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Mac Pro/Hackintosh...
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Really? In most legal jurisdictions copyright infringement is not a criminal offence but a civil matter for which the only remedy is for the copyright holder to sue the infringer for damages to recompense them for their loss.
I'd be curious, has there ever been a verdict on an individual case of hackintoshing?
RGDS,
If you're a pro and depend on your computer for a living, it's not worth Hackintoshing, even if you're a tech wiz.
If you're an enthusiast and love messing with computers, go for it.
There may be some naysayers that have a perfectly running Hackintosh doing actual productive work on it, but that is probably a small percentage.
I want Apple to own up to it's Pro monicker and follow up with a new Mac Pro to get in line with the MacBook Pro.
If you're an enthusiast and love messing with computers, go for it.
There may be some naysayers that have a perfectly running Hackintosh doing actual productive work on it, but that is probably a small percentage.
I want Apple to own up to it's Pro monicker and follow up with a new Mac Pro to get in line with the MacBook Pro.
[/QUOTE]Just got it a few months ago. Its the x9100 and I am shocked that such a powerful Laptop can't run Mountain Lion.. but, really I prefer the best OS Apple ever produced: Snow Leopard!!
Wow, havent heard of a Core 2 Extreme in a long time, nice to see someone else who has one! *high five*
Probably some sort of hardware incompatibility somewhere.
Nevertheless, Snow Leopard is my favourite iteration of OS 10 too!
People keep asking me why my Macbook Pro is still on 10.6, I'm like, "I dont need no lions in ma lyfe"
I agree with all of the statements you've made, if you're a pro, and your whole business revolves around your workstation, I'd say go for the Mac Pro.
A prime example is a youtuber called David Di Franco, he has a Mac Pro 1,1 from '06 and people keep telling him to "just build a hackintosh" however he does all of his work on his mac pro, and his whole job revolves around that machine, it's annoying because no matter how many times he says hes (quote from him) "Just going to drop a couple grand, maybe two or three, on the new Mac Pro when it comes out, stop telling me to hackintosh!" people still tell him to build a Hack Pro.
A prime example is a youtuber called David Di Franco, he has a Mac Pro 1,1 from '06 and people keep telling him to "just build a hackintosh" however he does all of his work on his mac pro, and his whole job revolves around that machine, it's annoying because no matter how many times he says hes (quote from him) "Just going to drop a couple grand, maybe two or three, on the new Mac Pro when it comes out, stop telling me to hackintosh!" people still tell him to build a Hack Pro.
I'm just arguing for the sake or arguing, but...
If he built a hackingtosh, during the build and in the future he'll still have his old machine as a backup?
He (or anyone?) could feasibly build multiple machines for redundancy too, and anybody who's livelihood does rely on a computer will likely have more than a single machine. Apple's machines are hardly great in mission critical roles... Apple's "Pro" moniker is a three letter model name, nothing else. It may happen, this thread may be full of people making recommendations on the opposite of this but Apple's warranty and replacement service is not really suitable for people that rely on a workstation.
My comments were from a hardware standpoint obviously - They're just normal desktops, even the dual socketed versions. There is no redundancy built into them like is possible from other hardware vendors.
And, I mean if something breaks, having to take a machine to a store, having to book an onsite visit (very limited) or having to send a machine off is slow and not practical in even best-case location scenarios. Someone that relies on a machine will have a spare machine and/or a fast response on-site service they are confident in. A self built machine has the potential advantage of being able to quickly replace parts if required.
Like I said, I'm arguing for the sake of arguing - but I honestly do feel that people saying having Apple available for hardware support for those totally reliant on a machine isn't really valid. If you're considering a hackingtosh, replacing a failed disk/psu/motherboard/cpu etc is going to be a lot quicker and easier than 'popping the machine in the post'.
I do believe both Tutor and Punk Nugget use their hack for real actual work. If you go to tonymac you're going to find more you'll find more still on OCN.
