Show off your Early Intel Macs!

[originaldotexe]

Part of the reason I hung on to PowerPC for so long was I was stuck on it. I couldn't afford newer Intel Macs (until they started coming into my price range). I had thoughts back in 2006 or so about a Hackintosh, but it seemed like a hard way to get a 'Mac'. I've never owned a system that was 'easy' to convert and this is one of those few times where if I was going to do this I would fork out the cash for a system that has the specs to do it well - not the really old 2002-2003 crap systems I had access to.

Everything you see in that pic has been cobbled together over time when I had a little bit of cash to spend - or from donations by users here wanting to keep old Macs out of landfill. The past two stimulus checks did accelerate things a bit though.

Looking forward to hearing about your project!

i'm quite familiar with hackintoshes, been doing them since leopard and my last one was running catalina on a mobile workstation laptop for a while, which was quite an interesting beast as it had a fast dGPU.

but this time i want to stick with mavericks as i was never a fan of the flat UI design, and now that chromium legacy has been ported, it should be pretty much usable for me. the main game i play is minecraft which i believe should run with openjdk from macports, and i should be able to use parallels to run a windows vm for some other games if i need.

 

[originaldotexe]

i just ordered my new daily driver desktop PC today: a 2.8ghz 8-core 2008 mac pro. i am going to put 16gb ram in it, a radeon hd 7750, 500gb ssd + 4tb & 2tb hdd, and i will install big sur with the oclp patcher. should be here in 2 or 3 days and i'll share some pictures once it arrives. hopefully it arrives ok.

EDIT: i got it on sale and paid only $110 USD with free shipping, quite an awesome deal. i already have the 16gb (8x2gb) ddr2 fb-dimm memory, as well as the video card, ssd and hard drives lying around from previous systems that will go in there.

 

[originaldotexe]

well, i got the computer at 11am this morning and spent quite literally 13 hours (finished at midnight) trying to get this thing running, fighting with big sur, opencore, video cards and lots of other things, and finally i'm happy to say that the machine is fully working! so happy right now!!

i have 16gb (8x2gb) ddr2 fb-dimms, a gt 730 4gb video card (i plan to upgrade this to a rx 480/rx 580 once the prices go back down and i can afford one), 500gb ssd for boot with plenty of hard drives to hoard all my data on, and the dual 2.8ghz quad core xeon cpu's (8 cores total) that cam efrom the factory. runs great on big sur 11.4 with opencore legacy patcher. so awesome!!!

 

[dandeco]

Yesterday at work I picked up another addition to my growing collection of Macs...

An early 2006 Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz 17" iMac! This was one of the very first Intel Macs on the market when the PowerPC-to-Intel transition commenced! Visually it looked identical to the later 17" iMac G5 that came equipped with an iSight camera, but aside from the internals the I/O port arrangement on the back is different.
When I got this iMac, it apparently came from either a school or a library that had Mac OS X Snow Leopard already installed and requiring a password to log in, and as if that weren't enough, it had a firmware password as well! But I was able to remove that by removing one RAM module (it had already been maxed out to 2 GB) and resetting the PRAM three times. Then I wiped the drive and installed Mac OS X Leopard onto the system (my Snow Leopard disk was accidentally damaged and thus could not install on a system; I'm getting a replacement disk soon and will upgrade this iMac to it).

Transferring my data from my PowerBook G4 via FireWire Target Disk Mode. I did this so I could use my iTunes and iPhoto libraries designed to work on the older versions of the software.

Mandatory "About This Mac" shot.

 

[Amethyst1]

An early 2006 Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz 17" iMac! This was one of the very first Intel Macs on the market when the PowerPC-to-Intel transition commenced!

It was the very first production-grade Intel Mac. When was yours built according to the serial number, just out of interest?

 

[Heindijs]

Yesterday at work I picked up another addition to my growing collection of Macs...

An early 2006 Intel Core Duo 1.83 GHz 17" iMac! -snip-

Are you planning on upgrading the cpu to a Core 2 Duo? Or is this iMac just for collecting purposes? Either way a beautiful pickup!

