Only if your time has no value. With at least one day to setup (according to the poster) and issues popping up from time to time (not to mention OS upgrades), the difference is not that big.

We are not even factoring the resale value after a couple years, of an iMac vs a generic hackintosh.

Well the resale argument doesn't really apply to a hackintosh - I wouldn't need to sell it - not at least in 5 years or so - I can just keep upgrading. And a 5 yr old iMac will fetch you roughly $200 from Gazelle.

About time - I suspect more than a handful of people will find spending a day here and there worthwhile if it saves them $400 + $169. (Also if in best case Apple keeps your iMac for 2-3 days in repair - that's time lost as well. You could do the Hackintosh repair faster yourself.)

The OS upgrades however - yeah they will be a pain. I can see that as a significant deterrent.

My greatest deterrent is the OS upgrade. I've been mulling over whether to just buy a Mac, or to build a Hackintosh. I would like the upgrade ability, but I would also prefer to not have to worry about accidentally upgrading my OS and having a few hour downtime every so often.

> That still leaves out upgrades. Whereas for the custom build it's just a matter of yanking out the failed part and putting in a new one at cost

I can sell a $3000 iMac for $2000 two years down the track; making the upgrade "cost" $1000. It'd cost me roughly the same to buy a GTX 770 (AUD$500), a new i7 Haswell and a 128GB SSD, which are effectively the major upgrades between my 2011 iMac and the (predicted specifications) of the 2013 refresh. And then I have to hope that someone else has tested those parts before I have!

I was commenting on your speculation that it might make more financial sense in the US - to give you an example GTX 770 is USD 399 and the top of the line stock iMac is $1999 before tax and I can only upgrade it to GTX 685 which runs me $150. So yeah in the US I think it is not as clear cut as it is in your case.

Right, I think this is where the OP's hackintosh is meaningfully similar to a Mac Pro, regardless of its specs.

The Mac Pros are the only Macs in recent memory that I've kept in service for 5+ years, with multiple rounds of disk upgrades (boot SSD + 3TB, then 6TB, currently 12TB), and graphics card and RAM upgrades as well.

If that's important to you, you currently either need a Mac Pro or a hackintosh.

Of course, once the new trash-can Mac Pro ships, there won't be any Macs from Apple like that anymore...

I am still using a MacBook Pro from 2007... still runs the latest version of OS X (although I wonder if it is going to get dropped this next round).

Yes, it is slow compared to the newer machines, but it has lasted a hell of a long time!

I'm working fine on a late-2009 MacBook Pro, still pristine with <50 battery cycles, just lacking some RAM upgrade (still on 4gb). If I replace the HDD for SSD down the line, it will last even longer.

50 in four years? Wow, I have a new retina that I bought first day and its at 75. I thought I was not all that big on cycle counting my laptops.

You sir, win that award.

It's a late-2009 Macbook, it doesn't mean I've been using it for the last 4 years. I bought it second-hand, but the person didn't used it much :)

> You would at least need the $169 AppleCare to allow for the possibility of free repairs on the iMac for 3 years

Kind of off topic, But in Australia the AppleCare is kind of a moot point as consumer protection laws mean Apple provides free repairs, replacements or refunds for something like two years.

From what I've heard it's similar in EU and China (and I believe Mexico, but I'm not sure where I've heard that from).

> Kind of off topic

No, good point actually! (I was commenting on OP's speculation that a hackintosh might make more sense in the US)