Greasy Breakfast Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 Greetings all, I was all set to buy a new Core 2 Duo Mini, but I decided to check up on the OSX86 wiki to see what progress had been made in the Hackintosh scene. I am impressed! You've made it not only viable, but actually a serious consideration for moderately experienced tinkerers like myself. I see it's neck and neck between the Asus and Gigabyte P35 boards for maximum compatibility. I was fairly set to purchase a Gigabyte board and start tinkering, when I visited Canada Computers (a Toronto-based budget PC chain that's really grown recently) I found this. It's a prebuilt, OSless, Core 2 Duo-based box with 2GB 667MHz ram and 250GB SATA HD. A sales rep said it uses an Asus P5L-MX motherboard. At $550 Canadian, it'd be hard to build anything better than that for cheaper. I may be mistaken, but does this computer work with OSX (JaS, upchuck, etc. versions) right out of the box? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulicat Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 The on board nic doesn't work. The lan chip is "Attansic" which has no drivers. Grab a cheapo nic (something like a RTL8139) and you'll be good to go. Also, no line in either. Azalia works for stereo out. I've built a hack with that board. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/#findComment-428870 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bofors Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 I may be mistaken, but does this computer work with OSX (JaS, upchuck, etc. versions) right out of the box? I was looking at the Asus P5L-MX motherboard awhile back because they so cheap. You can take Paulicat's statements as being truth. It is a decent board for OSx86, but you will need to add a supported Ethernet card. Of course, you could probably do better by custom building your hackist0sh which really is not hard at all and only takes an hour or so. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/#findComment-428945 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gotoh Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 you can probably can something cheaper with a C2D, 945G based mobo, with onboard FireWire and Realtek 8111 ethernet, ALC88x audio. If you don't need a real graphics card, the GMA 950 works fairly well too. I built 2 hackies with a Gigabyte 945GM-S2 but there's about the same board (945GMF-S2) which has built in firewire (pretty useful for external HD or DV cam) I also heard the 945G-DVI from Asus is pretty good Get some silent fan/heatsinks for your CPU and a correct PSU and you'll be able to build a near silent, rather fast hackintosh for less than the price of a mini... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/#findComment-428984 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greasy Breakfast Posted August 16, 2007 Author Share Posted August 16, 2007 bofors is right, it seems, pricing it out myself I can build this (Canadian Prices): Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 - $130 Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 - $188 case - $30 cooling - $30 DVDR - $30 2x1GB ram - $99 250GB SATA -$73 __________________ Pre-Video card total: $580 (Shiat!, nearly identical, but I need a video card, which I was going to add anyways) 7900 GS - $170 ________________ Total: $720 ($828 after taxes) That's a better system, and a little bit more future proofed. But now we have another dilemma, Apple is practically giving away the previous generation Mac Mini's $469 for the 1.66 CD and $529 for the 1.83 CD Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/#findComment-428988 Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulicat Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Greasy Breakfast, where did you see those prices for the macminis in Canada?? Please post link Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/#findComment-428999 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greasy Breakfast Posted August 16, 2007 Author Share Posted August 16, 2007 Apple Refurb, they're Core Duos, by the way. http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebO...?nplm=FA607LL/A But, the Superdrive models are already gone... so now my interest is declining. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/#findComment-429024 Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulicat Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Heh, the non super drive models are gone too Guess I'll be sticking to the hack for now Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/60264-is-this-the-ideal-pre-built-hackintosh/#findComment-429069 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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