, or the wrong graphics card, or the wrong os patch, the wrong iso used, etc. If you have plenty of time to play with it, I would say go for it. But if you just need your machine to do work and cannot afford having a computer that may suddenly stop working (and requiring a lot of time to get it going again), just save your time/money and buy an actual apple device. The idea of having a fast and custom made computer running macOS is pretty enticing, but it's a lot more time consuming/intricate than one would like to admit.

this_is_not_you 7y ago

Would have been curious to see a price comparison between the build and a Mac Pro with the same specs.

morid1n 7y ago
This build cost me around 1600 USD (I moved over a few parts from the old hackintosh (2x HDD, WiFi card, GPU). So around 2000 with those. I already had the two monitors (for many years now) too.
- morid1n 7y ago
  A Mac Pro with the 8-core CPU, 48GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, the Promise bay for 2x HDDs runs around 7200 USD.
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    Perhaps the closest comparison is to throw in a 5K screen making it (say) $2500 with the Hackintosh and compare with an iMac (Non-Pro) with 64Gb non-ECC. It’s around half the cost, plus you get to keep the screen.
  - this_is_not_you 7y ago
    Thanks a lot!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

gempir 7y ago

I have heard good things about Hackintosh on Ryzen does anyone have more Info? How viable is it? I'm using a 15 inch Macbook Pro but it struggles with 3 1440p monitors but my PC with a Ryzen 3800x and RTX 2080, 32gb RAM runs like a beast on Windows.

hivacruz 7y ago
It's getting better and better every month. The AMD community really made it easier the last few years to use AMD's CPUs on Hackintoshes. You can find plenty of builds on the dedicated subreddit. If you plan to Hackintosh your PC though, your RTX 2080 won't work.
- gempir 7y ago
  Oh won't work at all? I thought Nvidia released drivers for macOS
  - hivacruz 7y ago
    Nvidia released drivers for macOS up to High Sierra indeed. After that, we don't know exactly what happened behind the scenes, but apparently Apple would not approve the Nvidia drivers for later macOS releases and switched completely to AMD GPUs.
  - jannes 7y ago
    > We've spoken with several dozen developers inside Apple, obviously not authorized to speak on behalf of the company, who feel that support for Nvidia's higher-end cards would be welcome, but disallowed quietly at higher levels of the company. https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management-doesnt-want-nvidia-support-in-macos-and-thats-a-bad-sign-for-the-mac-pro https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/18/apples-management...
Nursie 7y ago
IIRC it's a little more tricky than on intel because the processors aren't officially supported. It may take some sort of kernel hackery to get going, and then you need to be careful about updates. I have a similar build (64GB and a 2080 Ti) but the lack of Nvidia support is keeping me from giving it a go.

laurent123456 7y ago

> this is probably the last time I’m building this sort of computer, before MacOS is locked down forever Any info on how they will lock it down?

morid1n 7y ago
With the T2 chip which is already present in other Macs. It’s optional at the moment but I assume at some point it will be closed off. And then there’s the ARM CPU argument - we could get those soon.
- slantyyz 7y ago
  According to a Linus Tech Tips video[1] that I saw a a couple of days ago, you can use PCI nvme drives on the new Mac Pro, but it won't even boot unless one of the proprietary Apple SSDs is connected (because of the T2). [1] https://youtu.be/mIB389tqzCI?t=180 https://youtu.be/mIB389tqzCI?t=180
  - derefr 7y ago
    Which makes sense: it needs to load firmware/EFI from somewhere; and in a setup where you expect your own SSD to be a fixed resource in the system, there's little reason to have separate BIOS flash.
  - morid1n 7y ago
    You should be able to turn off the T2 function Secure Boot which blocks booting from other drives: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208330 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208330
    - slantyyz 7y ago
      According to this newer Linus Video [1], one of the T2 SSD slots still needs to be populated with an Apple drive to boot from other drives. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcLbSCinX3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcLbSCinX3U
7y ago

keyle 7y ago

Mac mini too expensive? I'm not sure. Also I've ran some benchmarks against my friend's hackintosh and smoked it. I mean read his specs, it's not cheap at all. Fractal cases are not cheap, and the RTX 580 that he will upgrade once he gets to Catalina? Right, that's cheap. Those little mac minis are beasts if you ask me. Mine is called minibeef ;) I've added an eGPU to it and it's powerhouse for all of my work, in spades. Edit: my geekbench score is 5547 single and 23621 multi, that seems to be much higher than the posted specs.

