Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The Hackintosh Thread
- Thread starter lowendlinux
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
I do a lot of reading, but I must admit I am not on a first name basis with the xeon processors. A quick web search showed the E3 as being pretty close to the E5 performance wise, but I have no special insight into how apple decides what hardware to use. Thanks for the information, I do enjoy learning about this stuff, and my short time here at macrumors has been very helpful to me in terms of learning about my mac pro and thinking about the future of mac pro or 'non supported' hardware.
It basically comes down to the socket. E3s are basically i7 CPUs with ECC Memory support on the LGA115X socket. The E5s are significantly larger CPUs on the 2011-3 socket with more packed in like 3- and 4- channel memory support, more PCIE lanes for greater IO throughput, and in the case of 2xxx processors, the requisite hardware for multi-processor systems.
Here's a pic comparing the two. On the left is an E5-2620. On the Right, an E3-1270v2.
Last edited:
Forgive me if there is a clear answer on this, I would really appreciate any help...I've been out of the hackintosh game for a couple of years now...I built a neat rack mount hack for my friend back in 2013 for his home audio studio. As he's a pro tools user, he's stuck on 10.8.5. Which seems to work great for him. He has no desires to upgrade. However, messages, FaceTime haven't worked in quite sometime. He'd like to get it going again if possible. I had him on Multibeast/Chimera.
So I've tried reading up on the iMessage fix thread over at tonymac but can't make heads or tails if any of that information pertains to Mountain Lion. Also, I can't seem to find anything newer than 2013 on google with reference to ML. Is there a definitive fix out there for this?
I remember at the tail end of my hack days something about clover being the solution. Can someone help me get a concrete understanding of the issue? I would sincerely appreciate any help you can provide. I'd love to get those services working for him again if possible.
So I've tried reading up on the iMessage fix thread over at tonymac but can't make heads or tails if any of that information pertains to Mountain Lion. Also, I can't seem to find anything newer than 2013 on google with reference to ML. Is there a definitive fix out there for this?
I remember at the tail end of my hack days something about clover being the solution. Can someone help me get a concrete understanding of the issue? I would sincerely appreciate any help you can provide. I'd love to get those services working for him again if possible.
I'm still new and learning hackintoshing... I've never messed with Chimera and know nothing about how it works. I've only used Clover and its method of installation. I also do not know if a Chimera based installation can be switched to Clover.
If it is indeed possible to switch to Clover, getting iMessage, FaceTime, etc working on a hackintosh is very possible. I used method detailed here to get it all working. It has been flawless and I use it everyday.
If it is indeed possible to switch to Clover, getting iMessage, FaceTime, etc working on a hackintosh is very possible. I used method detailed here to get it all working. It has been flawless and I use it everyday.
What about installing and running software from "unknown developers"? Or does the spctl command work for that?
You can open software from unknown developers by adjusting your privacy settings.
Time flies... It's already been half a year since I replaced my MacPro5,1 with a hackintosh as my primary, everyday desktop. In that time, I've gone from El Capitan to Sierra (upgraded first day or two of release), managed to 4.8GHz out of the CPU, and have kept it running just about 24/7 (system sleeps during inactivity and reset only to clear up too much memory paging). I can say that it has been every bit as reliable as any Mac I've ever owned.
Updating major macOS releases may require upgrading the boot loader and is a bit more complicated than a real Mac but not prohibitively so. Just follow directions and you can get through it with minimal difficulty. Minor updates have been every bit as easy as on a real Mac. I've upgraded to each new version within a day or two (once updated Nvidia web drivers are released) directly from App Store. Handoff/Continuity/AirDrop work as well as on any Mac too.
As I stated, the only tinkering that may be required is with major macOS releases. Otherwise, I haven't needed to do anything special to keep the system up and running. However, being that it's standard off the shelf components that are being used, I can and I did. Out of boredom, I tried my hand at overclocking and have gotten my CPU to a stable 4.8GHz on air cooling. Call me old fashioned but I still don't believe liquids should be anywhere near my computer. After lots of tinkering, my system now idles at ~27-29C and tops out at ~69C under full load. Here are some Geekbench scores from my i7-6700K:
Since this system idles at only ~80W (vs ~170W of my old MacPro5,1) and tops out at ~193W (vs ~410W of my old MacPro5,1) under full load, I don't feel nearly as guilty for keeping my system up 24/7 and I no longer have a system that spits out heat. It sleeps on idle and wakes without issues.
I'm now looking forward to see what sort of benefits will come with Intel's new Kaby Lake CPUs and Z270 platform. If I do decide to upgrade, it should only cost approx $500 since every other component I have can be reused and it should be just a drop in replacement of the CPU and motherboard. I also still hope that Apple releases systems that I want. If/when that happens, there's a good likelihood that I would go back to Apple equipment to support Apple, but until that happens, hackintoshing has proven to be a very viable alternative.
Updating major macOS releases may require upgrading the boot loader and is a bit more complicated than a real Mac but not prohibitively so. Just follow directions and you can get through it with minimal difficulty. Minor updates have been every bit as easy as on a real Mac. I've upgraded to each new version within a day or two (once updated Nvidia web drivers are released) directly from App Store. Handoff/Continuity/AirDrop work as well as on any Mac too.