Anyone building on socket 2011 and anyone building DP Hack are most likely doing work with them.
Agreed. Back when I built my Q6600 system, i bought the parts specifically to make a hackintosh to use for work.
It was a good box, was solid for 3 years, until it was eventually joined with a 3,1, and then both replaced by a much more capable 4,1.
i'd build one again if this new pro wasn't allegedly "right around the corner". i can wait. I know that some cannot.
It was a good box, was solid for 3 years, until it was eventually joined with a 3,1, and then both replaced by a much more capable 4,1.
i'd build one again if this new pro wasn't allegedly "right around the corner". i can wait. I know that some cannot.
all of which is not particularly immaterial.
Can you find a bar in NY City where they show all Boston Red Sox Games? Yes. Are most baseball fans in NYC Red Socks Fans? No.
Even if there are 1-2K users in those forums in the context of 100-200K Mac Pro users are talking about 1% of 1% (of the overall yearly Mac market).
P.S. that is even before filtering out the folks who use it as part of a skunkworks/R&D project or a xMac substitute ( because revenue generated won't cover a Mac Pro ) and the targeted Mac Pro users missing-in-action is even smaller.
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Fair enough, it can be easier to replace broken parts such as a PSU in a hackintosh, however in a Mac Pro, things like hard drives, GPU's and CPU's are all just as easy.
Maybe we'll see some redundancy built into the next Pros.
Most likely, yes. It's unfortunate that the Mac Pro has GPU's 3 generations old, and CPU's 1 socket old, like, come on apple!
My guess would be no, because what is the harm to Apple? The real issue is when you want to complain about the software not doing what it is supposed to do. Well, by installing the software on a machine that is not an Apple product, you no longer have any claim about the software not working, but given the price, who would complain?
Look at the license agreement language as a lawyer mandated provision with no intended teeth. Apple is not going to go after someone for installing it on a non-Apple product, unless the person is using it for commercial purposes, i.e. Mac clones. So long as you are doing it for oyur own use and not selling them to anyone else, you can be sure Apple is not going to waste its time tracking you down.
never said it was material, just that it was..
I am forever the pragmatist..If there are a couple users on the blindly Mac centric forum, then there are users out there that use hacks for work, there is no moral imperative on my part.If it gets your work done than great, if not shame on you.
Well all depends on your needs, but i was user of hackintosh from almost two years.
I had 27'' iMac from 2011 and i also wanted to build some game rig, and viewing tony86 forum i saw that its possible to get with os x on that.
So i get recommended parts at that time was i7 2600K, p68 motherboards, 128 gb SSD, 16GB of DDR3 and some 700W power supply and some good case, after that i modded old G5 case + added closed water cooling for CPU.
Since i had already 27'' IPS dell display later on i bought two more 22'' ones and put them vertically at sides so i have now 3 displays which helps and speed my work (designer/illustrator)process quite a loot.
This days i may buy motherboard with Thunderbolt support and new SSD because my is kinda old and 2x slower then new ones on market, and when i get that i definitely will make Fusion drive with one good and reliable 1TB drive on market.
Beside that i have HD logitech camera (works OOB) i have bluetooth working, my apple wireless keyboard + track pad working 100% without any problem.
Only thing i didn't get is wireless adapter on my build, because i prefer to have it wired to my ADSL modem, but regardless to that iOS mirroring, airplay and connection with iPhone and other Apple devices worked just as on my iMac, with out any problem.
Problems? Well only problem i had so far, i was lucky i guess was that that expect some with kext for CD/DVD-Drive because it wasn't recognized for some reason, but it was my fault because i managed to edit/replace some kexts before, but all that was fixed within 1h of troubleshooting and at end all went well, now my hackintosh if 100% OOB without any extra/edited kexts, drivers, hacks etc.
And after using it for almost a year my iMac was like wasting my space, and i sold it, because i was spending 90% of time and doing almost all work on my hackintosh.
