Give the Gift of a Custom Mac with These Hackintosh Builds

A new Mac makes for a great gift, but if you want to save a little cash this holiday season and give a lucky person an even faster computer than you could buy from Apple, you need to get a hackintosh. In this gift guide we're offering up several builds to fit any need.

When building a Hackintosh, you'll generally choose between three kinds of builds:

1. A small but powerful entry-level machine, comparable to a Mac mini.
2. A midrange hackintosh in a reasonably-sized package, comparable to a headless iMac.
3. A high-end, ultra-powerful hackintosh that can best a Mac Pro at half the price.

In this Hackintosh building gift guide, we're going to look at specific builds for these three kinds of machines. Additionally, we'll provide customization options so you can upgrade and modify each build as you wish.

Hack Mini

A Hack Mini should be small but still pack a lot of power. This build comes in under $500 and offers quite a bit of power for the cost:

Upgrade Options

Buy this build with PCPartPicker ($455.20)

Mid-Range Hackintosh

If you want a little more power in a small but nonetheless incredible case, here's a great mid-range build for just a little extra money:

Upgrade Options

Buy this build with PCPartPicker ($901.04)

Hack Pro

For the most powerful hackintosh, build a Hack Pro. For half the price of the entry-level Mac Pro you can build a faster machine with additional features. Here's one of the fastest builds you can make, and upgrade options that can make it even faster and more capable:

Upgrade Options

Buy this build with PCPartPicker ($1,461.90)

Once you've got the parts, consult our computer building guide to learn how to put them together and our hackintosh guide to learn how to turn that hardware into a Mac. Happy holidays!

A special thanks goes out to everyone who provided suggestions last week! It made putting together these guides a lot easier, and a better fit for you.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/0GYSr2oL6xU/give-the-gift-of-a-custom-mac-with-these-hackintosh-builds

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