morid1n 7y ago
A comparable Mac Mini spec, without an eGPU, HDDs, a Core i7 instead of an i9, costs 2700, which is 1000 USD more expensive than what I paid for this build. The CPU is also slower. Add an eGPU and we’re talking another 500-600 USD and still slower than an i9.
omegabravo 7y ago
Something appears to be wrong with your benchmarking. You should be in the vicinity of 1100 ST, 5600 MT
- morid1n 7y ago
  Older version of Geekbench.
nik736 7y ago
The Mac Mini has no integrated GPU and is dead because of this reason. Why would I buy such an elegant device if I have to hook an ugly eGPU case.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > The Mac Mini has no integrated GPU They do - they use Intel UHD Graphics 630, which is an Intel GT integrated GPU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Graphics_Technology. How did you think they were running the display? They can't squeeze a tiny discrete graphics card in there!

bitxbit 7y ago

It would be nice if Apple opened up OS X a bit. I _know_ that goes against brand principle etc but they also lost a lot of ground back to Windows in the past five years. I used OS X from launch but switched to Windows three years ago because it was simply a better package for me. Cloud computing has pretty much eliminated the need/preference for OS X.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> they also lost a lot of ground back to Windows in the past five years Is this just you and some people you've seen online, or is there some study showing them genuinely losing significant market share to Windows?
- ksec 7y ago
  Not OP, My hypothesis. In 2014 Apple Announced they had around 80M Active Mac Users. In 2017 They had over 90M Active Mac Users. In 2018 They Reached 100M Active Mac Users. Apple has a fairly stable Mac business, and ships 18 - 20 Million unit over the past few years. They are also very proud of their consistent ~50% of Mac sold are first time Mac user. If no one was leaving the Mac ecosystem, you would have expected 9 to 10 million increase of active user per year. Except it didn't happen. The growth rate has slow down dramatically. They are gaining ~5M user per year. There is also another stats Apple gives out, nearly All of the New Mac user were from China. And that is not surprising given the whole iOS ecosystem and games development requires Mac along with the rise of middle class. But this also tells you most of the New Mac User are from China. This hypothesis doesn't takes into account how Apple measures its "Active Mac Users", but suggest Apple is losing millions of Active user outside China. And since US has the largest Mac user base, I would not be surprised if it lost ground to Windows was an observation from a US users perspective.
  - derefr 7y ago
    That presumes constant growth of desktop computers (/computers running desktop OSes.) What if it's just mobile growing at the expense of desktop generally? I know that in e.g. education, computer labs have been replaced with carts full of tablets.

oauea 7y ago

Can someone explain why you would want to run an operating system that actively tries to prevent you from running it? Apple clearly doesn't want to support third party hardware and from what I've heard, you have to live in constant fear of updates.

morid1n 7y ago
It’s that good. And the software on it is even better.
lawik 7y ago
I think there are plenty of reasons. You might like the OS a lot but not care about Apple's feelings. Spite is another one. Or fun. It's a neat thing to do. Hacking-wise. You might want the high performance hardware without the premium price. I've considered it but will probably go Linux for my next desktop work machine.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Spite is another one. This is a bad reason to spend any of your life on something.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    If in earnest, yes. But if more like in jest, than actual hurt feelings spite, why the heck not. It can be fun. My somewhat humorous take back in the day - the terms said the OS must only run on Apple labeled hardware. So I labelled the hardware with a couple of Apple stickers. That should do it, right?! :-D (If I recall correctly the stickers even came with the Snow Leopard DVD...)
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > I think there are plenty of reasons. You might like the OS a lot but not care about Apple's feelings. Apple is a company. Companies do not have feelings; they have interests. Who are you (financially) hurting by running Hackintosh?
7y ago

