Hackintosh: Should You Build One?

Consider the pros and cons before you embark on the journey of building your own Mac.

- Rob Griffiths

If you’re curious about how to build your own Hackintosh, Kirk McElhearn and I recently built Hackintoshes and wrote about our experiences. These articles, which appear later in this section, are great starting points for researching your own Hackintosh.

WHY YOU SHOULD BUILD A HACKINTOSH

There are many reasons to build your own Hackintosh. Here are the three biggies.

1. Customization: You can build exactly what you need, not what Apple wants you to have. From a pint-sized portable to a full-size mega tower, onboard video or high-end video card, hard drive type, number, and capacity, speed and amount of RAM, etc. What you build is up to you and your needs (and budget).

2. Affordability: By buying your own parts and assembling them yourself, you can wind up with a much less expensive machine than one offered by Apple. In Kirk’s case, he spent $464 to build a Mac that outperforms Apple’s $999 mini. In my case, it’s a tougher comparison, as the iMac includes a 5K display. But if you add the LG 5K display ($1,300) to my build cost ($1,567), that $2,867 total is still about $500 less than a loaded top-of-the-line 5K iMac. And my machine will run circles around that Mac’s gaming performance, and match or exceed it in CPU performance.

3. Upgradeability: By building your own Mac, you can easily replace and upgrade parts over time. If you aren’t sure you want to spend over $500 on a high-end video card, buy a decent card for $100 and see how it works for you. If you don’t like it, sell it and upgrade to a faster card. Every part can be replaced at your discretion.

WHY YOU SHOULD NOT BUILD A HACKINTOSH