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iMac vs Hackintosh

I

ihateusername

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 3, 2010
3
0
This is my first post here so I hope this is the right place to post it.

My boyfriend has offered to build me a hackintosh with a 2.6Ghz Core i5 Processor, 4GB Ram, etc but I was just wondering how well a hackintosh will perform in comparison to a 2nd hand iMac which can be had for about the same money (about Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz, 4GB Ram, etc).

Any opinions?
 
Is your boyfriend willing to troubleshoot it? Hackintoshes aren't as easy as real Macs, there are all kinds of troubles that you may face. Especially updates can be very troublesome.

What are you doing with it? If you don't need much power, then the iMac is fine for you. The Hack offers much more power but the extra processing speed won't speed up things like Safari.

If your boyfriend is willing to help you and has experience with Hacks, then it's a good option.
 
If you don't want any possibility of losing your OS X install due to some system update or to troubleshoot potential issues, then get the iMac. Not to mention that it's gonna be WAY prettier :p
 
Thanks for the quick responses.

Hellhammer said:
Is your boyfriend willing to troubleshoot it? Hackintoshes aren't as easy as real Macs, there are all kinds of troubles that you may face. Especially updates can be very troublesome.

What are you doing with it? If you don't need much power, then the iMac is fine for you. The Hack offers much more power but the extra processing speed won't speed up things like Safari.

If your boyfriend is willing to help you and has experience with Hacks, then it's a good option.
Click to expand...

My boyfriend has built his own hackintosh with similar specs so will be able to help with any issues, but I understand what you're saying about the updates.

I'll mainly be using it for Internet browsing, Spreadsheets, Word Docs, and a fair bit of DVD Ripping (for a couple of weeks) to get my DVD collection onto a htpc.

Menge said:
If you don't want any possibility of losing your OS X install due to some system update or to troubleshoot potential issues, then get the iMac. Not to mention that it's gonna be WAY prettier :p
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yeah, that is a concern but boyfriend has suggested keeping a clone of the hard drive once all apps are installed just in case anything goes wrong, then keeping the user folders on another drive. Does that make sense?

My boyfriends hackintosh with the same spec gets a geekbench score of 6814 whereas I've just looked at the Mac Benchmarks on the Primatelabs website and the iMac I've seen only gets 3556. How would this translate in to real world usage?
 
ihateusername said:
How would this translate in to real world usage?
Click to expand...

The difference is negligible. As I said above, faster CPU won't speed up things like Safari. You might notice a difference when ripping DVDs but that's mostly due to faster DVD drive.

You could save even more and get e.g. i3-530 instead of i5-760 for the Hack. You don't need much CPU power
 
Out of interest (as I've just sold an i5 Hackintosh), why do you think there will be no 'real world' speed increase between the 2 machines the op is considering? Surely the faster computer (the i5 hackintosh) will be quicker at loading applications, etc.
 
MacFanUK said:
Out of interest (as I've just sold an i5 Hackintosh), why do you think there will be no 'real world' speed increase between the 2 machines the op is considering? Surely the faster computer (the i5 hackintosh) will be quicker at loading applications, etc.
Click to expand...

HD is the bottleneck when loading apps. A faster CPU won't make your Safari load any faster. Even first gen MacBook with SSD loads apps faster than 12-core Mac Pro with normal HD.

OP's usage is very light and requires nearly no CPU power (besides DVD ripping). If both machines have the same amount of RAM and similar HDs, there shouldn't be noticeable difference in OP's usage.
 
Having build a hackintosh I have to say go with the hackintosh if you have someone who knows what their doing to mantain it for you. Make sure you do a vanilla install (Google it) though which doesn't modify the kernel and allows you to install updates on it without having to reinstall. Also with a hackintosh you could use a SSD as a boot drive which will make it even faster.
 
I dunno.

It could get ugly.

ihateusername: I just don't see a future for us.
boyfriend: But who else can fix your PC?
ihateusername: Drat.

:D
 
why would you need a hackintosh with a 2.6Ghz Core i5 Processor, 4GB Ram and all the problems that will come with it , for your needs , internet , office , ripping dvd's
thats like using the IBM roadrunner to do the mathematics homework of a 10 year old ,
as for dvd ripping speed can be neglected its the quality you want not the speed as you are linited by the hardrive speed and the optical drive speed anyway
i ripped nearly my entire dvd collection on harddrives in total by now close to 3 TB@ 700mb avi files ,and still a couple dvd's to do as i buy every week a couple more , all done on my 3 eMac 1.42's using mactheripper , all three did cost less then a new mini and can rip simultaniously ;)

so safe yourself the trouble of future updates and get a used iMac core 2 duo for internet and office more then sufficient and get a couple eMacs or powermac g5's rip your collection and if you feel you cant use them any more sell them again , no loss made but a huge amount of money left over for more dvd's ;)
 
Last edited:
DarthMoops said:
I dunno.

It could get ugly.

ihateusername: I just don't see a future for us.
boyfriend: But who else can fix your PC?
ihateusername: Drat.

:D
Click to expand...

Classic! hahahaha

I'm with most of the guys in here, I would recommend an iMac and be done with it. The Hackintosh is more powerful but for what you're going to use it, it's a no brainer.

Just the uptime would save you time.
 
Thanks for all the comments.