And just to add that i saw geekbench score of new retina mb's was like ±12-13k score, my hackintosh with stock speed have like 14k and its like 2 year old machine.
Also last uptime of my hackintosh was more then 22 days, and it was shot down only because my UPS could not hold long time with out power, if i was there to put my system to sleep it wouldn't show down, and i guess that kind of uptime talks about some kind of stability.
And story didn't end there, as i was working at design studio, we used 5 Mac Pro's there ( i thing ones from 2008) and one iMac from 2009.
As i started working there i always talked about hackintosh but they ware sceptic to use one of them, because at first they wanted stable machines.
But finely they give up and they give me money to order and complete one hackintosh so they can use it first to see how that works. I got ivy bridge components+nVidia 670 graphic card on it (i even read that on hackintosh you can use two different cards so my new nvidia when i get it can be attached to my 27'' display and 2x22 on my current 6870 ATI one), + 256GB SSD/1TB Drive for Fusion Drive and wireless card.
I made that, OC and got something like almost 17k geekbanch score, all was working fine, had trouble with USB3.0 but i manage to make that work to.
And after 3 months of testing that they finally give me permission to make 6 more mackintosh with same specs and we are now happy, well al of us with new much faster machines which are using latest hardware. And i bet after we sell those mac pro's we will return great deal of money spent of this hardware.
And laso if it for every one? Well no, because new users need to have a bit advanced of technology knowledge, and how to setup and make all that work, but trust me its was not that harder of installing windows.
Only "must have" on this systems are EXTRA HARD DISK, because when ever you/or if ever you need to mess around with kexts, updates, bootloaders etc. its crucial to make FULL BACKUP OF SYATEM to that drive, so if anything go wrong or for some reason you can boot in system you can for 10min get system going and restore system on previous state.
So as Apple user, which live a bit to far away from nearest apple store, im more happy with this system.
Any hardware failure can be fixed in 1-2days max with new ones, or find some extra ones from friend etc. while broken one is on repair or you wait for replacement one from hardware shop.
And finally i will never understand why Apple wont make some system with same hardware as iMac in same case similar to Mac Pro's and give end user freedom to put extra hard drives, extra/replace graphic card from Apple with new ones, etc. It make no sense for me that some random guys can make all this work and make this stuff almost work as on original mac machines.
Because i will aways prefer hardware put in case + external display, and Mac Pro's with price over $3000 even more expensive to the rest of world because for example damn iPod Touch 5g 64GB in my country is almost $590, imagine how much will be expensive for me to buy something like Mac Pro, even iMac at USA starts at $ 1999 in EU is 2049 € which is like $2700 and i dont see anything which can explain those increased prices.
And hackintosh was never easier to install, ever, and that only can cost Apple, because lots of users out there get tired of waiting for updated/new Mac Pro's and tried hackintosh ones and stick to those, and if Apple ever release new MP's price will be almost 2x more then same hackintosh build, trust me on that.
And finally look at this 12 Xeon Core Hackintosh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqjvj8mUCKI
Hope i helped.
PS. Extra to this is that you can get good gaming rig to, and you can also Dual Boot , and using VMware you can also boot existing system from partition/drive as virtual machine, i use that because from time to time i like to play LOL, and i can do that without restarting system, just load win7, open game and play it like im on win7 with out any problem
I had 27'' iMac from 2011 and i also wanted to build some game rig, and viewing tony86 forum i saw that its possible to get with os x on that.
So i get recommended parts at that time was i7 2600K, p68 motherboards, 128 gb SSD, 16GB of DDR3 and some 700W power supply and some good case, after that i modded old G5 case + added closed water cooling for CPU.
Since i had already 27'' IPS dell display later on i bought two more 22'' ones and put them vertically at sides so i have now 3 displays which helps and speed my work (designer/illustrator)process quite a loot.