turshija 7y ago

I've started building my own "budget" hackintosh yesterday actually! It is pretty straight forward if you are purchasing components specifically for hackintosh (instead of trying to salvage your current PC). Here is my geekbench 4 benchmark: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/15176970 https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/15176970 (slightly better compared to new 16'' macbook with i7) And these are components that I've bought and for which prices: Motherboard: ASUS TUF Z390M-PRO GAMING - 144 euro CPU: i5-9600K - 208 euro RAM: Predator 2x16gb RGB - 184 euro NVMe: SILICON POWER 512GB P34A80 M.2 PCIe M.2 2280 SP512GBP34A80M28 - 81 euro PSU: THERMALTAKE Smart Pro RGB 750W Bronze - 89 euro GPU: ASUS Radeon RX 580 4gb - 166 euro I still have to see how stable this will be, and if it can replace my 2015 iMac. Here are useful links I used: https://github.com/alienator88/ASUS-TUF-Z390M-Pro-Gaming-Hackintosh https://github.com/alienator88/ASUS-TUF-Z390M-Pro-Gaming-Hac... Also Google: hackintosh asus tuf z390m

FireBeyond 7y ago
> It is pretty straight forward if you are purchasing components specifically for hackintosh Definitely this. There are "golden builds" where people have ironed out components and steps exactly so there's barely any more pain than installing Windows.

Snelius 7y ago

Is it a dual boot box with macos and windows? Or do you use two boxes? Then how u do switch between with one keyboard/mouse? What kind of kvm or so?

morid1n 7y ago
Dual boot. Two SSDSs.

mskalski 7y ago

In my case I'm running macos in kvm VM on my home server based on SuperMicro X10SDV-6C-TLN4F. Seems to work ok but with some exceptions. First is the graphic card which I pass through to VM, it is geforce gtx 1060 and unfortunelty it limits me to use only high sierra, which seems to be the last version of macos for which nvidia web drivers are available. Both video and sound goes through hdmi cable connected to my tv. Other is network card, if you are ok using kvm emulated nic like e1000-82545em then you are set, if you are trying to pass physical interface, or sr-iov vf you may have to deal with bunch of kexts or flashing NIC eeprom to been seen as a card supported by drivers like the one provided by smalltree. If someone want to try, here is with what I started https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM https://github.com/foxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM

ngcc_hk 7y ago
Surprise. Would try it with my intel nuc Ubuntu tmr.

loraa 7y ago

Last time I did that, when all was said and done, it turns out Linux was a better choice.

unnouinceput 7y ago

Quote: "The SSD is more than fast enought for my needs. Funny thing is that it’s even faster under Windows (3.5 GBps read and 3.3 GBps write)." Also OP is showing ~2.5 Gbps in an image. Funny thing, I run my Macs in virtual machines (VMWare), and the speed is identical to Windows (host OS), while all other OS'es (Linux / BSD / other Windows') show slower speed. I wonder why.

morid1n 7y ago
Screenshot shows 3 GBps for both read and write under Windows. Windows has 3.5/3.3.
- unnouinceput 7y ago
  Correct. Also for curiosity I did a test on my host and Mac VM. Program reported on both Windows and Mac VM same speed of ~500 MB/s (which translates into 4.8 Gbps for OP style). On Linux I got ~450 MB/s. I used Total Commander in all cases (my normal file manager) and used my Witcher 3 .iso file as test (66 GB in size).
  - paranoidrobot 7y ago
    > which translates into 4.8 Gbps for OP style I think you are misreading/misunderstanding the performance of modern NVMe SSDs. SATA based SSDs which it sounds like you have, top out at around 550MByte/sec. However a PCIE 3.0 NVME can easily achieve 3500 MByte/sec throughput. That's saturating the PCIE 3.0 x4 link. PCIE 4.0 based SSDs are even faster, with advertised 5000MByte/sec throughput (but in testing may top out slightly slower than that) Yes, modern SSDs are stupid fast. [0] https://www.techspot.com/review/1893-pcie-4-vs-pcie-3-ssd/ https://www.techspot.com/review/1893-pcie-4-vs-pcie-3-ssd/
    - unnouinceput 7y ago
      Aye, it's SATA. PC is from 2013, old badly, planning this year to make a new one. But it covered me in past 7 years quite nicely. I made a quick math with my wife when she complained why I need a new one since this one is still good. Calculated that in past 7 years she paid 20% more in her cell phone subscription then me in buying/upgrading the PC all these years. And it was the work horse with at least 10 hours daily running, average of 16 and plenty of times stayed on for days.