As I stated, the only tinkering that may be required is with major macOS releases. Otherwise, I haven't needed to do anything special to keep the system up and running. However, being that it's standard off the shelf components that are being used, I can and I did. Out of boredom, I tried my hand at overclocking and have gotten my CPU to a stable 4.8GHz on air cooling. Call me old fashioned but I still don't believe liquids should be anywhere near my computer. After lots of tinkering, my system now idles at ~27-29C and tops out at ~69C under full load. Here are some Geekbench scores from my i7-6700K:
Since this system idles at only ~80W (vs ~170W of my old MacPro5,1) and tops out at ~193W (vs ~410W of my old MacPro5,1) under full load, I don't feel nearly as guilty for keeping my system up 24/7 and I no longer have a system that spits out heat. It sleeps on idle and wakes without issues.
I'm now looking forward to see what sort of benefits will come with Intel's new Kaby Lake CPUs and Z270 platform. If I do decide to upgrade, it should only cost approx $500 since every other component I have can be reused and it should be just a drop in replacement of the CPU and motherboard. I also still hope that Apple releases systems that I want. If/when that happens, there's a good likelihood that I would go back to Apple equipment to support Apple, but until that happens, hackintoshing has proven to be a very viable alternative.
Last edited:
Hackintosh is just great. I've had mine for about four years now, it's an Ivy Bridge series i7 at (I think) 4.3 GHz. I haven't had any need to upgrade the CPU or motherboard so far.
Last year I upgraded the 2x GTX 670 graphics cards I was using and put in a GTX 1080, in anticipation of Nvidia drivers becoming available. Of course that never happened and most likely never will, so now the Mac side of things is only running the integrated GPU (I sold the 670s). Still, it's very good in Windows and I could always get an additional 970 or something like that if I need more power for the Mac. I use it for writing, music and photography, so the iGPU is currently fine.
For major OS releases I wipe the hard drive and do a clean install then recover from Time Machine. Works perfectly. Other upgrades just use the standard App Store installer. The only thing I have to do afterwards is reinstall the audio driver, otherwise the headphone port doesn't work.
I've got an infrared receiver from an old Macbook Pro in there, plus a DVD writer, several extra USB ports and about seven extra hard drives / SSDs in the case. All things Apple does not cater for any more. If they ever brought out a new Mac Pro tower that allowed for that stuff then I would eventually go back to buying Apple hardware. Pigs might fly...
Last year I upgraded the 2x GTX 670 graphics cards I was using and put in a GTX 1080, in anticipation of Nvidia drivers becoming available. Of course that never happened and most likely never will, so now the Mac side of things is only running the integrated GPU (I sold the 670s). Still, it's very good in Windows and I could always get an additional 970 or something like that if I need more power for the Mac. I use it for writing, music and photography, so the iGPU is currently fine.
For major OS releases I wipe the hard drive and do a clean install then recover from Time Machine. Works perfectly. Other upgrades just use the standard App Store installer. The only thing I have to do afterwards is reinstall the audio driver, otherwise the headphone port doesn't work.
I've got an infrared receiver from an old Macbook Pro in there, plus a DVD writer, several extra USB ports and about seven extra hard drives / SSDs in the case. All things Apple does not cater for any more. If they ever brought out a new Mac Pro tower that allowed for that stuff then I would eventually go back to buying Apple hardware. Pigs might fly...
I am also very happy with my experience at building and hackintoshing with basically the same results as you. I don't plan to update although as you say it would only require a MB and CPU replacement and the costs could be recouped by selling on ebay. My system is rock solid and I have even dialed back the OC from 4.8 to 4.5 just because I don't need it. The system idles around 23C and tops out around 65C and silent.
The only problem I have is Apple not supporting the Nvidia GTX 1070 I use to game with in my Windows 10 boot partition. I had to plug in a AMD RX 460 to use with my Mac partition.
After being so very successful with my first hackintosh build, I succumbed to a fantastic bargain on an HP Elite 8300 for $200 a few months back (although, I still have yet to find a real use for it...). It featured an Ivy Bridge i7-3770 and UEFI. Installation of macOS Sierra was ridiculously easy and I was up and running within hours of receiving delivery of the computer. I have been extremely pleasantly surprised by how well it performs.
I haven't done a clean install in over a decade. When I transitioned from my MacPro5,1, I installed the Clover boot loader on top of my existing MacPro5,1 boot drive and then moved the drive to my hackintosh and continued to use it as is. Of course, I keep backups but haven't had to use them since I began using SSDs.
Yes, I also jury-rigged an Apple IR receiver to my system so that I could use an Apple Remote with it. I currently have three 3.5" drives, three 2.5" SSDs, and an M.2 AHCI SSD crammed in to my little case. All the 3.5" and 2.5" drives are in tool-less hot swap bays.
