The Hackintosh Thread

[sracer]

I went ahead and did something that I told myself I wouldn't do.... join the hackintosh club. 😁

Here's my $75 ThinkPad X250 running Mac OS Catalina.

This system has run Windows 7, 8.1, 8.1 Embedded Industry Pro, 10, 11, Linux Mint, and Peppermint OS. But now it's running Catalina.

The install process was not as smooth-sailing as youtubers claimed it would be, but the handful of minor speed bumps were simple enough to overcome.

It has 8GB RAM and 1TB SSD. I've been putting it through its paces and so far everything appears to be functional except for the SD card slot (which the various hackintosh sites indicated would not be functional).

I am extremely impressed with how smoothly functioning everything is. Performance is better than my 2013 and 2017 21" iMacs (that run from external SSDs)... and THEY are very snappy. To be running Mac OS on a system with a matte screen (I haven't had a matte screen since my last Macbook Pro) and a Trackpoint just puts me in geek heaven.

I installed all of my must-have apps (the apps that keep me on Mac OS) and they're working great. If my longer term experience with this remains as good as it is now, it is giving me some ideas for projects down the road.

 

[Middleman-77]

I went ahead and did something that I told myself I wouldn't do.... join the hackintosh club. 😁
View attachment 2082286
Here's my $75 ThinkPad X250 running Mac OS Catalina.

This system has run Windows 7, 8.1, 8.1 Embedded Industry Pro, 10, 11, Linux Mint, and Peppermint OS. But now it's running Catalina.

The install process was not as smooth-sailing as youtubers claimed it would be, but the handful of minor speed bumps were simple enough to overcome.

It has 8GB RAM and 1TB SSD. I've been putting it through its paces and so far everything appears to be functional except for the SD card slot (which the various hackintosh sites indicated would not be functional).

I am extremely impressed with how smoothly functioning everything is. Performance is better than my 2013 and 2017 21" iMacs (that run from external SSDs)... and THEY are very snappy. To be running Mac OS on a system with a matte screen (I haven't had a matte screen since my last Macbook Pro) and a Trackpoint just puts me in geek heaven.

I installed all of my must-have apps (the apps that keep me on Mac OS) and they're working great. If my longer term experience with this remains as good as it is now, it is giving me some ideas for projects down the road.

Impressive stuff! Yeah I've build and had a few hackintoshes over the years. FYI one of my Coffee Lake Acer Nitro 5 laptops runs on Monterey and Ventura! Bluetooth also works so I have it connected to output to my hifi setup at home.

For the SD card slot you could try one of these drivers (unzip them first). Sinetek-rtsx.kext should work for most SD card slots up to Big Sur while the RealtekSD drivers should work on Monterey (both needs to be enabled).

 

[fernando.c.neves]

SilentKnight 2...

 

[blazerunner]

I've been rocking a 12700k Alder Lake CPU with a Z690 Aero G motherboard... its been screaming fast. What's nice are the temperatures; once undervolted, it's VERY quiet at full load and I still manage to get about 22,000pts in Cinebench R23.

Fantastic value for money... what's crazy is that the 13900k is nearly twice as fast as the 12700k... like.. WTF LOL. That makes all of Apple's offerings look pretty miserable... ESPECIALLY at their pricepoints.

 

[MacCheetah3]

I've been rocking a 12700k Alder Lake CPU with a Z690 Aero G motherboard... its been screaming fast. What's nice are the temperatures; once undervolted, it's VERY quiet at full load and I still manage to get about 22,000pts in Cinebench R23.

Fantastic value for money... what's crazy is that the 13900k is nearly twice as fast as the 12700k... like.. WTF LOL. That makes all of Apple's offerings look pretty miserable... ESPECIALLY at their pricepoints.

Overall price, that’s possibly a valid swing to “PC.” Value is debatable but...

The M1 Ultra scores about 24,000 in multi-core Cinebench R23 with the Mac Studio having a total system draw of about 215W. Even if your under volt can keep your PC’s total system power consumption at or below (let’s say) 200W, that’d make the M1 Ultra practically neck and neck with your 12700K. Furthermore, the Mac Studio is about 1/10th the size of a typical PC (using the be quiet 500DX and Lian Li Lancool 3 as comparisons).

Expanding a bit...

