Canon 7D editing machine - hackintosh $900 = $2500 mac pro

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Nik Manning

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Ok now that I have the Canon 7D on order I have to update my editing machine. I have a G5 that is a power pc version. Time to go intel. Checking out the prices for the macs versus what they offer I have decided to go with the hackintosh. My main concern was that apple was switching to snow leopard and I wanted to know if the hackintosh could support this upgrade. The answer seems to be yes.

Check out this lifehacker article http://lifehacker.com/5351485/how-t...snow-leopard-start-to-finish?skyline=true&s=x

I will be building this exact machine and I will report back to the community about stability and performance. But if the author is to be believed it will perform better than the $2500 Mac Pro. That is crazy!
 
Why go through that trouble? Build an even more powerful PC that wont have hardware issues, or shut down when an OS update comes through? Hackintoshes are cool projects for netbooks and the like for a personal computer, but for critical work, I wouldnt trust it.
 
Yea. As much as I've always wanted a hackintosh, I've steered clear. In my experience its at the worst possible moment when you have catastrophic computer failures during a big project. I'd hate to ruin my multiple hundred thousand dollar project because I saved a little money on my computer.

With that being said - man I want a hackintosh.
 
me too. I'm thinking about getting a Dell Mini for it. I love OSX for the most part, and Final Cut, but being self-financed I've forced myself to do mounds and mounds of research, and ended up building myself a new i7-based machine. Spent $1200 on everything, 12GB RAM and all. Specs run neck and neck with the highest end Macs.

Not to mention Windows 7 is an utter dream. They've hit a home run with it finally.
 
Well, in that case I believe its different. If you're working on a multi-hundred thousand dollar project, at that point it would be ridicule to save a couple thousand and go the hackintosh route. If you're working on projects of that capacity on a regular basis...is a hackintosh really necessary?

Hackintoshs are just for those looking to save a bit of money when their projects are relatively low budget. Not to question their reliability, because I'm running one after having owned a Mac Pro and I can safely say that so far, so good and I've put it through hell. I also have it dual-booted with Windows 7 and both are working fine.

I also own a Macbook Pro that I run right beside it and going back and forth between them (they're networked), I've had no issues either.

As long as you know what you're doing and you've done your research, Hackintoshs can be a good thing for those on a low budget. Buy the OS, so you can support Apple in a small way, but if you like the workflow of a Mac, but have the budget of a PC...

Kegan
 
There are a few guys on the boards that run some insanely powerful hackintosh systems and they swear by them. But I'm a little leary about the tech support. I have a PPCG5 Dual and it edits HD video just fine. And when my 7D comes in it will edit that just fine as well. It may move a little slower but with both of my kids in school and a massive debt load, no computer company is getting any of my money right now. fortunately the 7D will be a gift.
 
Hunter. I agree with you 100%.

I want a hackintosh not because I should own a hackintosh, but because I love tinkering with gadgets and getting good deals. As much as I think my Mac Pro is a beautiful piece of machinery I would rather be able to say I got a deal and built the thing myself.

No way I could get away with using one of these guys on big projects. Too risky. I need that Applecare.

Applecare is incredible by the way. I recently had my logicboard fail during a project. Apple sent me a new computer and the packing slip to send the old computer back in the same box. If you call enough and have good reason, they will do this and not make you bring it into an Apple store. Awesome.
 
By the way - though I've never used it.

My understanding is that EFI-X is a usb stick that automates the hackintosh process.
 
NoxNoctus said:
Why go through that trouble? Build an even more powerful PC that wont have hardware issues, or shut down when an OS update comes through? Hackintoshes are cool projects for netbooks and the like for a personal computer, but for critical work, I wouldnt trust it.
Click to expand...

What? If you know what you're doing, you would build a system that can do a vanilla install and then software updates install just like they do on an Apple box. I have A MacBook Pro for most of my usage, but when I need a little more heft (and storage space) I boot into my OSX partition on my Core i7 960 box and go to town. Using hardware that you would find in an Apple computer, it is just as stable as my MBP.
 
Man - the more I hear positive things the more I want to try. Maybe just as a secondary, networked computer? Let my assistant editor use a hackintosh and me on a Mac Pro? I just want to play around and build a mac. Done it enough with PCs.
 
I've been using a Hackintosh for almost 9 months. It's super stable and as long as yoou don't grab every point update right when they come out, you can look on the insanelymac forum and see if the update will work for you, and other people's experience's with it. My machine is awesome thoough. It's super fast and reliable. I will never buy an actual mac ever again. If my motherboard tanks, I can buy another one for around $100.00. That's not so bad.
 
Ryan, that was a lot of it for me too. I wanted the challenge. To be honest, I've never had so many problems building a box before, but I was using Macs for the past 4 or 5 years and hadn't even touched a PC since I was in high school. That may have been why it took me longer to get it completely operational, but its so incredibly satisfying to be able to say that I made the Mac that I'm running.

Really, a good feeling - once my projects start getting larger and my budgets go back up, I have all intentions of picking up a Mac Pro again so that I have the piece of mind in terms of warranty and reliability (of course all machines fail, but I rather it be an Apple error than a ME error).

Kegan
 
Fair enough - I built a personal computer, that runs OS X. Is that the politically correct term?
 
Yeah it kind of is what it is- you get the lower price point of a PC along with all of the tech/hacking/instability updates of a PC as well. You can hot rod a Volkswagen to look like a Bentley too, but you won't get much help from a Bentley service center when it craps the bed lol.

Noah
 
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