Hackintosh - CPU choice
Ben, I've been using a firmware hacked 2009 Mac Pro 12-core for about five years, and it's done okay with my 15-16 cameras running at 1080/15fps. However, I'm going to sell it while it's worth something. I can build a cheap hackintosh for $700 that will use far less power.
My question:
Is there any advantage to the 8th generation i5 over the 7th, in terms of hardware acceleration?
My question:
Is there any advantage to the 8th generation i5 over the 7th, in terms of hardware acceleration?
Comments
However there are currently no production Macs with 8th-generation Core CPUs, so for guaranteed full compatibility with macOS it might be a good idea instead to use one of the CPUs that is already used by Apple - perhaps the i7-7700 or i7-7700K, which are currently used in the high-end iMacs and provide great performance.
Avoid the Xeon processors, which don't have as powerful hardware-accelerated video processing capabilities.
It's mind boggling to me that I can buy a mid-level laptop with an i5-7200 CPU and it will support all of my streams. I have exactly 16 cameras and they are only 1080/15.
Thanks Ben
It's crazy to me that my 2009 Mac Pro with dual 6-core 2.93GHz Xeons ran at 60% with 14 cameras. The 10-bit HEVC hardware acceleration in the 7th gen is well worth the upgrade.
Yes, the video decoding hardware acceleration makes a big difference for SecuritySpy. 6.5% CPU usage is incredibly low!
I'm considering doing a couple of later generation i5 hackintoshes for racking, and am looking for real world experiances.
The HP wasn't terrible for installing 10.14, and when I followed the guide for that machine, it worked pretty much as expected and I didn't see any problem with the machine. I thought it was too good to be true, and it really was.
When I went to install the first update with 10.14.1, it failed, so I waited for 10.14.2, since I didn't need anything from 10.14.1. I tried 10.14.2, and it failed and I had no idea as to why. I played with it for a few hours, read a lot of discussions, and never got to the bottom of it. I updated kexts and tried a lot of different fixes before I gave up. I kept 10.14 until I decided I didn't have the time to do this every update, and bought a Mac Mini. I did this before with a desktop - I got the base OS installed and working (10.12?), and every update was a complete a** pain. Honestly, I probably won't try it again. If you wait long enough, guides will get posted for each update, but they don't happen quick. Since Catalina was such a horror show, that's an example of not being able to wait for updates that really are necessary to allow the OS to work as intended. At 10.15.2, it still doesn't work right, but that's for another discussion.
So like you said, updates are a major issue, and each problem is specific to your machine and your configuration. So there's hundreds or thousands or permutations that may be available and only one of them can solve your problem, and chances are, it's not documented. Logging is not great, so it's trial and error. I replaced every kext and tried editing the config, serial, machine type, etc. You have to be really savvy to be able to take this on, and have lots of time and willingness to pull hair out. I'm a former developer and sysadmin, and I hit my limit.
For the price of a refurbed Mac Mini i5 6-core, it wasn't worth the pain.
I think the Hackintosh community should focus on a finite set of hardware configurations. One low-end laptop and desktop, one mid-tier of each, and one high-end of each. Six configurations that we know more about and are supported better - and you buy the hardware to match one of the configs before you build rather than trying to make a laptop sitting around your office run MacOS. Off topic, but that's an idea.