mikece 7y ago

What exactly would Apple lose if they offered A subscription service ($199/year? $19/month?) that allowed registered developers the right to install macOS either on bare hardware or a VM? I can’t speak for everyone else but the only reason I bought a MacBook Pro was for iOS development; I have to imagine there is a number where Apple would be fine with dispensing with making/shipping/selling/supporting the hardware and would just sell the software. Heck, I’d be fine if it was a developer-only stripped down macOS that only ran Xcode and tooling that required Xcode (Xamarin, Flutter, and Ionic development and IPA compile step). Seriously: what is the harm to Apple is allowing/selling this?

diffeomorphism 7y ago
They would lose branding(the "best" Mac is this build + subscription not their top of the line model), would have to support lots of additional hardware, would have to support the setup, offer tech support, training for their support etc. . In short, not likely. Instead they may considering offering cloud instances for running XCode etc. that they can rent out.
citboin 7y ago
Check out macincloud.com
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wayoutthere 7y ago
It's actually not too bad to run macOS in a VM -- this is an option Apple doesn't explicitly support, but they also realize how useful it can be for automated testing of apps and browser compatibility. The company line is that they only support macOS on a VM on a "legitimate" Mac, but realistically it's not hard to find guides on how to virtualize it on a Windows host.
- jedieaston 7y ago
  With the ever notable exception that graphics acceleration straight up does not exist at all in macOS in a VM. The only way to get it is to use virtIO on a Linux box to pass through a secondary AMD card, I believe.

brobot182 7y ago

I have almost the exact same setup as you: same CPU cooler, same CPU, and the pro WiFi version of the Z390. However, when I’m doing a long-running clean build that uses the 16 logical cores, the temperature for each core gets up to 80 C. Any thoughts why that would be?

Macha 7y ago
Is your environment 10C higher than OP's? Most reviews compare coolers in terms of the temperature increase over background temperature to control for this. 80C for a 9900k under sustained high load would not concern or surprise me. It's a high end power hungry CPU. 100C is the cutoff temperature so maybe more cooling might help it turbo more but I doubt you even get throttling at 80C.

hootbootscoot 7y ago

you are only prolonging their foul empire, lol... I mean I get you (pity and understand) if you are stuck in Logic or Final Cut Pro land with no painless way out, welcome to the state/reality of proprietary media production workstation software lockin, which is arguably nearly as tight of a lockin as obscure scientific instrumentation and machine control driver lockin etc... "yeah, you'll need a working install of NT4.0"

rickyc091 7y ago

Haven't made a Hackintosh in a while, OpenCore is new to me. Does anyone know if Messages, Apple Store, etc. work or do you still have to hack it with a real serial?

djmobley 7y ago
OpenCore works in the same way as Clover in this respect. You still need to provide a serial, MLB, etc. If you configure everything correctly, you should have no issues using Apple services.
JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
You still need a real serial but you can generate one pretty easily. Just need to check on Apple's website if it validates. I have my PC with an AMD Ryzen 3900X running with macOS with working iMessage / App Store etc.

asadkn 7y ago

The last hackintosh I made was in 2017 and it's still a beast. Maintenance was relatively easy However, the future of pain-free Hackintosh doesn't seem very likely. It's rumored (or confirmed?) Apple will do its proprietary ARM system as MacOS eventually moves onto that [1] (maybe not this year, but in the near future). And then there's the T2 chip. I have been slowly moving away from Mac in general as I have no need for it (not a Mac/iOS developer). The alternatives are just as good or better for my taste. [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-mac-arm-cpus-2020-intel,38668.html https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-mac-arm-cpus-2020-in...

JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
Thing is, I'm not a Mac or iOS developer either, but I find that even if alternatives exist, they're rarely as polished as what's available for macOS. Consider Paste - Ditto exists for Windows, but it's just not as nice in my honest opinion. Or BetterTouchTool, I'm not aware of a Windows alternative.
- jdhawk 7y ago
  CopyQ, Touchégg and ElementaryOS (Ubuntu LTS based) give it a roll.
  - innocentoldguy 7y ago
    Then you lose the ability to run things like DAWs and Adobe products. I've used Linux since 1994, but it just doesn't have the commercial software support necessary to make it a serious desktop contender, which is unfortunate.
    - JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
      This is a big part of it for me. I love Logic Pro / Cubase / Ableton, and having access to those is pretty important. Admittedly part of the reason I prefer macOS to Windows is that I find pro audio software tends to get more love on macOS.

pram 7y ago

I have the same, 9900k with a 5700XT. Catalina works with SIP enabled, FileVault 2 works perfectly, etc. Been doing hackintosh since 2016. With that said I’m pretty much done with it now that they made the 16 inch MBP. I bought one with the i9 and 64GB of ram and the experience is way better. I don’t need to mess around with clover or update random kexts anymore. It gets old after awhile!

JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
Do you not ever miss the added power of your hackintosh though? I have a 2017 MBP and it's a great machine but I still love having my big ridiculously powerful desktop with three monitors for when I want that.
- pram 7y ago
  The desktop is undeniably faster, but because of what I mainly use it for these days (digital art) I only really get benefit from single core performance and lots of memory. The difference between the 9900K and the 9980HK in this regard is imperceptible. I'm just going to turn the desktop into a Windows gaming rig now :V
- WaltPurvis 7y ago
  The new MacBook Pro is pretty powerful. I have four monitors hooked to mine and the machine is much faster than my five-year-old Hackintosh. I could build a new Hackintosh that would have somewhat better performance than the MacBook, but for me the difference is no longer worth it, so like the previous commenter I'm probably done with building Hackintoshes for now.
  - JoelTheSuperior 7y ago
    I totally get that. In all honesty, in a rational world a MacBook is more than enough performance for me (and it's actually what I use at work), but there's still very much an enthusiast alive in me that loves my over the top desktop.

ng7j5d9 7y ago

> Replacing an iMac also means getting rid of a perfectly good monitor. This is the thing that absolutely friggin kills me with the Mac lineup. As a developer I see monitors and computers as the perfect example of loose coupling. And I've absolutely had different lifecycles for monitors and computers in the past. My Mac mini that was once my primary desktop machine is now a media center hooked up to a TV. But if the Mac mini doesn't meet your needs (fast CPUS, storage bays, whatever), and the Mac Pro doesn't fit your budget, Apple gives you a big ol' middle finger. I mean, I COULD buy an iMac, but then 8 years down the road when I want a new desktop, I've got this unwieldy all-in-one where that big screen feels like more of a hindrance than an asset. I haven't built a Hackintosh myself, but every time I look at the desktop Mac lineup I think about it.

pier25 7y ago
Yeah Apple is missing a huge market opportunity there. I've always wanted a tower mac but the new Mac Pro is not the machine for me. I just want the specs of an iMac on a tower. A couple of years ago I ended up buying an iMac 5K since I needed to upgrade my old MBP and the Apple laptop landscape was so desolate. I'm very happy with it for dev and design work but I tried to use it for music production and it's not the machine for that. Cooling is bad for anything other than short bursts. Even at 30% of sustained CPU work for audio the fans turn on and are quite annoying. I ended up building a Ryzen Windows PC which cost me as much as an i7 Mini but is even more powerful than the base Mac Pro.
- sixothree 7y ago
  I feel like I exist in the "enthusiast" segment which Apple completely ignores.
  - sneak 7y ago
    Apple enthusiasts buy Macbook Pros or iMacs. There’s nothing wrong with integrated displays. In fact, it saves on a ton of cable mess, and they are usually worlds better than what you would plug a computer into anyway.

a012 7y ago

I've been working on a Hackintosh build since last 2 years, but since I don't need a video rig and/or compiling work horse, I reduced my self to a Intel NUC with Clearlinux OS. I'm getting familiar with Rawtherapee and Darktable workflow (instead of Capture One) since I'm a weekend photographer. Clearlinux has most of my needs, so I'm happy with it at the moment.