[doublepost=1484051735][/doublepost]
I've been fortunate and have managed to keep my system inaudible to my ears even with my overclock. To say that I'm extremely impressed with the Noctua heatsink and fans would be an understatement. They have performed well beyond what I could have ever hoped for or expected. I am still stunned at how the Noctua heatsink remains cool to the touch even under full load. I never expected this since the heatsinks on my old MacPro5,1 would almost burn under full load, especially after upgrading to a pair of 130W X5680 CPUs. One thing that I did learn is that your choice of graphics card and the type of cooler it uses can have a noticeable impact on CPU temps.
As we all know, quite a few people are disappointed at the lack of Pascal drivers for macOS. Unfortunately, based on clues that I've seen, my guess is that there's a very good likelihood that we will never see Mac drivers for Pascal. As I've stated elsewhere, at this point, we can only hope that AMD's offerings improve and retail cards will work well with the drivers.
I feel like we are reverting back to the graphics card situation we were in back in the PowerMac days. Little to no options other than a few OEM ATI cards...
To be honest the lack of support for Pascal on macOS makes me think I may just have to consider a move to Windows in the medium term.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
I'm sure you're right, there's no real need to do a clean install. Last time I think I had to move from the Chameleon bootloader to Clover, so I wanted to make sure there were no bits of Chameleon left over that might cause problems.
Chameleon was much nicer looking. I made a theme for it that looked quite close to what I'd imagine an official Apple bootloader would look like. Clean white background, just two OS drive icons to choose from, no other options.
Clover looks super ugly, with text and all those little icons I'll never use. Editing the config file is a pain and I've never able to hide the recovery partition or get it to display at the screen's native resolution.
I don't have any issues with Windows 10. It's a solid OS and I find the utility to be better than macOS because there are so many options in hardware and apps.
I simply run Windows Defender and Mawarebites and had no issues in two years with malware or viruses.
It's not a bad thing anymore.
I have nothing against Windows. The majority of the world uses it and it's fine for them. However, personally, I'm just not comfortable with it. Lots of things in Windows just doesn't make sense to me and I don't like the UI... I use it when i must, but never by choice.
[doublepost=1484055381][/doublepost]
I use the Mac theme in Clover and it looks pretty close to how it did on my Mac Pro...
You can find a bunch of themes at: Theme database
That's most likely caused by a badly written EFI video driver, Clover just uses what it gets. Installing CsmVideoDxe might fix it (in case you're using CSM).
@pastrychef: How much Vcore does your i7 need to maintain a stable 4.8GHz OC?
I'm not entirely sure. I used the Asus A.I. Suite to do overclocking. When in bios, I have noticed the voltage fluctuate but never really pay any attention to the exact voltage itself.
I should mention that CoolLaboratory Liquid Ultra was instrumental in keeping everything cool.
Last edited:
Not really necessary in the nine years in a couple of weeks since I did my first retail install as they called it then where you were not using the distro method which I did months earlier when Leopard came out. I think I did it once for Mavericks ie. fresh drive then import all settings/programs with Migration Assistant. But then again I do not upgrade often anyways my OS history is Leopard then Snow onto Mavericks now that support expired for that last year El Capitan and when support for that is getting ready to expire, the OS behind the current one will be in my future the newer ones Apple are coming out with now seem to be beta testing foisted on the user the quality is definitely going downhill recently. I am big fan of backups, backups and more backups you can never have enough of them and always at least of couple of confirmed to be bootable backups before any upgrade saves you time and trouble in the long run.
Code:
MacUser2525:~$ ls -l Sites/
total 16
-rw-r--r-- 1 MacUser2525 admin 1.1K 22 Jan 2011 favicon.ico
drwxr-xr-x 6 MacUser2525 admin 204B 7 Feb 2008 images/
-rw-r--r--@ 1 MacUser2525 admin 2.9K 22 Jan 2011 index.html
drwxr-xr-x 2 MacUser2525 admin 68B 18 Jan 2011 test/Ahh! I just tried that (about an hour ago) and it has taken me this long to get the thing booting again. All I did was use Clover Configurator to add the CSM driver, then got a black screen with flashing cursor on reboot. Have managed to restore the bootloader to a certain extent (I think I accidentally wrote to a null partition) but it does not boot directly from the hard drive. I'm now booting the Mac HD via an old Clover installation on a USB drive, can't figure out exactly what I've done to it.
I really dislike Clover, it has given me the sort of problems I kind of expected when I went down the Hackintosh route but never had with Chameleon. More powerful I'm sure but so much harder to set up correctly.
Still, this could be a good excuse to try Sierra...
edit: Copying the entire contents of the EFI partition of my working USB stick to the Mac HD's EFI did the trick. I was reluctant to do that because I'll have to remember how to hide all of the surplus hard drives again, but at least it's working.
edit2: Okay, it was entirely my fault for not first loading the correct config.plist in Clover Configurator. So I basically saved an empty config over the top of my working one.
Last edited:
i am consistently amazed at how impressive the noctua coolers are, having used over a half-dozen of them on builds at this point the only one that wasnt "wow" impressive was the 65mm mini-itx cooler, which really struggled with a 1230v2 (supposedly well within their TDP claim for the heatsink). other than that, they have been extremely impressive.
Last edited: