I have had no qualms about Windows 8. It’s a pretty fantastic operating system, and I already knew all about the minor flaws that just accumulate over time with Windows machines. After a while, all these tiny random flaws built up, with no obvious fix. For example, my Dropbox decided it wasn’t going to sync all the files I wanted it too. Also, my Photoshop background would flicker between white and black, which was very peculiar and I couldn’t find anybody else with that issue. I also have a large font collection (4,000+) that is set up for Macs, and converting it for Windows would be incredibly time consuming.

I use a Cintiq tablet, so I did not need a computer with a monitor like an iMac. I want the power of a Mac Pro, but at a $2,500 starting price you can forget about that. I’ve built many computers before, so the obvious route for me was to just build myself a Mac Pro, and boy was I right.

I tried turning my old PC into a Mac and failed miserably. None of the hardware I had was compatible with Mac software. I do NOT recommend using hardware that isn’t supported by tonymacx86. Those are the guys (guy?) who create all the drivers for Mac compatible hardware.

I pretty much gutted my computer and reconstructed it following this guide on lifehacker very closely. Tonymacx86 also as their own hardware compatibility chart, which is nice if you want something cheeper or super powerful/expensive. Again, don’t try to use unsupported hardware, or you’re going to have a bad time.

I bought the same motherboard, processor, graphics card, and power supply that lifehacker and tonymacx86 recommended. The motherboard is very important. Mac software and tonymacx86 drivers are very particular about what motherboard you use. Mac software is not picky about what CD drive or hard drives you have, and I already had some pretty nice ones (LG bluray drive, 2 Solid State Drives). I wanted to max out my memory, so I got 32GB worth of Corsair Vengeance. I didn’t need a bluetooth card because I’ll never use it, and I don’t need wifi cause I’m right next to the router.

I clearly do not care about how neat the inside of the case is.

Putting it together wasn’t an issue at all. Everything fit in the case, so there were no problems there. It took a few minutes for power to cycle through the motherboard when I first plugged it in, which is normal. Installing OSX using the lifehacker guide was incredibly simple. If you follow along with it you should have no problems.

When installing the MultiBeast drivers (provided by tonymacx86) after the OSX install, I got a little cocky thinking “I made it this far without a problem, lets check random boxes and see what drivers I can install.” I checked “Mac Pro 5,1” under System Definitions because I wanted my computer to think it was a Mac Pro. Little did I know, my computer already thought it was a Mac Pro. This caused some boot issues, but  nothing a wipe of the hard drive couldn’t fix. I knew what I did wrong, and I just had to start over. No big deal.

Now I had Mountain Lion on one SSD. I decided to put Windows 8 on my second SSD because this computer was pretty damn powerful, and it would make a pretty sweet gaming PC too. This was also incredibly simple. I just ran the Windows 8 install as usual on the 2nd hard drive and it runs perfectly fine. The computer defaults into OSX, which is what I wanted. If I ever want to boot into Windows I just press any key during the tonymacx86 boot screen, and select the Windows drive. That’s it. I didn’t even have to set that up, that’s just how it worked.

After installing all of my software and stuff I have to say it works pretty much exactly like a Mac Pro. There have been no hick-ups what so ever. Except for my Windows partition, which blue screened when I tried to watch a Youtube video and install some games from steam. Figures.

Estimated cost for upgrades: $800

Estimated Mac Pro with same specs: $3700