This days i may buy motherboard with Thunderbolt support and new SSD because my is kinda old and 2x slower then new ones on market, and when i get that i definitely will make Fusion drive with one good and reliable 1TB drive on market.
Beside that i have HD logitech camera (works OOB) i have bluetooth working, my apple wireless keyboard + track pad working 100% without any problem.
Only thing i didn't get is wireless adapter on my build, because i prefer to have it wired to my ADSL modem, but regardless to that iOS mirroring, airplay and connection with iPhone and other Apple devices worked just as on my iMac, with out any problem.
Problems? Well only problem i had so far, i was lucky i guess was that that expect some with kext for CD/DVD-Drive because it wasn't recognized for some reason, but it was my fault because i managed to edit/replace some kexts before, but all that was fixed within 1h of troubleshooting and at end all went well, now my hackintosh if 100% OOB without any extra/edited kexts, drivers, hacks etc.
And after using it for almost a year my iMac was like wasting my space, and i sold it, because i was spending 90% of time and doing almost all work on my hackintosh.
And just to add that i saw geekbench score of new retina mb's was like ±12-13k score, my hackintosh with stock speed have like 14k and its like 2 year old machine.
Also last uptime of my hackintosh was more then 22 days, and it was shot down only because my UPS could not hold long time with out power, if i was there to put my system to sleep it wouldn't show down, and i guess that kind of uptime talks about some kind of stability.
And story didn't end there, as i was working at design studio, we used 5 Mac Pro's there ( i thing ones from 2008) and one iMac from 2009.
As i started working there i always talked about hackintosh but they ware sceptic to use one of them, because at first they wanted stable machines.
But finely they give up and they give me money to order and complete one hackintosh so they can use it first to see how that works. I got ivy bridge components+nVidia 670 graphic card on it (i even read that on hackintosh you can use two different cards so my new nvidia when i get it can be attached to my 27'' display and 2x22 on my current 6870 ATI one), + 256GB SSD/1TB Drive for Fusion Drive and wireless card.
I made that, OC and got something like almost 17k geekbanch score, all was working fine, had trouble with USB3.0 but i manage to make that work to.
And after 3 months of testing that they finally give me permission to make 6 more mackintosh with same specs and we are now happy, well al of us with new much faster machines which are using latest hardware. And i bet after we sell those mac pro's we will return great deal of money spent of this hardware.
And laso if it for every one? Well no, because new users need to have a bit advanced of technology knowledge, and how to setup and make all that work, but trust me its was not that harder of installing windows.
Only "must have" on this systems are EXTRA HARD DISK, because when ever you/or if ever you need to mess around with kexts, updates, bootloaders etc. its crucial to make FULL BACKUP OF SYATEM to that drive, so if anything go wrong or for some reason you can boot in system you can for 10min get system going and restore system on previous state.
So as Apple user, which live a bit to far away from nearest apple store, im more happy with this system.
Any hardware failure can be fixed in 1-2days max with new ones, or find some extra ones from friend etc. while broken one is on repair or you wait for replacement one from hardware shop.
And finally i will never understand why Apple wont make some system with same hardware as iMac in same case similar to Mac Pro's and give end user freedom to put extra hard drives, extra/replace graphic card from Apple with new ones, etc. It make no sense for me that some random guys can make all this work and make this stuff almost work as on original mac machines.
Because i will aways prefer hardware put in case + external display, and Mac Pro's with price over $3000 even more expensive to the rest of world because for example damn iPod Touch 5g 64GB in my country is almost $590, imagine how much will be expensive for me to buy something like Mac Pro, even iMac at USA starts at $ 1999 in EU is 2049 € which is like $2700 and i dont see anything which can explain those increased prices.
And hackintosh was never easier to install, ever, and that only can cost Apple, because lots of users out there get tired of waiting for updated/new Mac Pro's and tried hackintosh ones and stick to those, and if Apple ever release new MP's price will be almost 2x more then same hackintosh build, trust me on that.