 

[dandeco]

It was the very first production-grade Intel Mac. When was yours built according to the serial number, just out of interest?

Mine was made in July 2006; to be exact, the 28th week of the year. Still pretty cool!

Testing HDV capture on the white Intel iMac. Of course it's not a real-time capture, but at least it's a little faster than on my PowerBook G4. According to David Pogue's "iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual," this was common with such Macs back then when capturing HDV footage, be it on iMovie or Final Cut or whatever. This was because the iMovie HD and Final Cut Express would transcode the HDV footage into the Apple Intermediate Codec for quicker and easier editing. For real-time capture with the early Intel Macs you needed a Mac Pro or even a MacBook Pro. Of course, when I'd run iMovie HD on my two Macs from 2012 (my quad-core i7 Mac Mini and my dual-core i5 13" MacBook Pro), it captures HDV in real time, thanks to the more powerful processor and lots more RAM.

Are you planning on upgrading the cpu to a Core 2 Duo? Or is this iMac just for collecting purposes? Either way a beautiful pickup!

It's just for collecting purposes, as I thought it'd be neat to have a white polycarbonate flat-panel iMac.

 

[dandeco]

Here's a neat use for this white Core Duo iMac...

It makes for a great DVD player! Watching one of my favorite summertime movies since childhood!

 

[Amethyst1]

It makes for a great DVD player!

A white 24" would make for an even better one (OK I'll shut up now! )

 

[MultiFinder17]

Nice! She's a beauty. I'm actually curious about something though - I also have a Core Duo 17" iMac, but unfortunately it has a bright pink line down the left side of the LCD. Does anyone here know about compatibility between the 17" Core Duo machines and the 17" G5 iMacs? I've got a very dead first-gen G5 iMac that I wouldn't mind pulling the LCD from if I could use it in this machine.

 

[dandeco]

With my 17" Core Duo iMac, since I mentioned that my Snow Leopard install disk was accidentally damaged from when I'd take it to and from work, I ordered a replacement disk...

...as part of the Mac Box Set! The final revision from October 2010 after iLife '11 was released. This was back when upgrading to a new Mac OS X version cost $129, and each new version of iLife and iWork was $79 each (later $49), so Apple made it easier for people to upgrade the software on their slightly older Macs with this software bundle including the latest versions of Mac OS X, iLife AND iWork for $169! In a way, people have compared installing this suite on an older Intel Mac to buying a new Mac! (And now the iWork suite comes preinstalled on all new Macs.)

Because this is an early 32-bit Intel Core Duo Mac, 10.6.x Snow Leopard is the highest Mac OS X version it'll support, as it was the last version that would work on 32-bit Macs, in addition to being the first version that only worked on Intel Macs. (This is one reason why I treat this Core Duo iMac the same as I treat my PowerPC Macs, generally.)

Now I am preparing to install iLife '11. This was the last version to be sold as a physical disk bundle together in 2010, and was the first Intel-only version of iLife. While iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand got some great upgrades, iDVD and iWeb were included but had virtually no updates, as by that time Apple felt that consumers weren't burning DVDs or creating their own personal websites anymore.

Running iPhoto '11 in full-screen mode. Beginning with iPhoto '08, you now also had "events" for groups of photos, that way you didn't have to make an album for everything. WAY more convenient. Though when upgrading that iPhoto library I did have to separate several of the events into their dedicated proper ones, like this event for Anthro New England 2020.

iPhoto also had some pretty nice image editng tools, but they do pale in comparison to the more extensive image editing features in Photos for MacOS.

iMovie '11 got some really spiffy and useful updates after it was completely rewritten and redesigned three years before. It came with the cool Movie Trailer creator, brought back "rubberband"-style audio editing and waveforms and added other useful sound editing tools and effects, one-step video effects, a face recognition feature like the one in iPhoto, and even the ability to work with something like a classic timeline (the current iMovie strictly sticks with said classic timeline-esque layout.)

