h3%5kr3w Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 I was looking around at macs and noticed the great things say and the boos (from people who actually own them, not fanboys and haters, just buyers off amazon) I wanted to check out a cheap mac. The first thing I thought of was the mac mini. Sounds great at first but for such issues that people are having with them with the video port and alot of power users complaining their asses off about it (even doing benign work that we all do on cheap computers) I thought surely there is a way to get a hold of one that is powerful yet cheap.. To accomplish this, you have two real choices: a. steal one b. build one.. Since OSx86 is starting to get fairly mature, especially when you have things such as the EXI-X alternative going round, it's not too hard these days to run OSX on generic hardware. I mean we have all seen the videos and all. But I thought what about building a cheap one? After doing some searching around the net, and checking out Newegg for goodies, here is what I have.. BEHOLD! The Power Mac Cheap 500 (as in $500)! So what do you think? Can it go any lower? The big differences between this one and the mac mini: Mac Mini MB463LL/A - 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - 120 GB 5400 rpm hard drive - 1 GB RAM (4 GB max) - 8x SuperDrive with dual-layer support - Draft-N Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n) - Gigabit Ethernet; Bluetooth 2.1 - NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics with 128 MB of shared memory (256 MB recognized if 2GB+ of RAM is installed) - Five USB 2.0 ports; one FireWire 800 port; Mini-DVI and Mini DisplayPort video output (included Mini-DVI to DVI adapter) - Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard, iLife '09, and Front Row software included ------Price - $594.00 (Free Shipping) Cheap Mac 500 -2.5GHz Intel Dual Core E5200 -500GB 7200 rpm hard drive -2 GB RAM (16 GB max) -22x dvd+-RW w/lightscribe -Gigabit Ethernet -Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT 512MB dedicated ram -8 USB (no firewire) -Mac OS X v10.5.4 Leopard -----Price - $510.05 (plus shipping) Only thing this doesnt come with is bluetooth, wireless N and firewire. Stuff most of us don't use in a desktop anyways *most of the time*. Everything else is either the same or better *cept the processor. I have no idea what the hell intel was thinking when it came up with it's cpu scheme..* either way, here is the chart compairing the chip in the Cheap Mac 500 and the Mac Mini 2 GHz Core 2: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArkNinja Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 That would be a great hackintosh, and I can't really see any way you could lower the price... (well, with some googling that OSX cost could magically go away... but whatever :P) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted July 18, 2009 Author Share Posted July 18, 2009 yah, I know I could shave 130 with a disc I may or may not have laying around :P but for the sake of purity i guess... ***update*** With some Amazonian searching I found OSX Mac OS X Version 10.5.6 Leopard Price: $106.49 (free shipping) 510.05 - $33.50 = $476.55 Were sub $500! w00t! (btw, price with h@%3r ver. of OSX = $370.06.. wow.. makes you wanna download somethin' doesnt it?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
return.404 Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 These sort of systems never work out. There will be bugs with the OS, constant maintenance and the quality will never be the same as a genuine Mac. I would forget the idea and save up for a Mac. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted July 18, 2009 Author Share Posted July 18, 2009 um.... NO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redxine Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 But that would mean no challenge! Remember to trust your technolust! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Razor512 Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 i have seen many systems like that and have used a few, my friend did it to his old dell xps PC and it works 100% fine when I used it, he tome me that it took his all day to get it set up mainly because a crap load of command line crap but when he finished it works fine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merctom Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 Now do it in the same form factor and finish and a mac mini. Don't forget the EFI-X dongle as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted July 19, 2009 Author Share Posted July 19, 2009 nah.. I would'nt pay that for the EFI-X dongle.. Just use the kalyway disk to patch the oem kernel. Same thing. Either that or boot 132. oh.. btw, this was just a collab. I have no money @ this time :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArkNinja Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Now, that could end up being a little problem in the long run... lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kung Fu Jesus Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 i have seen many systems like that and have used a few, my friend did it to his old dell xps PC and it works 100% fine when I used it, he tome me that it took his all day to get it set up mainly because a crap load of command line crap but when he finished it works fine No, not the same thing. Not the same thing at all. EFI-X emulates EFI (what one day is supposed to replace the PC-Bios standard). MSI I believe also has an EFI capable board. Kalway simply patches the kernel to remove hardware checks put in place only if you install it on a PC-BIOS based machine. Apple allowed backward compatibility with the PC-Bios for reasons I'll never know, but the macbooks for a while have been able to be reverted to a standard bios (perhaps to install windows). If you have an EFI based system, or you emulate such, and it resembles a mac on a next to firmware level, it doesn't need to do those hardware checks. In other words, you have almost a 100% chance of things going well if you use EFI-X. Kalyway, iDeneb, JaS and the likes I've had little to no luck with on at least 10 different hardware configurations. And again EFI-X emulates specifically apple's implementation of EFI. I doubt a native EFI board would naively install OS X. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight329 Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I use an msi wind u90x, it runs mac osx without a problem... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kung Fu Jesus Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 I use an msi wind u90x, it runs mac osx without a problem... And I'm sure your MSI wind has a hacked kernel installed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In my experience most of the time it doesn't. For some reason the crappy netbooks seem to be ideal for OS X. Don't ask me why, maybe it's something to do with their all intel reference board specs. Although I've tried it on an i850, i865G, i810, and i845. All of which were failures. I also tried it on a Pentium M based Inspiron (with an ATI mobility card, otherwise centrino hardware). This of course resulted in a kernel panic on boot. I've also subsequently tried it on an nforce 4 chipset with Silicon Image and Nvidia SATA controllers. The only successful install I saw was on a modern core2 based HP notebook with an atheros 9k based wireless chipset (which didn't work with OS X, of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentknight329 Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 And I'm sure your MSI wind has a hacked kernel installed. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. In my experience most of the time it doesn't. For some reason the crappy netbooks seem to be ideal for OS X. Don't ask me why, maybe it's something to do with their all intel reference board specs. Although I've tried it on an i850, i865G, i810, and i845. All of which were failures. I also tried it on a Pentium M based Inspiron (with an ATI mobility card, otherwise centrino hardware). This of course resulted in a kernel panic on boot. I've also subsequently tried it on an nforce 4 chipset with Silicon Image and Nvidia SATA controllers. The only successful install I saw was on a modern core2 based HP notebook with an atheros 9k based wireless chipset (which didn't work with OS X, of course). That is entirely possible, i don't remember how me and my dad did it, we followed instructions from www.msiwind.net and another good site to help with hakintosh stuff is www.insanlymac.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 TBH I would piss my pants if I was able to get it working on my desktop... but it's the worst mix by far for a hackintosh... Nforce 4 clipset, AMD 5600+.. The only thing that may work well is the nvidia 8600gtx I have. I have seen where my exact board works fine, but the closest I got to it was to actually install it,and then it did not boot. wheeww. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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