And finally look at this 12 Xeon Core Hackintosh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqjvj8mUCKI
Hope i helped.
PS. Extra to this is that you can get good gaming rig to, and you can also Dual Boot , and using VMware you can also boot existing system from partition/drive as virtual machine, i use that because from time to time i like to play LOL, and i can do that without restarting system, just load win7, open game and play it like im on win7 with out any problem
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Like I said, it will work.
It is NOT supported by any company (Apple and whatever hardware you're using)...so you're on your own.
It makes sense if you're super busy to take it to Apple Care and have things repaired if it goes wrong, instead of wasting time trying to fix things.
Obviously the people who are doing Hackintoshes are enthusiasts and some of them might be professionals who don't mind fiddling around and have some spare time. Most people who are busy enough with work don't have the spare time to devote to troubleshooting their computers and would rather have other people take care of that. People like me. I can easily build computers as I used to back in the day, but this day and age, I don't see a reason and would rather spend my time doing more creative things than build computers.
Or Hacks are as stable as real Mac's. Remember perception is reality. I sold a hack to keep my Mac Pro, the guy who bought it from me just produced his bands second CD with it. He's pro doing his work with a hack, I'm not and keeping my junk and making a little money ripping folks DVD/BluRay/VHS into formats they can use.
What is your point?
In essence, OS X is NOT like Windows, it is ONLY designed to work with Macs. It's pretty straight forward. Anything above and beyond that is considered a hack. It may or may not work, but that's not the point.
If I ever wanted a custom PC, I would just use Windows 7. Or I will wait until Apple comes out with a new Mac Pro and upgrade my (long-in-the-tooth, but pretty stable) 2008 Mac Pro. It gets the job done and I don't have to be a tech-wiz to have it work.
When I talk about real work I meant responsible work, with very tight deadlines. Someone who has a band is on their own free will and he/she can swerve around target dates as much as they want.
When it comes down to extreme tight deadlines, and by that I mean if you are late by 2 seconds, your client is going to drop your $8 million dollar account and your name will forever be tarnished, I'd rather work on a system that is ready-to-use and not reliant on kext's. Let the IT people deal with technical stuff.
I would trust a Dell workstation more than a Hackintosh, even though I despise Windows.
I'm as techy as anyone here and I can fix a computer within a second, but my point is, would you trust your hand-built machine with a daily projects that have this much money involved? I wouldn't. A brand new expensive Mac Pro means nothing to me in terms of money. I would rather have a safe machine than one that needs more maintenance.
The people over at the Hackintosh forums are fantastic people, I'm not knocking on what they're doing, but there is a place and time for Hackintoshes and I keep seeing them mentioned here all the time. The real pros would never use a Hackintosh and the IT department at these studios would never do it either. Time and money are of the essence in these workplaces and both are never enough.
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Again perception is reality, Mac's aren't special they're Foxconn Mother boards, Intel SATA controllers and Intel processors. They are anything but special but thats not how you perceive them and thats fine.
Please tell me that you understood my post, or else this conversation is useless.
What does perception have to do with OS X being a proprietary operating system designed for a special logic board? Regardless if it uses an Intel CPU/Northbridge/Southbridge, Realtek audio card/network card, the motherboards are designed by Apple for Apple. OS X was not even designed for a BIOS, only an EFI and you use hacked methods to emulate an EFI and fake the boot just to get into OS X.
When you inject kext's to make it work with the hardware, you're just using a workaround. The operating system is not meant to do that.
I don't know how else I can articulate the idea of proprietary software.
Just because you can run OS X on non-supported hardware, doesn't mean it will work flawlessly.
Before Apple moved to Intel only a few years ago, so the only reason you can run on x64/x86 hardware is due to the move to Intel. It is still the same OS X as it was when it launched in 2000.
