hminh87

Distinguished
Aug 22, 2007
63
0
18,630
Is it possible to do a homebuild MAC nowadays that they has became closer to normal PCs?
I'm thinking of getting a MAC but heck! Those on the list are all overpriced!
 
I agree...there's no real reason to build a mac. If you're going through all that trouble, you might as well go the safer route and build a PC and put osx86 on it (if you love the os that much..)
 

ohiou_grad_06

Distinguished
Actually Mac is not an inferior OS. In some ways it is superior. How do I know? Because I have always had PC's for a little over 10 years, I've gone to college for networking, and started out using PC's. Quite frankly, I will probably always have a pc for my games and various programs. That said, I do use a Macbook which has the intel core 2 duo, and must say I am quite impressed. There are many great features of a Mac. For example, you can set up multiple network locations, example, if you had a laptop and needed to go 20 different places, you can have a location, or basically a profile set up for each of those places you travel to, go to the apple menu, and select where you are and it has everything done for you. Also, Mac is based on Unix, so you can use the command lines and customize. It also has a quite nice network utility, something windows needs to put in instead of the old command prompt.

This is from a guy that will always use pc's, and is using vista on an athlon 5200 x2 with 2gb of memory. PC's for me have the programs I want and need, and are great. Love them, but again, don't bash the Mac either, they have come a long way, and leopard is nice too.

Honestly, on Mac, it is a great OS, having used both I can say that because I have built PC's, and work on Macs at my job, which is about 90% Mac computers, in fact just got to take an lcd out of a iBook g4 yesterday, fun fun fun. But the plain fact is, what do you want your machine to do? If you want to run games and what not, go with Windows. If you plan on running lots of different software applications go with Windows. Windows is great as well, works with just about everything.

Mac, you'd probably have to hack the OS to even get it installed, have to order almost all your software. So that's a couple of things. That said, if all you need it for is a simple box to check your email, surf the web, do some word processing, just basic things an average home user would use a computer for, the Mac is a fine choice, you don't have to worry as much about viruses etc from what I've seen. Though in defense of Windows, they are getting better on that front. Mac is very very stable, at least my Macbook usually is, but again, I don't get many problems out of my windows box either. But people should not have a mindset that Mac is inferior or Mac stinks. I used to think that way, but when you mess with it, it's actually quite capable.

One feature I do like is that I have what is my expose feature. If I'm doing a lot of work, I can move my mouse to one corner of my screen, and it will show my desktop, move to another corner, it brings up a mini window showing what I'm doing in each application, then I can click whichever one I need into.
 

hminh87

Distinguished
Aug 22, 2007
63
0
18,630


Yepp. That's the reason I want a mac...
I will try to install OSX Leopard on my AMD machine and see how it work. OSX86 forums says it will work so I will have to trust them.
 

kbits

Distinguished
Apr 9, 2007
242
0
18,710


Ha Skittle....

I think you should share all this knowledge and wisdom with the community. I mean it's great to have your conclusions, but sometimes I would like you to go a bit in depth in your analysis. It would change from all this fanboy crap some other members write.

Go ahead and explain us why it is VERY inferior.

Take care.
 

Loser777

Distinguished
Oct 7, 2006
132
0
18,680
Yeah, if you're building a PC just TO RUN OSX, then it isn't really worth it.
You're going to end up buying Windows parts and not even be able to play games.
I would recommend just getting two drives, one with Windows, and one with OSX-any x86 machine can run OSX to some extent, my Athlon 64 X2 machine can even run OSX.
I can pretty much say you'll end up using Windows.
 

bc4

Distinguished
Apr 20, 2004
772
0
18,990
There are many great features of a Mac. For example, you can set up multiple network locations, example, if you had a laptop and needed to go 20 different places, you can have a location, or basically a profile set up for each of those places you travel to, go to the apple menu, and select where you are and it has everything done for you.

Haven't PC's always been able to do this? I now use my Vista laptop and go from home, to work, then to a business conference at a hotel every other month. I never tell my computer where i'm at. I set it up once and then it decides where i'm at and connects.

Anyway, just throwing this out there. I like computers in general. Windows and Mac although I haven't played around with a mac in a long time
 

roberotto

Distinguished
Jul 18, 2007
15
0
18,510
I can play my favorites games (blizzard games), on MAC without any weird patch (as in linux). And the 8600gt on my macbook is enough for my POV and games available.
btw, work on mac, play on p.... ops, PLAY ON VIDEOGAMES (its more troubleless)!!!

edit 1:
Back to the topic, I have a AMD box (4600+/m2npv-vm), and tried to install MAC x86. The only problems where network driver and video driver. For Mac x86, you have to make a pre-search and buy a more compatible network card then my onboard marvell.

edit 2:
hybrid mac/win game DVDs are from around for a couple years now
 

hminh87

Distinguished
Aug 22, 2007
63
0
18,630
I'm not looking to build only a MAC machine. I'm looking to build a workstation which running both Windows and MAC. It's just that i'm not sure if MAC OSX needs a special components like it used to before or not. No idea bough a new one and it fails the intended purpose.

What i'm looking in a mac is it's tremendous wide range of softwares in multimedia production. Very tiny gaming capacity OS is a huge plus since there will be distracting me from seeing it as a gaming machine rather than a workstation.

and of course as earlier said. I need it for a couple of jobs.
 

Kamrooz

Distinguished
Feb 8, 2007
1,002
1
19,280


That's due to the mass population being on windows =P, so no one really wants to go about making viruses for Mac OSX. In all reality, Vista is actually more secure than OSX...I always laugh when people try to argue this point with me, I shoot them down and the look on the apple fanboy face is fantastic. =D..

But in all reality, apples are good machines. My brother has a Mac pro in the other room, two dual 2.67 ghz core 2 duo's with 8 gigs of ram. The machine is a beast, now is it worth the 6000 or so payed when he got it? HECK NO...But I won't bash it for doing what it does well, it's a good machine, although I would never BUY a mac, I'd just run the OSX86 project solution for a pc based mac =P.

But yea, macs are no way inferior, they are just a different category of PC's. I'm glad to have learned the OS, not in much depth, but I can pretty much fix issues that arise and such...So it's all good on that. I really need to get one of my older machines booted with Ubuntu and start learning Unix, all my experience is based on windows, OSX, and Dos...lol. Need some more diversity ^_^, and unix is next.

Man..I'd love to open a small PC shop and build/fix computers, although I find installing software a funny thing to get payed for, but hey, more money for me ^_^. The only downside though, is the fact that it's VERY difficult to get by with a small pc shop, difficult to make a living off of it unless you want to work at these larger stores fixing systems (best buy, etc). It seems you can only make it a hobby, and a form of extra income...But not a living =(. With my 13 years of experience though, I'd love to make a living out of it ^_^.

hmnih87: go to http://www.osx86project.org/ . That's what you're looking for, basically a pc running OSX. Make sure you pay attention and read around a lot, research before you go through with it, cause you can't just buy random parts and put it together and expect it to work, read carefully, research, and it'll be a easier task.
 

russki

Distinguished
Feb 1, 2006
548
0
18,980
with that said, if I recall correctly they use a totally different CMOS / BIOS and the OS relies on it. So even though they are Intel processor-based, they are different and separate from a PC platform. That's why any OSX install on an x86(-64) machine would have to be a hack and thus comes with all the appropriate disclaimers.
 

Kamrooz

Distinguished
Feb 8, 2007
1,002
1
19,280
Actually, they have a method now where you don't have to manually hack it via command codes. I forgot what you need to use in conjunction with the install, but it starts with a K, just search around the osx86 community, you'll be sure to turn it up.