120photo 7y ago
RawTherapee is great. I also use Digikam. Linux is great but I needed Photoshop (GIMP is not there yet). There are also a handful of mac OS apps without replacements. I upgraded my Hackintosh build and for a while had Arch Linux running on it. Runs great, but ended up running Windows 10 to get my Photoshop fix.

120photo 7y ago

Upgraded my 2011 Hackintosh last year: i7-950 -> x5680 overclocked to 4.25GHz (good enough can probably go up). Upgraded from 12GB RAM to 24GB triple channel RAM (can upgrade to 48GB). Also upgraded from a old 1.5GB video card to the Sapphire RX 580. It was too much of a pain to get mac OS to run with this setup so I gave Windows 10 a try. It works great. I only use it for photography and video work. This setup smokes my 2016 Macbook Pro. I was considering tossing the system but a couple hundred dollars worth of upgrades and new life to a old system.

jackhack 7y ago

interesting list of hardware and beautiful photos, but this blogpost missing one key item -- cost! HOW MUCH $$$ TO BUILD THIS MONSTER of a "mac", and how does that compare to a similarly-specified Apple product? Without this, it feels like a collection of thinly-disguised product placements.

FireBeyond 7y ago
Well, for one, the memory is far cheaper and faster. 56GB of memory (going from eight to 64) will set you back $1,000 alone from Apple, or $252 from Amazon (and before anyone complains "but the Apple memory will be higher quality", unlikely. Same manufacturers. In fact, you can get far faster memory yourself, versus the 2666 on some Apple stuff).
- larkost 7y ago
  But for the up iMacs (not the base models) you can put in third-party RAM. That is what I have always done to avoid Apples high prices on that (except on my laptop, where it is soldered in). But I would caution you about trying to mix in faster RAM, many non-third part. system only take one speed of RAM. That makes the system not only cheaper to build, but often you can tweak some more speed (really latency) out of it.
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morid1n 7y ago
I paid around 1600 USD for everything. Counting the parts I reused from my old hackintosh, around 2000. A similarly specced Mac Pro 8-core is around 7200 USD.
- jackhack 7y ago
  thank you. A very useful contribution that neatly answers the question of why anyone would go through so much trouble. I would have guessed the difference in price was "only" a few hundred, and obviously would have been quite wrong! I never would have guessed 3.5 times!

cheunste 7y ago

Interesting. I actually started buying components to build a new hackintosh to replace my old El Captain one from 2013. Man, I can't believe how far SSDs have come. My current SSD is only 250 GB and now you can get a 1TB SSD for like 150 USD

ir77 7y ago

with all the mention of "getting the right components" what's a reference website where i can learn how to build my own system?

agilebyte 7y ago
https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-hackintosh-the-ultimate-buyers-guide/ https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-h... tonymacx86 has a list of supported components and has suggested builds as well. Been around for years.
- ir77 7y ago
  thank you

jtwaleson 7y ago

I want to test Safari in a CI pipeline because a lot of our customers are using it, and the only way to do so seems to be by running a Mac. We can test Firefox and Chrome perfectly via docker containers. Should we build a hackintosh and connect it to our AWS VPC? Any tips?