That is what you don't need to do anymore, that is what your not understanding. My Mac Pro has required me to inject kexts but my hack didn't
it was literally as easy to install as Windows.
The Intel switched allowed this to happen you are correct, but the Apple move to industry standard equipment has made it very easy to do without instabilities.
You perceive this hackintoshing to be difficult and inherently unstable, that is not the case but I'll never be able to convince you of that, and thats fine.
Remember though there are people out there using hacks for critical no kidding work get paid work.
You have to go with what works for you.
ESX/HyperV servers 'fake' a fair bit more than that and quite happily run 'real' mission critical services 24/7/365
Designed for a special logic board doesn't mean much. They're foxconn motherboards built to a spec chosen by apple using standard components. OSX has kernel drivers that support their platforms, there's no magically wizardry.
Not that this is required for a lot of hardware (it just works), how is this different than deciding you need USB3 in a mac pro and buying an add-on card?
You said you're a techy, so you probably understand that all the major operating systems (proprietary or otherwise) are rock solid stable, 3rd party drivers are the culprits that tend to introduce instability.
Doesn't mean it won't either. The mac pro comes in a nice case, but there's a huge selection of components I'd rather buy if we're really arguing system stability to death (and I'm talking about 'cheap' enthusiast parts, not horrendously expensive supermicro setups).
People will argue this to the death. The vast majority of people who have invested any time with osx86 will be running completely stable systems, and most of the arguments against are people that don't, who spout some incredibly frustrating "I'm too important to waste time fiddling with machines when I could be making money instead".
It's very simple, use whatever you want! If you build a machine yourself, you can potentially build a faster, cheaper, better machine that can run all day every day, but you have to pay attention to updates etc (although that's no different than any machine in a work environment really..) In reality, most businesses will simply buy a machine rather than buy components, that's just normal.
A fair while ago, I bought my dual socket mac pro because it was great value compared to other vendors and what I could build.
There are many of us making livings with hackintoshes in the mix, in some cases in prominent roles. It's not a price issue, it's simply the best tool for some jobs. If you need fast internal I/O (where SATA 3Gb/s is a bottleneck), fast external I/O (Thunderbolt and USB 3.0), lots of CUDA cores... the Mac Pro just isn't a good option. In some cases it's a very poor option.
My hackintoshes run 7x24 and are used to earn a living every day (including weekends). While there's some initial work to be done (mostly assembly), after that I don't find them any more difficult to maintain than any of my real Macs. In some ways their maintenance is easier due to freedom to choose the right hardware for the job at hand. They easily earn their keep. A few hours to assemble and configure one is easy to justify when they save many hours per week by getting work done faster than the Mac Pro. Pick the right hardware and they're just as reliable as a Mac Pro. Pick really good hardware and they're more reliable than an Apple machine. Won't necessarily be any less expensive, and you can't haul it to the Apple Store when it needs repair, but for me, getting many on-board SATA III ports for SSD drives and a large enough power supply (possibly redundant, possibly U.S.-made with a very good warranty) to run multiple Kepler or Fermi GPUs is more than convincing enough in some applications.
Standardize on a configuration and the work to assemble and configure comes way down... an hour or less per machine.
In rack-mount density-critical situations, a hackintosh is easily the best option for OS X. The Xserve was nice but it's been gone for over 2 years; there is no Apple option here. Of course most of us are just fine with a BSD or linux or a NAS OS for server needs, but if you need racked OS X... you need a hackintosh.
I would not generally choose a hackintosh for number crunching workstations; running socket 2011 and dual Xeon on a hackintosh brings some headaches like power management (sleep/wake, speedstepping). Server or workstation that never needs to sleep or speedstep down? They work well there.
If your work is I/O-bound and/or GPU-bound and not CPU-bound, i.e. what you need is 4+ onboard SATA III ports and/or lots of CUDA cores but don't need ECC and Xeon, an unlocked i7 hackintosh is a very good option. That is, if you're comfortable spending some time to assemble and configure one.
