Hackintosh
I finally took the plunge and built a Hackintosh.
I was against the idea for the longest time, previously willing to trade a bit of cash for the extra stability and legality that an Apple-Mac-proper offers. However, when comparing a Mac Pro to a homegrown solution the extra bit of cash is now a serious few thousand dollars.
Design Goals
I really wanted a fast machine for web development with Ruby and Rails, with enough horsepower to run Photoshop on some big files. This meant: SSD and RAM. Even with 12G of RAM I think the biggest speed differentiator on this machine that blows it out out of the water is the SSD. I’ll post some further benchmarks, but a quick comparison of a Rails unit test shows a speedup of about 7x from my Mac Book Pro.
The Goods
| Component | Item | Price (Vendor) |
|---|---|---|
| Displays | hp ZR24W | 2 x $399.99 (Amazon.com / Buy.com) |
| Case | LIAN LI PC-A05NA | $40 from a friend |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R | $209.99 (Newegg) |
| System Drive | Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SSD | $334 (Newegg) |
| PSU | OCZ StealthXStream OCZ700SXS 700W | $30 from a friend |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-920 | $294.99 (Newegg) |
| Heatsink | ZALMAN CNPS10X FLEX CPU Cooler | $52.99 (Newegg) |
| Memory | Crucial 6GB DDR3 1333 | 2 x $143.98 (Newegg) |
| Graphics | PNY GeForce 9800 GT 1GB | $69 after rebate (Newegg) |
| Optical Drive | Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner | $19.99 (Newegg) |
| Total | about $2,100 (+ time) |
The Work
Getting everything to work together was a bit of a hassle, mostly due to never having to worry about drivers on OS X in the past and learning how all the kernel subsystems work. Kexts? (kernel extensions) SLE? (/System/Library/Extensions).
This tutorial (using iBoot and Multibeast) was a big help, as was the InsanelyMac Forum.
I had a lot of problems trying to get an nVidia GT240 to work with two displays, but I finally gave in and ordered a 9800GT which was reported to work perfectly — it did.
I’m not claiming this build is perfect, I still have a few odd issues with USB, but its close. And way more economical than buying a Mac Pro from Apple.