Hackintosh

[HCMarkus]

I've checked out what new PCs with components equivalent to currently available Macs, but never seen one that was more than a few hundred dollars different, not worth the aggravation of resetting everything from scratch and replacing applications that are Mac only.

I keep reading posts that claim a PC can be had for half the cost of the equivalent Mac, and further down in this thread, there is a 1/3 claim. Some specific examples would be a big help.

IMO, the "Apple Tax" is not nearly as large as some claim when truly equivalent builds are compared, especially if one can add aftermarket storage and memory. OTOH, a "Package Your Own" PC allows one to focus $$$ to maximize specific needs... i.e. is Xeon required? ECC Memory? Powerhouse GPU? So there is some truth to the cost savings claimed.

[James Steele]

My gut feeling was simply that performance is a big reason to go with a Windows box. The impression I had is that people are building PCs that are outperforming Macs.

[Michael Canavan]

My gut feeling was simply that performance is a big reason to go with a Windows box. The impression I had is that people are building PCs that are outperforming Macs.

The chip war is at a sort of standstill. Xeons are being put out that rack up insane amounts of cores, last time I checked you could get at least a ten core Xeon, or a 20 core server. Problem is the chips are insanely expensive. With i7's it's only recently they've been coming up with 6+ core versions, and not too many dual core desktops are on the market. i7's seem to be faster for a single core but they don't scale up core wise as easily as Xeons do.
All this means, yeah, for most jobs an i7 PC machine will beat a Xeon Mac Pro, but it doesn't mean a Xeon Mac Pro isn't coming out soon that will skunk everything. Will it be less than 8K though? that's another story.

[bayswater]

IMO, the "Apple Tax" is not nearly as large as some claim when truly equivalent builds are compared, especially if one can add aftermarket storage and memory. OTOH, a "Package Your Own" PC allows one to focus $$$ to maximize specific needs... i.e. is Xeon required? ECC Memory? Powerhouse GPU? So there is some truth to the cost savings claimed.

That's my experience. And I've been looking at PCs that are pretty basic: 32G RAM, 7th Gen i7, 500G SSD, 802.11 a/c, USB C and USB 3, and quiet fans. Don't care about slots, and high end graphics. The hole I've dug myself into with the iMac is monitors. Whatever I get, I'll need a new one.

[HCMarkus]

IMO, the "Apple Tax" is not nearly as large as some claim when truly equivalent builds are compared, especially if one can add aftermarket storage and memory. OTOH, a "Package Your Own" PC allows one to focus $$$ to maximize specific needs... i.e. is Xeon required? ECC Memory? Powerhouse GPU? So there is some truth to the cost savings claimed.

That's my experience. And I've been looking at PCs that are pretty basic: 32G RAM, 7th Gen i7, 500G SSD, 802.11 a/c, USB C and USB 3, and quiet fans. Don't care about slots, and high end graphics. The hole I've dug myself into with the iMac is monitors. Whatever I get, I'll need a new one.

I like my $319 (now at Costco - I paid $299 in late 2016) 4k 40" TV. Although it required jumping thru some hoops to get 60Hz (Active Display Port to HDMI converter and SwitchResX software), it looks great and the amount of screen real estate is enormous.

[James Steele]

I like my $319 (now at Costco - I paid $299 in late 2016) 4k 40" TV. Although it required jumping thru some hoops to get 60Hz (Active Display Port to HDMI converter and SwitchResX software), it looks great and the amount of screen real estate is enormous.

I'm really going to need to follow your lead here on this at some point. Sounds very cool. I hope to get to drop by your studio for a visit at some point in the coming year. I'd love to check it out.

[bayswater]

I like my $319 (now at Costco - I paid $299 in late 2016) 4k 40" TV. Although it required jumping thru some hoops to get 60Hz (Active Display Port to HDMI converter and SwitchResX software), it looks great and the amount of screen real estate is enormous.

Thanks. I'd hope with a new computer of either persuasion, hoop acrobatics won't be required.

[FMiguelez]

if the Windows version of DP gets to the point where I start hearing that it's as solid and on par with the Mac version, I would probably consider moving to Windows before I'd go Hackintosh.

If Digital Performer is your only main application, and the Windows version gets up to snuff, that would be a viable option. You could have a dedicated Digital Performer PC for not very much.

Please give more detail.

I've checked out what new PCs with components equivalent to currently available Macs, but never seen one that was more than a few hundred dollars different, not worth the aggravation of resetting everything from scratch and replacing applications that are Mac only.

I keep reading posts that claim a PC can be had for half the cost of the equivalent Mac, and further down in this thread, there is a 1/3 claim. Some specific examples would be a big help.

Like Bayswater, I'd like to know more about that too, please.

I think we need a coffee-drinking emoticon, or at least a pop-corn one....

[Michael Canavan]

The real savings on the PC side comes from build your own PCs put together for much less than Dell or Apple with at least equivalent hardware if not better.

For instance you could use NVME M.2 SSDs and have 2,000mbs+ speeds VS 550mbs on a standard SATA drive in a PCIe slot, or 300mbs on the SATA bus in 2009 Mac Pros. So about 7 times faster drives than 2009 Mac Pros. This isn't super cheap in a build your own, but adds thousands of dollars VS hundreds to the cost of a Dell or Apple machine.