 

[Amethyst1]

Because this is an early 32-bit Intel Core Duo Mac, 10.6.x Snow Leopard is the highest Mac OS X version it'll support, as it was the last version that would work on 32-bit Macs,

You can actually hack Lion onto Core Duo Macs, if you feel like wasting some time

in addition to being the first version that only worked on Intel Macs.

The early betas would disagree.

 

[B S Magnet]

You can actually hack Lion onto Core Duo Macs, if you feel like wasting some time

The early betas would disagree.

I mean, you’re right on both parts here, though with the former, it takes a bit of tinkering, whilst with the latter, Apple began to strip out the working PowerPC code in earnest after the October 2008 Developer Preview (aka, 10A190) of Snow Leopard.

 

[B S Magnet]

I recently posted photos of the A1261 MacBook Pro I’ve slowly, but steadily brought back to life, over on Club 17.

Earlier this week, I added an aftermarket battery. It’s what one tends to expect with third-party batteries (namely, boasting more capacity than design, but at around 30 per cent remaining charge, suddenly falling to 7 per cent).



On an upside, it meant being able to finally run some benchmark tests at full clock speed.

At present, I’ve only run Geekbench 2.2.7 in 32-bit and 64-bit mode. (While there are later revisions for Geekbench 2, version 2.2.7 was the last to also support PowerPC architectures. Consequently, for Geekbench 2, I find this revision is probably the best to index Intel Mac performance alongside PowerPC Macs.)

I was happy to find how both the 64-bit and 32-bit benchmarks exceeded those reported by Everymac, even if there were other MacBookPro4,1 benchmarks with higher scores (though none used Geekbench 2.2.7).

In a highly technical conclusion, that’s good enough.

 

[Amethyst1]

I was happy to find how both the 64-bit and 32-bit benchmarks exceeded those reported by Everymac, even if there were other MacBookPro4,1 benchmarks with higher scores (though none used Geekbench 2.2.7).

EveryMac reports averages (per their website) which are notoriously susceptible to outliers, and I wouldn't trust scores to be entirely comparable across different 2.x versions.

 

[B S Magnet]

EveryMac reports averages (per their website) which are notoriously susceptible to outliers, and I wouldn't trust scores to be entirely comparable across different 2.x versions.

Moreover, it’s never been made clear on Everymac’s specs which minor version of the different Geekbench major versions they relied on to average a posted score on specific Mac model pages. Every minor version performs differently.

 

[Amethyst1]

Moreover, it’s never been made clear on Everymac’s specs which minor version of the different Geekbench major versions they relied on to average a posted score on specific Mac model pages.

Maybe I'm pessimistic, but...

These numbers reflect an average of user provided 32-bit and 64-bit results as submitted to the Geekbench website.

suggests to me they might not be paying attention to minor versions.

 

[originaldotexe]

my 2008 mac pro setup

 

[B S Magnet]

I recently posted photos of the A1261 MacBook Pro I’ve slowly, but steadily brought back to life, over on Club 17.

Earlier this week, I added an aftermarket battery. It’s what one tends to expect with third-party batteries (namely, boasting more capacity than design, but at around 30 per cent remaining charge, suddenly falling to 7 per cent).

View attachment 1802043

On an upside, it meant being able to finally run some benchmark tests at full clock speed.

At present, I’ve only run Geekbench 2.2.7 in 32-bit and 64-bit mode. (While there are later revisions for Geekbench 2, version 2.2.7 was the last to also support PowerPC architectures. Consequently, for Geekbench 2, I find this revision is probably the best to index Intel Mac performance alongside PowerPC Macs.)

I was happy to find how both the 64-bit and 32-bit benchmarks exceeded those reported by Everymac, even if there were other MacBookPro4,1 benchmarks with higher scores (though none used Geekbench 2.2.7).

In a highly technical conclusion, that’s good enough.

View attachment 1802038 View attachment 1802039

As a follow-up to the above, I wanted to be humbled, chastened, grounded.

So I looked up Geekbench 2 scores to see whether anyone had actually run Geekbench 2 on one of the 28-core Mac Pros (MacPro7,1) from 2019. (Everymac doesn’t show anything below Geekbench 5 scores.)