The only real maintenance issue with hackintoshes is software updates. However, we've had our fair share of issues with software updates on real Apple hardware and hence tend to control them. I suspect that's true of most shops,and for that matter, most professional independents. Automated software updates are nice, except when they automatically break something on your system(s). I've honestly had no more significant issues with software updates on the hackintoshes with Lion and Mountain Lion than I've had with Apple machines.
It is MUCH easier to build a reliable hackintosh today than it was even a year ago. And compared to 3 years ago, it's trivially easy.
The problem with the current Mac Pro for many of us is that it's hobbled I/O-wise and CUDA-wise. Sure, you can use a Cubix or secondary power supply if you need to run a GTX690 or two, but it's not a very graceful solution. It's a workaround for Apple not giving the Mac Pro the power supply a CS workstation needs in 2013 (and needed in 2011 and 2012).
For some of us, Apple and Intel have forced our hands.
I have very little faith in Apple releasing a Mac Pro this year. As a shareholder I sort of hope they don't release one. As a user I really hope they do. I'd be perfectly happy with just the addition of onboard SAS/SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0, PCI Express 3.0 and power to support a single GTX690 without compromises. I could live without Thunderbolt for a little while longer if I had USB 3.0. Of course I'd love to see something in between the iMac and dual Xeon (so we can get HD4000, Thunderbolt, etc. in an enclosure with room for expansion... an unlocked i7 Ivy Bridge system) but I don't see it happening.
If you're locked into Apple hardware for whatever reason, and it's working for you, that's fine. That doesn't mean that everyone else should ignore their other options or pretend that a hackintosh is a sub-par machine for production work. Truth is they're often better machines for the job than what Apple ships today.
My hackintoshes run 7x24 and are used to earn a living every day (including weekends). While there's some initial work to be done (mostly assembly), after that I don't find them any more difficult to maintain than any of my real Macs. In some ways their maintenance is easier due to freedom to choose the right hardware for the job at hand. They easily earn their keep. A few hours to assemble and configure one is easy to justify when they save many hours per week by getting work done faster than the Mac Pro. Pick the right hardware and they're just as reliable as a Mac Pro. Pick really good hardware and they're more reliable than an Apple machine. Won't necessarily be any less expensive, and you can't haul it to the Apple Store when it needs repair, but for me, getting many on-board SATA III ports for SSD drives and a large enough power supply (possibly redundant, possibly U.S.-made with a very good warranty) to run multiple Kepler or Fermi GPUs is more than convincing enough in some applications.
Standardize on a configuration and the work to assemble and configure comes way down... an hour or less per machine.
In rack-mount density-critical situations, a hackintosh is easily the best option for OS X. The Xserve was nice but it's been gone for over 2 years; there is no Apple option here. Of course most of us are just fine with a BSD or linux or a NAS OS for server needs, but if you need racked OS X... you need a hackintosh.
I would not generally choose a hackintosh for number crunching workstations; running socket 2011 and dual Xeon on a hackintosh brings some headaches like power management (sleep/wake, speedstepping). Server or workstation that never needs to sleep or speedstep down? They work well there.
If your work is I/O-bound and/or GPU-bound and not CPU-bound, i.e. what you need is 4+ onboard SATA III ports and/or lots of CUDA cores but don't need ECC and Xeon, an unlocked i7 hackintosh is a very good option. That is, if you're comfortable spending some time to assemble and configure one.
The only real maintenance issue with hackintoshes is software updates. However, we've had our fair share of issues with software updates on real Apple hardware and hence tend to control them. I suspect that's true of most shops,and for that matter, most professional independents. Automated software updates are nice, except when they automatically break something on your system(s). I've honestly had no more significant issues with software updates on the hackintoshes with Lion and Mountain Lion than I've had with Apple machines.
