What is Hackintosh? Learn all about the fake MacOS operating system

In the technology world since 2004, Hackintosh is a concept shared a lot on forums and social networks. So what is Hackintosh? What do you know about Hackintosh?

What is Hackintosh?

Normally, if you want to use the MacOS operating system, you need to use computers manufactured by Apple. But with Hackintosh, it is not. Simply put, Hackintosh is the macOS operating system installed on a normal computer. 

This operating system has modified two important parts: Kext (hardware driver library) and bootloader (boot part). Thanks to that, it can be installed on normal computers other than Apple. 

Should I use Hackintosh?

Most users come to Hackintosh because of the MacOS operating system. But the cost of owning an Apple product like MacBook, iMac,. is too expensive compared to a normal computer. Therefore, installing Hackintosh to experience the expensive operating system is not a bad choice.

According to the experience of most users, when using Hackintosh, you will also use the operating system much smoother than Windows. Your computer or laptop will not encounter phenomena such as lag, blue screen errors, or some basic errors commonly found on Windows.

Some advantages of installing Hackintosh

1. Install Hackintosh to use MacOS operating system without having to buy Real Mac.
2. MacOS is very smooth, beautiful interface
3. There are separate software that Windows or Linux do not have such as:
4. Xcode for programming
5. Sketch for UX/UI
6. Final Cut Pro, iMovie for editing
7. Logic X for audio
8. Sync iCloud, iMessage and Facetime, can use handoff if you have a supported wifi card.
9. If you need to use macOS but don't have enough money to buy a Real Mac, hackintosh is a reasonable and effective solution, but if you have a lot of money, just buy a Real Mac.

What configuration can install Hackintosh?

CPU

PC: Intel core i, Xeon, Pentium, Celeron CPUs can all be installed. For Pentium and Celeron lines, you will need to fakecpuid to the corresponding core i. Xeon does not have an onboard card, so if you decide to use the above chip, you must have a separate card to install. AMD CPUs have recently been supported on the latest OpenCore bootloader.

Laptop: Intel Core I 2nd generation CPUs and above can be installed. Intel Celeron and Pentium CPUs cannot be installed because the integrated onboard HD graphics card does not work on new Mac OS versions from 10.11 onwards.

GPU

Onboard Graphics: Intel CPU generation 3 or higher can be used. Depends on the mainboard, if the mainboard only has a VGA port, it will not be able to output to the screen because Realmac does not use VGA. Can install the latest MacOS

Laptop: Most only use Onboard Graphics that come with the CPU, very few machines can use a separate card, only a few machines can turn off the onboard card, Typical examples: Dell M4700, Dell M4800, Dell Alianware 17R4/17R5, Thinkpad X1 Extreme, . macOS does not support switching cards back and forth like Windows, for Nvidia cards this mode is called Nvidia Optimus, and for AMD, use AMD Switchable

VGA

Nvida:  Nvida discrete cards with Kelper and Fermi architectures will be native (self-kerneling) for hackintosh (GT710, GT730, GT740, NVS.), but these architectures are quite old, Apple's kext does not fully support them so they may not work effectively. For Maxwell and Pascal cards, Nvidia Web Driver will be needed to run and only support Mac OS High Sierra and earlier. Some nvidia architectures do not have a web driver, which means they cannot be used on hackintosh.

AMD:  Most AMD cards will run natively with macOS because it is the card used on real mac. AMD cards will run with Apple's native kext. AMD RX 4XX, RX 5XX, Vega56, Vega64 lines all support well. There are many older lines, refer to the following link AMD GPU HACKINTOSH

Mainboard

For Intel CPU. Almost all mainboards for Intel CPUs can be installed. Mainboards of H, B, Z, X series can all be installed with hackintosh. The biggest problem is that many mainboards only have VGA ports and macOS does not support VGA ports, only DVI, HDMI and Displayort, so if you encounter this type of mainboard, you will have to buy an additional separate card.

For AMD CPUs, there is now a solution, but performance is still a problem because the current realmac hardware still does not use this chip, so compatibility is not high.

RAM

Minimum 4Gb, recommended 8Gb, for office and entertainment applications, 16GB or more for graphics, movies, and audio applications.

Audio

Integrated sound cards that can work on hackintosh: ALC is very popular, IDT, VIA, Conexant, Cirrus Logic, some very unusual integrated sound cards you may have to patch AppleHDA.

Ethernet

Current LAN cards can all work on hackintosh.

Wifi

Supported wifi cards can be found in detail here: hackintosh wifi card

Note: if you use usb wifi or usb bluetooth, it will affect the sleep/wake of the device.

Usb wifi will be a cheap temporary solution to use wifi on hackintosh, you just need to check on the homepage of that usb wifi model whether there is a driver for mac or not.

Some good wifi usb models: TP-Link TL-WN725N, TP-Link TL-WN823N, Comfast WU810N, Comfast CF-811AC these models are quite compact.

Trackpad

Most of the current trackpads can be used basically with ketx voodoops2, some are fully supported such as: ELAN, Synaptic, ALPS but with recent new versions of mac OS, it seems that they are outdated and replaced by a new protocol called I2C which has more gestures but requires DSDT patching skills

Storage

Hackintosh should be installed on SSD for the best experience. From High Sierra onwards, NVME SSD will recognize native without any patch.

Most types of hdd and ssd on the market can install hackintosh except for the following models:

Samsung PM981 SSD will not be able to write in macOS and especially should not be left in the system because it will cause the system to crash even though it is not installed on it.

WDC Green SSD cannot format APFS, must use HFS

Samsung 970 EVO PLUS SSD needs to be updated to the latest firmware to be used.
In some cases, during the installation process, it crashes for unknown reasons, so think your SSD is not compatible, you should try changing to another SSD.

How to install Hackintosh on computer

See instructions for installing Hackintosh on your computer here: https://www.hacom.vn/huong-dan-cai-mac-os-tren-laptop-bang-usb

Marvin Fry

Update 16 January 2025