The M1 scores about 7,300 in R23 multi-core, which is ~1/3 of your 12700K performance. Something such as the Mac mini M1 uses up to only ~40W and has about half the physical volume of a Mac Studio.

Ultimately, if you prefer your system, that’s fine. And while the context implies opinion, you really should append “I think” or “in my opinion” to comments such as:

That makes all of Apple's offerings look pretty miserable... ESPECIALLY at their pricepoints.

 

[mi7chy]

I've been rocking a 12700k Alder Lake CPU with a Z690 Aero G motherboard... its been screaming fast. What's nice are the temperatures; once undervolted, it's VERY quiet at full load and I still manage to get about 22,000pts in Cinebench R23.

Fantastic value for money... what's crazy is that the 13900k is nearly twice as fast as the 12700k... like.. WTF LOL. That makes all of Apple's offerings look pretty miserable... ESPECIALLY at their pricepoints.

Is that with 12700k integrated graphics? Right now is a great time to build a hackintosh. 12700k is plenty since not much MacOS software take advantage of 13900k. There's even a 11700k combo for $100 less if one is really on a budget.

 

[blazerunner]

Overall price, that’s possibly a valid swing to “PC.” Value is debatable but...

The M1 Ultra scores about 24,000 in multi-core Cinebench R23 with the Mac Studio having a total system draw of about 215W. Even if your under volt can keep your PC’s total system power consumption at or below (let’s say) 200W, that’d make the M1 Ultra practically neck and neck with your 12700K. Furthermore, the Mac Studio is about 1/10th the size of a typical PC (using the be quiet 500DX and Lian Li Lancool 3 as comparisons).

Expanding a bit...

The M1 scores about 7,300 in R23 multi-core, which is ~1/3 of your 12700K performance. Something such as the Mac mini M1 uses up to only ~40W and has about half the physical volume of a Mac Studio.

Ultimately, if you prefer your system, that’s fine. And while the context implies opinion, you really should append “I think” or “in my opinion” to comments such as:

Big ol' 'meh' to the advantages of the M1 Ultra; it's got no expandability and a joke of a GPU inside. Size comparison for a desktop will be a non-issue for most if not nearly all; I've got a Fractal Meshify 2 Compact so it's not huge. You can't upgrade the M1 system either but I can drop in the 13900k and literally double the performance. The price difference between the two is nuts and best of all; I've got a solid gaming system with this to run in Windows as well which is a huge bonus. Even if the M1 Ultra could have my GPU (AMD 6800) there's hardly any decent games available for Mac and any FPS shooter I could play will be plagued by Apple's mouse acceleration (tried to play Alien Isolation and it was miserable). Racing games aren't bad on Mac OS (limited as hell) but still have issues with gamepad compatibility.

Value here isn't debatable.

 

[blazerunner]

Is that with 12700k integrated graphics? Right now is a great time to build a hackintosh. 12700k is plenty since not much MacOS software take advantage of 13900k. There's even a 11700k combo for $100 less if one is really on a budget.

Integrated graphics from the 11th gen and up CPUs don't work in Mac OS as there's no drivers for them. I've got my system paired with a Sapphire 6800 Nitro+. I was debating between 11th, 10th and 12th all around actually; but the 11th gen is crap, hardly any performance increase in those CPUs over the 10th gen... and given that, it made more sense to go with a 10900k or 10850k CPU instead on a Z490 motherboard and get full compatibility as thats the last platform Apple supports on their Intel machines.

However... once I saw how much faster Alder lake is.... it was seriously a no brainer. I haven't quite worked out all the kinks, but it's at a point where it's good enough for me and the performance is amazing. I do a lot of Handbrake compression and work in the Adobe apps, everything is smooth.

 

[nathansz]

SilentKnight 2...

View attachment 2112941

what is requiring you to have sip disabled?

 

[fernando.c.neves]

To insta

what is requiring you to have sip disabled?

To install OpenCore Legacy Patcher 0.5.1 root patches, it requires SIP Disabled. To load Kext's.

 

[B S Magnet]

Since asking about creating a hackintosh sticky I've been going to do this so here it goes:

This is the MR hackintosh thread, yes I know there are other places on the web that discuss this but IMHO they are all either to technical or to newbish. I don't want to own this thread but I'd kinda like to consolidate some of the various threads into one and this is my attempt to do that. I know there are people here in MR that are hackintoshers because I see them in the hackintosh neighborhoods of the web so gents let try to make this thread valuable. If you're going to ask a question please give the whole story what the specs are, what you're trying to accomplish, what you've done so far (no everything isn't an answer), what your research has brought up this isn't reddit. One last thing If you don't like hackintosh that's great but please don't troll the thread the simple fact is people have been doing it for 10 years now it's not going away no mater how much righteous indignation you feel. If you have a working hackintosh put your specs here and anything tricky you had to do to make it work. To me working means it sleeps. has speed step, it connects to the app store, it does iMessage, Maps, and any other Apple SW. Yes I know X79 & X99 don't have any power management and won't sleep and since you can't fix that I'll accept those. If folks feel this definition is too much or two little please correct it I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed so I'm flexible.

I have an HP Z600
2@x5675
GTX 760
32GB DDR3 1600 RDIMMS 4@8GB
SSD on an X2 marvel PCI-e to SATA controller
10.10.4

It meets all the qualifications of "working". To install I needed an installer that used clover because if I didn't my USB Port would disappear as soon as OS was loaded. I need voodoo for audio and it's not needed to be reinstalled during upgrades. Initially it too a lot of futzing to get it to work right since then it's been easy sailing.

This thread, if you’ll permit it, deserves to evolve into a WikiPost!

In so doing, it can then be added to this SuperWikiPost over on the Early Intel Macs forum.

 

[lowendlinux]

This thread, if you’ll permit it, deserves to evolve into a WikiPost!

In so doing, it can then be added to this SuperWikiPost over on the Early Intel Macs forum.

IIRC I asked it to be a wiki and sticky more than a couple years ago and got dead air...If you can get some mod love feel free

===edit===

I wiki'd it

 

[B S Magnet]

IIRC I asked it to be a wiki and sticky more than a couple years ago and got dead air...If you can get some mod love feel free

===edit===

I wiki'd it

Outstanding! Just added it to the aforementioned SuperWikiPost!

 

[comeback]

My the most successful hackintosh is 5 finger touchscreen Lenovo yoga 500 Catalina
Yoga500-Hackintosh

 

[mode11]

Integrated graphics from the 11th gen and up CPUs don't work in Mac OS as there's no drivers for them. I've got my system paired with a Sapphire 6800 Nitro+. I was debating between 11th, 10th and 12th all around actually; but the 11th gen is crap, hardly any performance increase in those CPUs over the 10th gen... and given that, it made more sense to go with a 10900k or 10850k CPU instead on a Z490 motherboard and get full compatibility as thats the last platform Apple supports on their Intel machines.

However... once I saw how much faster Alder lake is.... it was seriously a no brainer. I haven't quite worked out all the kinks, but it's at a point where it's good enough for me and the performance is amazing. I do a lot of Handbrake compression and work in the Adobe apps, everything is smooth.

Looking into a 12th gen build myself. Considered a Proxmox VM build, but unfortunately sleep can’t work with that approach (host can’t sleep whilst a guest OS is running).

How are you finding your build? What kinks are there still left to resolve? Was it hard to set up?

 

[blazerunner]

Looking into a 12th gen build myself. Considered a Proxmox VM build, but unfortunately sleep can’t work with that approach (host can’t sleep whilst a guest OS is running).

How are you finding your build? What kinks are there still left to resolve? Was it hard to set up?

My build is great; super stable. Only things I havent been able to really 'perfect' are sleep and USB; front panel USB-C port doesn't register USB 2.0 devices (odd behavior but not like I'm using USB 2.0 in a USB-C anyway lol). I need to do some USB port mapping, but ive been lazy; i leave my computer running 24/7 anyway so there really that much need for me to have sleep functionality anyway.

For whatever reason, Wifi/Bluetooth messed up on me, but I suspect it's something to do with my Opencore kexts I had loaded with an old Wifi card which was later swapped; Pretty sure I screwed it up. I need to do a clean setup of Opencore with finalized hardware and im 99% sure things will be essentially perfect.

