The Hackintosh community is probably best described as a group that doesn’t love Apple’s hardware options for pros but would prefer not to give up macOS for Windows or another alternative.

They design their own custom PC builds, and work together to come up with the necessary hacks to get macOS and the software they need running on the machines. Who better to ask what Apple should include in its upcoming modular Mac Pro than the pros it has pushed away?

To find out what Hackintoshers want in the new machine, and maybe what would help bring back some pros that Apple has lost in recent years, we’ve talked to the moderators at one of our favourite Hacktinosh communities, tonymacx86.com.

We also got some input from our own resident Hackintosh enthusiast (and YouTuber) Jeff Benjamin, and some other pros and gamers that have made the jump from Apple’s pro machines to a Hackintosh.

pastrychef (tonymacx86 mod):

tonymacx86:

I think it’s also important that Apple continues to keep the CPUs in Mac Pros socketed.#5

I know it’s a long shot, but I’m sure many users would benefit from an “entry level” Mac Pro that uses E series Intel CPUs (as in Haswell-E, Broadwell-E). Many people need more cores but don’t necessarily need ECC RAM. Apple can even limit it to a single PCI-e slot (née ITX) so as to have more differentiation from “high end” Mac Pros. I believe such a machine would sell like hotcakes.

I was thinking about usage of standard M.2 slots, but we would still be faced with the issue of Apple using 4K sector size…

trs96(tonymacx86 mod):

As long as Apple is able to pull off some form of modularity — either full off-the-shelf component support, or limited partner support — and its able to provide consistent timely hardware updates system-wide, then I think the Mac Pro is destined to be viewed as a success amongst the Pro constituency. Read Jeff’s guide: Building a (sub-$1000) Hackintosh that meets the Oculus Rift hardware requirements

Going Bald (tonymacx86 mod):

WonkeyDonkey (tonymacx86 mod):

Really would like to see the return of the superdrive for both DVD and Blu-ray as a standard and have it also be an off-the-shelf model without proprietary connections or firmware.

Greg Gladwell (Switching to Hackintosh for gaming, GPU options):

With the exception of AMD graphics, Apple seem to have been quite relaxed regarding the software I think. They could make a proper modular system (As we understand it) but then make life quite difficult for us with the software. We know the community could make some or most of it available, but Apple could still screw us over if they wanted to.

MacMan (tonymacx86 mod):

Adrian B (tonymacx86 mod):

Are you a Hackintosher? Let us know in the comments what you want in the new modular Mac Pro.

My understanding is that PCIe 4.0 is coming to Intel Kaby Lake second generation and AMD Ryzen second generation hardware which will be available in the Windows market place around the time (or before) Apple release the new Mac Pro machine(s).

The main PCIe 4.0 benefit is going to revolve around increased network and data transfer speeds. I fully accept that straight out the box the benefits will be limited for most users just as they were with ThunderBolt.

Apple haven’t updated the Mac Pro for close to 4 years and even when first released it used end of life hardware for the motherboard and CPU with old AMD graphics.

It would be nice if Apple released hardware that was bang up to date and looked to the future. Features like PCIe 4.0 could be used within the lifetime of the original user. Adding value and giving a modern spec to hardware is really needed to give many in the bigger Apple community faith that Apple take their higher end users seriously.

My worry about Apple creating a ‘modular’ design is that it will have interchangeable items such as GPU cards that Apple will produce and that will rely on Apple propriety connection rather than standardised PC fitment such as PCIe slots. I hope that I am wrong but the marketing use of ‘modular’ in the terms of design and manufacture makes me nervous.

Top image: Mac Pro concept.