andruby 7y ago
There are saas tools out there like browserstack.com that allow selenium testing on safari and other browsers.
- jtwaleson 7y ago
  We're trying that, but the latency and proxying are making it slow and error-prone. We're taking thousands of screenshots per CI run and want it to be done within 5 minutes for our developer experience. We run about 20 to 40 of these CI jobs per day. The SaaS tools I've seen so far are also very expensive for this use case.
PhantomGremlin 7y ago
Should we build a hackintosh and connect it to our AWS VPC? Are you in a country with a laissez-faire legal system? What you are asking, in a commercial context, is whether or not you should violate your MacOS license agreement. At least by USA legal rules, anyway. I've never heard of Apple litigating over this, but it's something that businesses try to stay away from. IMO hackintoshes are for hobbyists.
- jtwaleson 7y ago
  Hm, definitely not in a loose legal system, so hackintosh is not an option. Then the most affordable way is to either run a (used) Mac on-prem or use a SaaS solution for browser testing. I'm frustrated by how much more difficult this is from running Linux or even Windows on ec2.

rconti 7y ago

> The iMac has a build-in screen which likes go bad from dust, as do the components inside. First I've heard of this, but I guess it's a thing? (I've got a 2015 iMac 5k with no such problem, but, ironically, my screen is blue-taped in as I'm in the middle of adding a larger internal SSD) https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/did-you-know-about-dust-problem-in-27-imac.2122476/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/did-you-know-about-dust... https://hothardware.com/news/apple-class-action-lawsuit-dirty-macbooks-imacs-lacking-dust-filters https://hothardware.com/news/apple-class-action-lawsuit-dirt...

morid1n 7y ago
I had 5 or 6 screen replacements on mine. Most of my friends had this issue too.
marmaduke 7y ago
It's not a thing. It can happen but it's not a thing in the same way as macOS updates disappointing are are thing.

khalilravanna 7y ago

Kind of off-topic but can anyone weigh in on how a 2019 (2020?) Macbook Air fares for programming? Specifically frontend programming: running VSC, maybe a couple frontend build watch tasks, and a node server. Currently using a 2017 13" MBP and I assume it'd have similar performance? At this point in my career I spend most of my days running around in meetings so if I'm doing programming I'll usually do it on my desktop. My laptop ends up being a glorified note-taking machine with only light frontend programming so I'm really optimizing for portability. Interested to hear some thoughts from fellow engineers with the newest Macbook Air.

morid1n 7y ago
1. I’d wait for the new keyboards first. The Airs and 13-inch Pros still have the faulty ones. 2. I’d get a low-spec MBP13 or MBP14, whatever comes out next.
- khalilravanna 7y ago
  The keyboard is a fair point. I had mistakenly assumed they fixed them with the recent update but there they are on the list of models with free keyboard replacements. As for 2, I already have an MBP13 2017 and I want something even more portable. That was why I was interested to hear people’s experiences programming with it’s lower spec CPU.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    I haven't used an Air for development, but I do know that its power supply is 30w instead of the MBP's 100w. That's a big difference. Beyond the CPU's official specs, I'd bet some throttling happens there. That said, I recently upgraded to a new MBP because my 2013 MBP had gotten really laggy for certain things, particularly the web (and the inspector, etc.). This was weird, because on pure-compute tasks it still did pretty okay. But basic sites like Twitter were visibly laggy, and the Chrome debugger was like mud. I did some research and ended up concluding that it came down to the integrated GPU. The processor itself was still significantly faster than a brand-new Air, based on benchmarks, but integrated GPUs have made huge strides in the past 5 years (and web pages have gotten significantly heavier) and I guess that has a more noticeable impact on basic tasks than the CPU does. Anyway. If you're only doing the occasional, light web dev then I would guess you'll be fine. It'll be noticeably slower than your 2017 MBP, but probably still passable.

archi42 7y ago

Oh, I did expect a higher geekbench score TBH: My dual Xeon 2687W (v1) with 128GB DDR3 (2*4 channel) gives me 830 SC and 6000/10000 MC (1/2 CPUs). And that's with thermal limitation due 1U cooling solution. OS is Arch Linux on nvme with spectre&other mitigations disabled (compute node). Omitting disks, that system cost me just a little bit more than your mainboard ;-) Of course two dozen 40mm/7k rpm fans and 480W peak power draw (no GPU!) are quite a tradeoff. https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1046367 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1046367