Caveat though, a friend of mine was a PC IT guy and programmer for years, he switched to iOS and loves it. After years of Apple bashing by him he flat out admits he likes OSX more. So if you're happy with OSX it might be a huge surprise to you all the hoops you have to jump through comparatively.

[dinobass]

My Hackintosh is a 3.4GHz 6 core with 64G RAM, 500G SSD boot drive, 3TB backup drive, 6TB sample drive and 3TB recording drive. I think it has 6 PCI slots (I have 4 UAD cards installed). The components cost a little over 3K.

I configured a similar MacPro on Apple's website and it came out to roughly 10K. Just to make sure I wasn't remembering wrong, I just looked at a 2014 Mac buying guide that said a MacPro with all the upgrades would end up costing $9599.

[HCMarkus]

My Hackintosh is a 3.4GHz 6 core with 64G RAM, 500G SSD boot drive, 3TB backup drive, 6TB sample drive and 3TB recording drive. I think it has 6 PCI slots (I have 4 UAD cards installed). The components cost a little over 3K.

I configured a similar MacPro on Apple's website and it came out to roughly 10K. Just to make sure I wasn't remembering wrong, I just looked at a 2014 Mac buying guide that said a MacPro with all the upgrades would end up costing $9599.

Hate to say it, but currently, a 6,1 Mac Pro hex 3.5 configured with stock 256Gb PCIe SSD (about same aftermarket price as 500Gb SATA SSD) is $3k, plus 64G aftermarket ECC memory ($450) and HDs (external $300). So the trashcan is maybe $600 or so more costly than your "a little over 3k" Hack, but includes two GPUs and Thunderbolt connectivity, which largely mitigates the lack of PCIe slots and allows today's most powerful audio interfaces (including those from UA with UAD cards built in) to operate at the lowest possible latency.

Now, I'm not trying to say the 6,1 is the ideal studio computer for all, but many use this quiet little powerhouse to great audio effect. And, configured like your Hack, it is certainly not going to cost $10k. As I stated before, the "Apple Tax" is not so onerous when truly equivalent builds are compared, especially if one factors in aftermarket storage and memory. Add in the time and hair loss associated with tuning a Mac Faux, and the Real Mac deal doesn't look half bad.

I guess I am, in a way, a "Hackintosh" owner, too, as I am currently very happy with my old "5,1" (which is really a 4,1 with updated EFI) hex 3.46 Xeon into which I have dropped a bunch of SSDs and other fun stuff. We'll see what Apple delivers with the "modular" 7,1 before making any decisions in the upgrade department. After all, most of us are doing audio, not video, here. And we will all ultimately have to deal with Meltdown and Spectre. Joy, oh joy!

[Timeline]

I can see why people are tempted to go the Hackintosh route as it seems Apple really hasn't delivered the sort of value in terms of raw performance lately. Honestly, as much as I have loved Macintosh over the years, if the Windows version of DP gets to the point where I start hearing that it's as solid and on par with the Mac version, I would probably consider moving to Windows before I'd go Hackintosh.

My thoughts too James

[James Steele]

We'll see what Apple delivers with the "modular" 7,1 before making any decisions in the upgrade department.

This will be the most anticipated Apple unveiling in a long, long time. I really hope they can hit this one out of the park and I can remain in the Mac ecosystem for many years to come.

[Michael Canavan]

We'll see what Apple delivers with the "modular" 7,1 before making any decisions in the upgrade department.

This will be the most anticipated Apple unveiling in a long, long time. I really hope they can hit this one out of the park and I can remain in the Mac ecosystem for many years to come.

Should be an interesting next six months IMO. If I remember right Mac Pro upgrades are mostly announced at the WWDC in June, so it should happen then. This article is pretty good on the subject.
https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/mac/new ... s-3536364/

Plus, I would almost be willing to put money on MOTU announcing DP 10 next Thursday at NAMM.
It's been three years now. DP9 was announced January 2015.

Oh, and whoever edited the the DP wiki left out version 6!

[Macintosh2017]

The real savings on the PC side comes from build your own PCs put together for much less than Dell or Apple with at least equivalent hardware if not better.

For instance you could use NVME M.2 SSDs and have 2,000mbs+ speeds VS 550mbs on a standard SATA drive in a PCIe slot, or 300mbs on the SATA bus in 2009 Mac Pros. So about 7 times faster drives than 2009 Mac Pros. This isn't super cheap in a build your own, but adds thousands of dollars VS hundreds to the cost of a Dell or Apple machine.

Caveat though, a friend of mine was a PC IT guy and programmer for years, he switched to iOS and loves it. After years of Apple bashing by him he flat out admits he likes OSX more. So if you're happy with OSX it might be a huge surprise to you all the hoops you have to jump through comparatively.

You can put a PCIE SSD RAID on an old cheese grater and get speeds @ 980-1000 MBps at a pretty good price these days though... not 2000 but you can find these cards cheaper as time goes on... 980 MBps isn’t too bad really and the NVME’s are mainly for an OS and I wouldn’t recommend putting my projects on a system drive anyway.
I’m noticing really low prices on the CMP upgrades... still a lot of life left in those old cheese graters!