Deals on a Mac

[dmendenjr]

If you want to go the "Hackintosh" route, the best thing I've seen for no fuss, no muss is efi-x. It's a USB dongle that attaches to the internal USB header on supported motherboards and will allow you to install a full, retail copy of OS X on supported hardware, take software and system updates, etc. It's a bit pricey at around 199 dollars, but it's worth it if you're looking for the OS X experience without having to a) shell out for Apple hardware at Apple prices or b) looking to build your own OS X rig without having to resort to hacked kernels, modified kernel extensions, etc., and the worry of possibly having your system go boom on the next system update.

...

I'm close to building a few systems using this. One for myself and another for a friend that does video editing. From reading the forums off of the main site it appears rather straighforward and most people's problems are caused by building with stuff not on the HCL.

Just another option for ya.

Have you, or anyone else, had any success with the EFI-x dongle? I saw that their firmware now supports core i7, but none of the processors or motherboards are on the HCL, yet. (perhaps soon?) I'm in the planning stage for my new system and if these little black boxes are the real deal, I might have to try to plan my specs accordingly. I gave up on the Mac OS and went windoze bc of the price of apple hardware (and lack of decent gaming); but one box for Mac, Linux and Windows... well, that is more like it.

 

[avg1joe]

I'll second the craigslist suggestion. I picked up five g3 blue and white desktops for $5 a piece. Each had os x 10.2 on them and just needed a little tweaking to get them running. If you're just trying to learn os x look for an older used machine and save yourself alot of money.