I remember my first computer when I was a child. It was a mid 90’s iMac. It was an ugly tan and had a tray that you had to put your cd’s in. But it was the coolest thing to me at the time. The next computer I remember my parents buying was an G5. It was white plastic with a metal base. That was my favorite computer. When I was in high school and was wanting a new computer the easiest choice was to choose a Mac. But the cost and limits were too much for me. I wanted something that I could upgrade, something that I made by hand. Then I learned about Hackintosh. Hackintosh is a computer made from scratch using off the shelf products in a specific configuration that you can then load Mac OS onto.
When I built my computer it was wanting to resemble a “Mac” as much as possible and after a lot of research I found that several people were using Mac Pro G5’s as their case. So thats what I bought.
The case was used from Ebay and was in excellent shape. I ordered a ATX motherboard kit so that I could use standard parts in the build.
I had an idea of what parts I was going to order for my computer based on the list available at TonyMac, the forum on all things Hackintosh.
My Specs were:
Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H
CPU
Intel Core i-5-3570k Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz
GPU
EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2662-KR GeForce GTX 660
RAM
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Cooler
Corsair Hydro H60
PSU
Corsair HX650
Blu Ray Drive
LG UH12NS29
Hard Drives
Western Digital Green 3TB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB
Samsung Pro 840 128GB
I knew from the start that I wanted room for multiple hard drives. I wanted to be able to expand my storage as my needs would grow as well as keep a backup of my files on the computer. Another user on the forum had created something similar using laser cut metal but I decided to go with acrylic cut and sent unassembled. I also used Corsair Hot Swap connections which allowed me to have a total of 8 hard drive slots.
This has to be the most exciting part of the process. Having all of the parts in front of you and piece by piece seeing what you have been working towards coming together in front of you.
Completing this project was my first dive into electronics. This computer is still in use as of 2018 and runs just fine although it could use a couple upgrades at some point. I leave it running 24/7 as it hosts my Plex server where I keep all of my media files. Overall this was a great learning experience when I was in high school and gave me a greater interest in pursuing a degree in Computer Information Systems.
