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Hakintosh - is the game worth the candle?

image I want to share my opinion and experience regarding the work of Mac OS X on a regular PC computer. Maybe this topic will be interesting or useful for someone.

I am a software developer for Mac OS X and iOS. And I love Apple’s hardware and software ( but I’m not an ardent fan ). During my life I have visited many Apple gadgets: PowerBook G4, MacBook, iMac, MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad, etc.

Technique for me is only a tool to achieve goals. At this moment in time at work, I use iMac ( Core i5 ) for personal use: an ordinary stationary PC, a Lenovo laptop, an Android phone and an iPad.
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Recently, I needed a very powerful computer with Mac OS X to work at home. According to the characteristics of Apple, only the top-end iMac ( with Core i7-2600 3.4 GHz ) and Mac Pro were suitable. Both are just outrageous money - more than 100 thousand rubles . I was not psychologically ready to spend such money on a computer. I limited the budget to 55 thousand rubles and decided to build “Hakintosh”. I follow the Hakintosh theme for a bit and have a clear idea of ​​what is “there and how”.

The list of what was purchased for the computer:

The Intel Core i7-2600K processor was chosen as one of the most productive for a home computer. Moreover, such a processor without problems “starts” at 4.2 GHz without raising the voltage - which was done.

The GIGABYTE P67A-D3-B3 motherboard was chosen because it was made on the Intel P67 chipset, it has excellent potential for overclocking the processor, 2 SATA 6 Gb / s ports, 4 memory slots. Moreover, there is a ready-made DSDT for this motherboard.

From the previous computer I have two ordinary hard drives. The computer still needed 2 SSD disks ( one for Mac OS X, the other for Windows 7 ) of 128 GB each (the choice of volume is justified by the price ). I chose only between SSD on Marvell or Samsung controllers. SandForce did not even consider it ( although the most productive SSDs on this controller ) - negative reviews on the stability of work are simply going off-scale. Samsung Series 830 in Russia is not officially sold - the order of two pieces in Europe would cost 15,500 rubles. with delivery in a week. It was decided to take the Crucial M4 128 GB - these SSDs are easily accessible, fairly fast and stable.

The AMD Radeon HD 6870 video card was chosen because it is an extremely powerful card that “starts” on Mac OS X without any extra dancing.

Sound USB Adapter Creative Play! It was chosen due to the fact that you do not need to do extra gestures with the built-in Realtek ALC889 sound card ( although it can also work in Mac OS X ). Inserted Creative Play! and everything works right away.

The D-Link DWA-556 adapter on the Atheros chip (AR5008 / AR5416) is a universal solution. It is suitable not only for Hackintoshes, but also for Mac Pro without an AirPort adapter. D-Link DWA-556 is seen in the system as a native AirPort right away.

Mac OS X 10.7.2 was installed using the tonymacx86 method. There is practically nothing non-native in the system, except for the Chimera bootloader and the driver for the Realtek network card (the original driver for Mac OS X from the manufacturer ). TRIM support was forcibly enabled for SSD ( TRIM is officially supported only on Apple's stock SSD ).

Everything works absolutely stable and super fast. All hardware ( video, sound, Wi-Fi, wired network, etc. ) works perfectly, sleep mode works without problems. Work in the system and Xcode is very comfortable. Responsiveness of the system is instantaneous - no slowdowns, expectations, etc. I took action and instantly get the result. If you measure "parrots", then Geekbench gives 15500 "parrots". For comparison, the top-end iMac CTO - gives about 13,500 "parrots."

After this computer on my working iMac ( Core i5 ) I feel not very comfortable. If I didn’t have a budget constraint, then naturally I’ve taken a top-end iMac. But in my particular case, the choice is unequivocally for Hakintosh.

PS The bottom line is that there are no nuances and difficulties that would be worth to paint. The system is simply installed using the tonymacx86.com method without distortions and works perfectly - there are practically no third-party components in the system (except for the bootloader and the Realtek network card driver).

PS II. At the request launched Cinebench 11.5. The result: CPU - 8.23 ​​pts, OpenGL - 58.75 fps.

PS III. Many people ask me how I installed Mac OS X? I gave the main link - tonymacx86 , there is complete information (read just 10 minutes). Briefly (without nuances) I will tell in steps (the installation took about 15 minutes):
  1. Downloaded from the above site UniBeast, MultiBeast, DSDT for the motherboard.
  2. On Mac, I created an installation universal flash drive (10.7.2) using UniBeast (Mac OS X 10.7.2 was previously downloaded from the App Store. A Mac (or another Hakintosh) is needed only at this stage. In the future, you can install a system from this flash drive anywhere.
  3. On the same flash drive threw MultiBeast and DSDT.
  4. I booted from the flash drive and installed the system (standard installer) by preformatting a disk with a GPT partition table.
  5. Once again I booted from the flash drive, but when I started it in the bootloader I chose an already installed system.
  6. Put DSDT on the desktop. Installed MultiBeast (chose UserDSDT and driver for Realtek network card).
  7. Rebooted and got a completely ready system.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/132043/

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