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Have you ever thought about using a Hackintosh? Wondering how they perform? Or maybe you wanna build one? Fear not my tech friends, for in this episode, we’ve got you covered.

1. Why Build a Hackintosh?

If you spend any amount of time following Apple, you’ve realized that they are a consumer technology juggernaut. Phones, tablets, watches, headphones. This has led some to speculate that Apple isn’t paying attention to the professional market.

That is, Apple isn’t making computers for those who need a lot of horsepower for creative applications, and expandability to make the system more powerful than what the factory model ships with...or what Apple deems us as worthy of.

We also need to look at the cost. The Apple logo carries a price premium, and without much exception, Apple computers are more expensive than their Windows or Linux counterparts. And while I concede that a ready-to-roll machine should cost more than the sum of its parts, Apple tends to inflate this more than most.

Another reason to build a Hackintosh....is, well, because it’s there. Because you can. Well, physically, anyway. I’m not a lawyer, and debating the legalities of building a Hackintosh is not my idea of an afternoon well spent. However, the tech challenge in and of itself is enough for some to dig in.

Lastly, owning a Hackintosh means you’ll at some point you’re gonna need troubleshoot the build due to a software update breaking things. If you don’t build it yourself, you’re not gonna know where the bodies are buried, and you’ll be relying on someone else to fix it.

For all of these reasons, I rolled up my sleeves, grabbed some thermal paste, and went down the road of building my very own Hackintosh.

2. Choosing the Right Parts

“Look before you leap.”

When building my Hackintosh, this was my cardinal rule. See what others had done before, what hardware and software junkies had deemed as humanly possible, and follow build guides. Although I was willing to build it, I didn’t want it to be a constant source of annoyance due to glitches, and then no avenue to search for answers if things went south. Part of building a Hackintosh is being prepared for things to break with software updates – and to only update after others had found the bugs. I wanted to keep the tinkering after the build to a minimum.

More createy, less fixey.

The main site online for a build like this is tonyxmac86.com. The site has tons of example builds, a large community on their forums, and even better, users who have done this a lot longer than me.

A great starting point is the “Buyer’s Guide” which has parts and pieces that lend themselves to the power than many Apple machines have. A CustoMac Mini, for example, is closely related to the horsepower and form factor you’d find with a Mac Mini.

As I tend to ride computers out for awhile, I decided to build a machine with some longevity.

Longevity meant building a more powerful machine, and thus as close as possible to a Mac Pro. And wouldn’t you know it, there is a section called “CustoMac Pro”.

The downside to a machine as powerful and expandable as a CustoMac Pro is that it’s fairly large. After I took inventory of all of the expansion cards I’d want to use, I realized I didn’t need everything that a CustoMac Pro afforded me. The large motherboard in the system – known as an ATX board, was simply overkill and was too large of a footprint for my work area. I could actually go with something a little bit smaller and still have plenty of horsepower.

So, I looked into the CustoMac mATX builds. M stands for Micro, and the mATX board would be similar to a full sized ATX board, but a bit smaller. I’d also lose some expandability with a smaller, micro ATX motherboard, but I could use the same processor that I would use in a full size build – in this case, a Core i7-8700...