First of all, excuse me for a long post, but I do have some dilemmas, wanted to share my experience and ask for your opinions. I’ve been on the Hackintosh horse since 2006, installed my first one in an AMD64, and it was a lot of fun messing with Tiger there. From 2011 till now with diff systems, it’s been my daily driver and it still is. Problem is I’ve recently acquired a MBP Pro M1 Pro 2021, and boy, new OSs versions and CPUs are amazing.
My current hackintosh is a good machine, but it’s a mess. Story is as it follows, I got myself an NVIDIA GTX 1080 on January 2018 in a good deal, who would have thought what happened months later when somebody requested the drivers for Mojave … On Jan 2020, I decided to upgrade everything but the GPU thinking the 5700 XT wasn’t enough to replace my current one, and High Sierra wasn’t still that old. So current rig is a 9900K on an ASUS TUF Z390-Pro, 32GB DDR4 3400MHz and GTX 1080, running on a Samsung 970 Evo Plus.
As I stated, I purchased a couple of months ago the new MBP 14”, and also I’ve used the MBP M1 for quite a while, moving CPU out of the equation, I’ve been delighted with all the new options and software support that Big Sur and Monterey offers, and to be stuck at High Sierra it’s starting to hurt from different prospectives.
In summary, my dilemma is:
1 - Upgrade the GPU to 6600 XT and install Monterey 12.1 with OpenCore (never stepped into OC and it seems a bit overwhelming, i’m getting old and lazy) and run this hardware for some more years, despite my 9900K isn’t as powerful as the M1 Pro/M1 Max I think it could handle my workload 2 more years for sure. On the other hand this will have the benefit I could also run Windows and profit my simulation hardware in the same machine (wheel, pedals, etc.)
2 - Forget about Hackintosh after this 15 years adventure, and purchase a desktop option w/M1 Max whenever they’re released. Maintain the “old hardware” exclusively for Windows.
Option 1 saves me money just to benefit from OS updates (which is not a small game for me) … but it doesn’t improve my CPU power comparing to the M1 Pro/Max, and GTX 1080 vs 6600 XT is “practically” the same. Improving everything and/or getting a better GPU will be close to the cost of Option 2 and/or even more, given the current market and prices. Not to mention my current laziness to step into new processes (talking about install hackintosh via OC) and the uncertainty till when it be supported for new OSs.
Option 2 will give me less headaches, and M1 Max GPU 32 Cores will be more than enough for my gaming experience for some years. Problem is I’ll have to maintain a Windows machine just for ocasional use for car simulation games (rest of what I play is supported on the Mac)
Of course, I could handle the documentation and then install OC, but in the long term, only benefit for me from the hackintosh is the ability to keep the same machine for everything, cause I only need Windows to play Asetto Corsa and Project Cars 2 (among others) and not in 4K but in 2560x1080 (at least for now) … so what would you do?
Thanks in advance!
edit: spelling
My current hackintosh is a good machine, but it’s a mess. Story is as it follows, I got myself an NVIDIA GTX 1080 on January 2018 in a good deal, who would have thought what happened months later when somebody requested the drivers for Mojave … On Jan 2020, I decided to upgrade everything but the GPU thinking the 5700 XT wasn’t enough to replace my current one, and High Sierra wasn’t still that old. So current rig is a 9900K on an ASUS TUF Z390-Pro, 32GB DDR4 3400MHz and GTX 1080, running on a Samsung 970 Evo Plus.
As I stated, I purchased a couple of months ago the new MBP 14”, and also I’ve used the MBP M1 for quite a while, moving CPU out of the equation, I’ve been delighted with all the new options and software support that Big Sur and Monterey offers, and to be stuck at High Sierra it’s starting to hurt from different prospectives.
In summary, my dilemma is:
1 - Upgrade the GPU to 6600 XT and install Monterey 12.1 with OpenCore (never stepped into OC and it seems a bit overwhelming, i’m getting old and lazy) and run this hardware for some more years, despite my 9900K isn’t as powerful as the M1 Pro/M1 Max I think it could handle my workload 2 more years for sure. On the other hand this will have the benefit I could also run Windows and profit my simulation hardware in the same machine (wheel, pedals, etc.)
2 - Forget about Hackintosh after this 15 years adventure, and purchase a desktop option w/M1 Max whenever they’re released. Maintain the “old hardware” exclusively for Windows.
Option 1 saves me money just to benefit from OS updates (which is not a small game for me) … but it doesn’t improve my CPU power comparing to the M1 Pro/Max, and GTX 1080 vs 6600 XT is “practically” the same. Improving everything and/or getting a better GPU will be close to the cost of Option 2 and/or even more, given the current market and prices. Not to mention my current laziness to step into new processes (talking about install hackintosh via OC) and the uncertainty till when it be supported for new OSs.
Option 2 will give me less headaches, and M1 Max GPU 32 Cores will be more than enough for my gaming experience for some years. Problem is I’ll have to maintain a Windows machine just for ocasional use for car simulation games (rest of what I play is supported on the Mac)
Of course, I could handle the documentation and then install OC, but in the long term, only benefit for me from the hackintosh is the ability to keep the same machine for everything, cause I only need Windows to play Asetto Corsa and Project Cars 2 (among others) and not in 4K but in 2560x1080 (at least for now) … so what would you do?
Thanks in advance!
edit: spelling
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) and the fact of being stuck at High Sierra which is really a bummer to me. I didn't had problems neither on the past, it was stable and rock solid as native one with everything working (comparing it to all of my MBPs) ... and I know that if I purchase 6600 XT, I'd have to struggle reading and maybe fixing little things, but Monterey with my hardware on OpenCore, should be totally doable IMHO.