Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Hack Pro or MacBook Retina?

My 8 year old PowerMac G5 Tower died yesterday. No power at all. It could be motherboard, powers supply or CPU ... terminal anyway.

I am trying to deide whether to go to a MacBook Retina @ $3000+ or build a Hackintosh Mac Pro Tower @ approx $1400.

I am knowledgable with Mac - been working on them since 87 - so building and tinkering doesn't phase me, but, once it is built, I want a machine that isn't going to need constant maintenance to keep operating or have frustrating little glitches which I don't have time for.

Does anyone have experience with Hackintosh? It seems they have come a long way, but at they still high maintenance?

If its as simple as a power supply, it sounds like a cheap fix, but man, an eight-year old computer? You are running on well-outdated hardware and software, and for that alone I'd upgrade.

I don't know if you need to spec a MacBook out to $3k either - a spec'd Mac mini will blow the doors off your old G5 for closer to $1k.

Fwiw, I made the move from a G4 to a mini years ago as Apple was not doing enough for towers and I figured I'd gamble on the lower hardware capabilities. I do video rendering on occasion, but unless you are a serious video editor, a modern mini will suit you fine, even for heavy lifting in PhotoShop.

Plus, there are all the advances in the modern OS - automatic data backup, app integration and mobile integration, etc.

I have a 6 year old mini and it's still plugging away just fine... I could spend some more money to update film editing software, but eventually I'll just get another mini. So far all I've done to it is upgrade the ram. That being said, this one is only a 60GB hard drive since it is older, and the new ones are like 5x bigger than this, so maybe an upgrade will be in my near future... I don't know.

Hi Richard,

Been on the Apple's side of the fence for over 30 years now...

8 years for a Mac is just it's golden age! I still have an iMac that is over 13 years old and still does a wonderful job for most of everyday tasks. And just for kicks, I still have a PowerBook Duo (about 20 years old) that still works for text editing... and very portable.

I've tried the hackintosh way... and if you don't feel like fiddling away on it all the time, my best advice is to stay away.
Sure, it is cool to build your own box, to the specs that you want and for a fraction of the cost, but every time there's a software update, it's a gamble ... it might be ok, or completely freeze your hackintosh... then, since I'm not the computer wiz, I would have to wait until someone must smarter comes up with a workaround that involves somes obscure (to me) dealing with the Unix terminal.

But, I also have a grudge against the MBP Retina...
if you want to believe all the hype about it (and if you do get to an Apple store to actually play with one), you might love it!

I just can't get past the fact that you can't upgrade (or change faulty) RAM, you can't upgrade (or change a faulty) hard drive and you can't change (or get a newer) battery.

All those 3 are soldered into the motherboard and if one goes... the whole lot goes...

Chances are that MBP Retina will not hold 8 years...

But there's still the original MBP, NOT Retina... pretty much same specs, upgradeable parts, a hair thicker and heavier.. but still a gorgeous machine.

I'm still on a 2009 MBP, doing video editing, building websites, designing a magazine, Photoshopping galore and next week will record and master 3 demo songs for a local band. The only things I did over the years were to max out the RAM (which went from 4Gigs to 8Gigs because of an Apple firmware tweak, not something that would happen with the Retina) and get a bigger hard drive.

Sorry if this is a bit of a long reply....

Thanks guys. All very helpful advice. I am looking at the Mac Mini now. I had thought by the name they were an entry level machine ... how wrong I was. They compete well against the price of a Hackintosh and without the pitfalls.

Jeff, you are right about the Hackintosh requiring constant fiddling. That would get old very quickly for me.

You also raised an important point about the Retina's non-upgradable non-repairable innards. That is a concern. You would want extended warranty and thats over $400 in Australia. It's the screen that seduces me ... Oooh look, shiny things!

So now I'm thinking Mac Mini 2.5ghz for $869 and upgrading the RAM and drives myself. 16g OWC ram and 240g mercury extreme pro SSD. $1386 total (everything's more expensive in Australia ).

Re: my G5 Tower. It served me well. I did upgrade a lot inside and I was running OS10.5.8, so it performed quite well and was incredibly reliable, but it is time to start new. Even if it is only a power supply fault, actually getting to the PS without damaging the CPUs and mobo requires a service manual and they don't exist anymore. Presuming I could achieve that, I may discover that it the fault is in the mono or one of the CPUs.