Turns out someone had. Only one score, and they used Geekbench 2.4.3. But the score is bananas.

 

[Amethyst1]

As a follow-up to the above, I wanted to be humbled, chastened, grounded.

Intel is so yesteryear.

 

[jz0309]

surprised it is still working, my MacBook 2006 Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 80GB spinner, Snow Leopard got replaced in 2013 ...
It actually booted quite fast, and look at the RAM "free" ... amazing

 

[theMarble]

Posted this over on Club 17 but here is my Late 2006 MacBook Pro.



I acquired it around 2 months ago and since then have doubled the RAM and now have it quad-booting with Snow Leopard, Lion, Mavericks and Windows 7. It is the first Early Intel Mac I have personally owned (used so many others but those weren't mine) and my second 17" laptop.

My plans for it are an SSD and a repaste of the CPU and GPU as the temps have been abnormally high.

 

[B S Magnet]

I recently posted photos of the A1261 MacBook Pro I’ve slowly, but steadily brought back to life, over on Club 17.

Earlier this week, I added an aftermarket battery. It’s what one tends to expect with third-party batteries (namely, boasting more capacity than design, but at around 30 per cent remaining charge, suddenly falling to 7 per cent).

View attachment 1802043

On an upside, it meant being able to finally run some benchmark tests at full clock speed.

At present, I’ve only run Geekbench 2.2.7 in 32-bit and 64-bit mode. (While there are later revisions for Geekbench 2, version 2.2.7 was the last to also support PowerPC architectures. Consequently, for Geekbench 2, I find this revision is probably the best to index Intel Mac performance alongside PowerPC Macs.)

I was happy to find how both the 64-bit and 32-bit benchmarks exceeded those reported by Everymac, even if there were other MacBookPro4,1 benchmarks with higher scores (though none used Geekbench 2.2.7).

In a highly technical conclusion, that’s good enough.

View attachment 1802038 View attachment 1802039

Welp, the replacement battery honeymoon didn’t last long.

On load cycle #7, the SMC began reporting a “failing/replace now” battery health condition. The condition persists following an SMC reset. I’ve had the battery for eleven days. It was, yah, an eBay purchase.

This day, the seller and I are having a fun little back and forth. They have the data I’m providing (from System Profiler, coconutBattery, iStat Menus, and so on). They are, not shockingly, putting up a healthy resistance to avoid honouring their posted 30-day replacement warranty.

In the end, I don’t care so much about how long the MacBook Pro can run on battery power, but I do care whether the battery is legitimately “healthy”.

At the moment, I’m watching the MagSafe light oscillate between green and orange, and the battery icon going back and forth between “charging” and “depleting”. 🙃



[Minor update, the next day: I managed to get the seller to acknowledge there might be a problem with the battery, and they are sending a replacement. My hope is the next one will be nominal, while the problematic one can be held to the side as a fallback, if need be.]

 

[B S Magnet]

Welp, the replacement battery honeymoon didn’t last long.

On load cycle #7, the SMC began reporting a “failing/replace now” battery health condition. The condition persists following an SMC reset. I’ve had the battery for eleven days. It was, yah, an eBay purchase.

This day, the seller and I are having a fun little back and forth. They have the data I’m providing (from System Profiler, coconutBattery, iStat Menus, and so on). They are, not shockingly, putting up a healthy resistance to avoid honouring their posted 30-day replacement warranty.

In the end, I don’t care so much about how long the MacBook Pro can run on battery power, but I do care whether the battery is legitimately “healthy”.

At the moment, I’m watching the MagSafe light oscillate between green and orange, and the battery icon going back and forth between “charging” and “depleting”. 🙃

View attachment 1805570

[Minor update, the next day: I managed to get the seller to acknowledge there might be a problem with the battery, and they are sending a replacement. My hope is the next one will be nominal, while the problematic one can be held to the side as a fallback, if need be.]

Oh wow… this battery has gone off the deep end.

 

[MultiFinder17]

Oh wow… this battery has gone off the deep end.

View attachment 1806649

No, no, the seller had the battery wirelessly download the replacement alongside the original. That's why you're getting near double the capacity.