I guess you're right. It would be nice to say I have a 2.6GHz Quad Core i5 Mac but there's that extra peace of mind with a genuine Mac. Plus when I have some cash to upgrade, I won't lose out big time because the iMac will hold its value.
 
ihateusername said:
Thanks for all the comments.

I guess you're right. It would be nice to say I have a 2.6GHz Quad Core i5 Mac but there's that extra peace of mind with a genuine Mac. Plus when I have some cash to upgrade, I won't lose out big time because the iMac will hold its value.
Click to expand...


That pretty much sums it up. A few months back I went and priced out what 2006 Imac were going for (I have an old Duo Core that I am thinking about selling) and was surprised to find that they are still going for $500 to $700. I don't think a comperable 4 to 5 year old PC would be going for that much.
 
Maybe I'm not getting it... Why would you want a Hackintosh? If you are so keen on running OSX then just buy a mac... :confused:
 
As well as people may be able to make Hackintoshes, there is definitely no arguing that the real Mac is always going to be better, either in small or big ways. Good luck.
 
I have a i5 750 - 2.67GHZ
Gigabyte Motherboard
8Gigs of Ram
1TB WD Black Vanilla OSX install
1TB WD Black Windows 7 Install
Dual SLI (in Windows) Nvidia GTS250s.

Cost me $800ish (a little Less)

And I put it in a old G5 Case.. ($75 on ebay) so yeah it looks good too.

You can see it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwqWjIQ86oE

I say go with the Hackintosh.. dollar for dollar they run about HALF the price of Apple hardware and work perfect.

My system is great and it's upgradeable.. as new stuff comes out (and is incorporated into new macs) I can just buy the parts and swap them. If you want a Processor or Motherboard upgrade on a Mac you have to BUY a new mac.
 
cool Hack Pro :D

Yeah hackintosh'es require some tweaking, most people don't want to deal with that. I'm running a Mini-ITX Intel atom board for my server using 10.5.8, works great for what I need it for. Had W7 on there but it didn't play nice with serving my Macs.
 
After playing around with hackintosh for a year or so i brought myself a imac in my opinion the real beauty of the imac is the all in one part it it and sooo quiet compared to a hackintosh. First of all there's the box the screen cables and the parts to make it run very smoothly,don't get me wrong i had a beast of a machine very fast and stable you could say i was proud of what i built but compared to my imac im glad i got it
 
Get the iMac

I build a hackintosh last year, and it represented excellent performance for the price – for a while.

Setting it all up was very difficult, it took me a long time to get things like sound to work properly. After that it ran very well, but each time I encountered a problem that required a complex solution I wished I had just got an iMac. Other things niggled me too, like not being able to auto update because that would brick my computer, and not being able to put the machine to sleep, or dim the screen... All these small issues were antithetical to the true mac experience, and I found them hard to tolerate.

After a few months I was using windows a lot more than OSX (for games), and my Macbook connected to the monitor for work. A few months after that, the PC broke (some kind of hardware problem I haven't been able to fix).

So... come next year, whenever the iMacs are refreshed, I think I'll be jumping on board with a high end model. Hackintosh is for technical people who don't mind putting in a lot of work. Yes they're pretty cool, but the saving is only worth it when your computer actually works.

Spend the extra money, you will not regret getting an iMac. (though I really really wish they had better graphics cards, for gamers.)
 
ihateusername said:
My boyfriend has offered to build me a hackintosh ... Any opinions?
Click to expand...

Making a woman dependent on you to keep her hacked together computer working is the 21st Century version of "barefoot and pregnant". Kiss him, thank him, and then buy a real computer with a real warranty. The extra money will fill in a lot of potholes on the road to true love. Best wishes.
 
Hackintoshies are getting much simpler my current one has is a 2.4 dual core and 6gb of ramm 10.6.4 retail snow leopard installed very few issues I has to resolve I have a 500 gb for Mac and 750 GB Windows 7 dual boot. fully updated as of a few minutes ago. I build cost was around $600 maybe. I am planing a i3 version now once it's setup I will give this one to my daughter. Some day I might get a real mac but as for now I am enjoying the best of both worlds and dual boot for less then the cost of a retail Mac I can have two. byw my computer is very quite!
 
A hackintosh is fun to build but not worth the trouble and possible crashes for the type of use you will be doing. Especially if you dont get the same hardware that everyone else on the forums have. Took me forever to get mine up and running stable but it was all worth it considering I had already built the computer for a windows 7 gaming pc 6 months prior. I am still considering buying a iMac 27" considering the monitor size and screen resolution you can't beat the price.
 
I am not sure if those who claim hackintosh's are unstable and crash a lot have ever tried to build one or are just perpetuating heresay. Hackintosh's used to be unstable, hard to build, buggy and generally not worth the effort, however a lot has changed lately. A lot more is known about compatible hardware, excellent easy to use tools exist and communities are much larger and more accessible, filled with people building hackintosh's on all kinds of hardware and sharing their experiences. Whenever an update comes out from Apple, the community tests it first and reports on issues and whether its safe to apply it, usually within a day or two of the updates release. If you have a boyfriend who is familiar and capable then go with the hackintosh, however if at some point in the future you are no longer with said boyfriend and your hackintosh has a problem, you may find yourself in a pickle, in which case going with 'the real deal' is a better, albeit, more expensive choice.
 
What are some good resources on building a Hackintosh? So far, I've been reading InsanelyMac forum. The only experience I have is making a hackintosh Dell 10v
 
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