I used this guide to build my system:

Gigabyte Z690 Aero G + i5-12600K + AMD RX 6800 XT

CaseySJ's Intel Alder Lake i5-12600K: Gigabyte Z690 Aero G + Intel i5-12600K + AMD RX 6800 XT Please do not quote this guide in its entirety. Post a link instead. 10 Dec 2021: All P-cores, E-cores, and Hyper Threads now working!! This guide is made possible by the wonderful teamwork on...

www.tonymacx86.com

I've ot the same Motherboard, I bought if MAINLY for aesthetics (love it), but its a nice bonus that its a GREAT motherboard to build a Hackintosh on.

Performance is incredible; I've got the CPU undervolted a little, not overclocked. Using a Noctua NH-D15 Chromax black, my temperatures remain betweem 65-70 celsius at load doing Handbrake compressions. What used to take me 2-3 hours to compress a movie now takes roughly 45 minutes; so the E-Cores are definitely being used.

Love the system....

 

[mode11]

Sounds great, but sleep is important to me. The guide says sleep initially didn’t work for him either, but it seems he solved the issue later. Did you ever look into it? Sounds like it’s not a feature you use though.

 

[blazerunner]

Sounds great, but sleep is important to me. The guide says sleep initially didn’t work for him either, but it seems he solved the issue later. Did you ever look into it? Sounds like it’s not a feature you use though.

Depending on the USB port map I use; sleep DOES work. It just needs some proper setup. It's not too difficult. But the motherboard has the potential to basically be 100% compatible.

 

[mode11]

I've been looking at the same guide - seems like the build to go for. The bang for buck is pretty incredible, and Intel will likely be supported for at least the next couple of macOS releases.

Have you tried multiple USB port maps then? Why use a mapping where sleep doesn't work? To give you more USB ports?

 

[sam_dean]

After more than 2 years of Apple Silicon are you guys still creating new Hackintoshes?

 

[mode11]

Yes. Intel macOS will likely still get a couple of major releases, plus security updates for three more years afterwards, on account of the Intel Macs still being sold.

Hackintoshes fill a gap in Apple's line up i.e. desktop computers with decent GPUs. Plus RAM / internal storage that can be specced at a reasonable price. The Max and Ultra have superb CPU power, but you need to spend £4000+ on the Ultra to get a powerful GPU (though even that would be crushed by the GPU of a £4K PC / hack).

 

[sam_dean]

Yes. Intel macOS will likely still get a couple of major releases, plus security updates for three more years afterwards, on account of the Intel Macs still being sold.

Final Security Update for Intel Mac would occur as late as early 2030.

 

[blazerunner]

Have you tried multiple USB port maps then? Why use a mapping where sleep doesn't work? To give you more USB ports?

I've only tried the ones that came with the prebuilt Opencore EFI setup from the guy that made that thread. They work; but I'm just lazy to make a proper USB map because my system has basically been good enough. Oh, I forgot to mention; shutting down my system DOESNT work; it just quits apps, screen goes blank, but the LEDs inside the case, the GPU, etc. keep running. I have to press and hold the power button to do a full shut down. Again, this goes back to the USB mapping issue, but I rarely restart, sleep or shut down my computer. It's a little annoying, but I'm not too bothered by it (but also I haven't prioritized to fix this, I just need another couple hours to rejig things).

 

[StoneJack]

My hackintosh desktop is 10 core i9 10850 k (assembled 1.5 years ago), Asus Prime Z490-P mainboard, integrated bt and wifi card, 32GB of RAM, Sapphire RX6600XT GPU, WD M2 SSD, it is very fast and I even use a legit Parallels on it to run Windows 10 .

 

[StoneJack]

I've only tried the ones that came with the prebuilt Opencore EFI setup from the guy that made that thread. They work; but I'm just lazy to make a proper USB map because my system has basically been good enough. Oh, I forgot to mention; shutting down my system DOESNT work; it just quits apps, screen goes blank, but the LEDs inside the case, the GPU, etc. keep running. I have to press and hold the power button to do a full shut down. Again, this goes back to the USB mapping issue, but I rarely restart, sleep or shut down my computer. It's a little annoying, but I'm not too bothered by it (but also I haven't prioritized to fix this, I just need another couple hours to rejig things).

I also did not make USB map as most of the ports work; however, my system has proper sleep and shutdown. I don't think it is related to USB, but I would advise to look into your mainboard settings and also check the Opencore configuration file, you can fix it quite easily. Personally I found Asus mainboard to be good for Hackintoshes, had an expensive failure with Gygabyte (it was looping restar).