It is MUCH easier to build a reliable hackintosh today than it was even a year ago. And compared to 3 years ago, it's trivially easy.
The problem with the current Mac Pro for many of us is that it's hobbled I/O-wise and CUDA-wise. Sure, you can use a Cubix or secondary power supply if you need to run a GTX690 or two, but it's not a very graceful solution. It's a workaround for Apple not giving the Mac Pro the power supply a CS workstation needs in 2013 (and needed in 2011 and 2012).
For some of us, Apple and Intel have forced our hands.
I have very little faith in Apple releasing a Mac Pro this year. As a shareholder I sort of hope they don't release one. As a user I really hope they do. I'd be perfectly happy with just the addition of onboard SAS/SATA 6Gb/s, USB 3.0, PCI Express 3.0 and power to support a single GTX690 without compromises. I could live without Thunderbolt for a little while longer if I had USB 3.0. Of course I'd love to see something in between the iMac and dual Xeon (so we can get HD4000, Thunderbolt, etc. in an enclosure with room for expansion... an unlocked i7 Ivy Bridge system) but I don't see it happening.
If you're locked into Apple hardware for whatever reason, and it's working for you, that's fine. That doesn't mean that everyone else should ignore their other options or pretend that a hackintosh is a sub-par machine for production work. Truth is they're often better machines for the job than what Apple ships today.
ESX/HyperV servers 'fake' a fair bit more than that and quite happily run 'real' mission critical services 24/7/365
Designed for a special logic board doesn't mean much. They're foxconn motherboards built to a spec chosen by apple using standard components. OSX has kernel drivers that support their platforms, there's no magically wizardry.
Not the point I'm making here.
This is different. Mac Pro's have PCIe slots, which are standard. Not any USB3.0 card will work on a Mac Pro, you have to do a lot of searching to find the one that works without getting drop outs, etc. etc. And many of them you have to inject KEXT's, which are NOT like installing drivers under Windows.
Windows was designed to work on all kinds of hardware from the start. Not OS X. Key word here is DESIGN.
I added a USB3.0 card to my Mac Pro, and spent a good amount of time doing research to buy the correct one and make sure it works. From the reviews it seemed like it was definitely spotty.
On the Windows side, you can just go to a local best buy and pick up any USB3.0 card and it will work. The cards are "certified" (yes, I know all hardware have issues and certification doesn't mean much) but Windows > OS X in terms of hardware support.
Designer first and second anything else I've accumulated earlier in my life. Not all operating systems are "rock solid stable" but we're at a good point in the industry. Windows 7 is very solid. OS X is fine as well (sans Lion). But once again, you are getting confused between the way Windows functions when it comes to hardware and OS X.
Apple CAN remove ANY support they want on the next update and you will be stuck with the hardware you have purchased and cannot reuse it. The hardest part is the graphics card and expansion boards.
Apple's track record speaks for itself.
They do not care about legacy if it doesn't make sense to them. This is what Steve Jobs worked hard for, to be the anti-Microsoft, and the legacy continues. They are a design centric company and not a tech company (ie, Google, Microsoft, etc.).
This is why Apple drops software and hardware with a snap of a finger because if something doesn't work, they move on. It's not hard to understand.
No one said you can't do what you want
The point is, it is not supported. OS X is not using the Windows model and never will. Apple will never separate OS X from Macs, it is not their agenda, this is why new versions of the OS are $20. They are a hardware company first and foremost, second a software company. Both can be dropped and unsupported at any time (just look at their track record).
If you are willing to spend time and read forums to find the right hardware, then working around the BIOS issue, troubleshooting, spending more time on forums trying to get your network card working, then great! I am not against that at all.
I just like buying a computer, pressing the button and having it work so I can go ahead and use this tool for my work so I can finish.
Most of the people who are arguing against my stance are forgetting that we are in the Mac Pro category on a site called Mac Rumors. Not tonymacx86, etc.