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- Sep 14, 2011
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- Mac mini Server 4,1 (2.66GHz Core2Duo CPU, 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD, 500GB HD), iPhone SE 2nd gen (128GB)
Excuse the almost Zen thread title 
An acquaintance of mine (a friend's ex-boyfriend I still talk to when he's out) works for an Apple Authorised Reseller, and while we were talking geeky stuff he mentioned that - much like with PCs - it can work-out cheaper to build a Mac from parts (if you can be bothered) than to buy one ready-built.
Obviously, when he does this for clients his company buys all Apple parts (with the associated premiums levied by the manufacturers); but - given that it is legal to do after-market upgrades with third-party hardware - I was wondering just how much of a self-built Mac would have to be genuine Apple parts for it not to slip into the realms of being a H**kintosh? (Which I do not want to build, I just want to see if I can - as a poor student - save money on a legit Mac...)
I'm guessing generic harddisk(s) & RAM would be ok as they are often upgraded after-market, and obviously an Apple logic board (probably from a Mac Pro) would be needed; what I'm finding to be a grey area is things like DVD drives, graphics cards, the CPU(s) if not supplied with the logic board, etc. Would those parts (for legal and/or technical reasons) need to be specific Apple-branded parts, or could I use generic replacements?
Cheers for any insights
An acquaintance of mine (a friend's ex-boyfriend I still talk to when he's out) works for an Apple Authorised Reseller, and while we were talking geeky stuff he mentioned that - much like with PCs - it can work-out cheaper to build a Mac from parts (if you can be bothered) than to buy one ready-built.
Obviously, when he does this for clients his company buys all Apple parts (with the associated premiums levied by the manufacturers); but - given that it is legal to do after-market upgrades with third-party hardware - I was wondering just how much of a self-built Mac would have to be genuine Apple parts for it not to slip into the realms of being a H**kintosh? (Which I do not want to build, I just want to see if I can - as a poor student - save money on a legit Mac...)
I'm guessing generic harddisk(s) & RAM would be ok as they are often upgraded after-market, and obviously an Apple logic board (probably from a Mac Pro) would be needed; what I'm finding to be a grey area is things like DVD drives, graphics cards, the CPU(s) if not supplied with the logic board, etc. Would those parts (for legal and/or technical reasons) need to be specific Apple-branded parts, or could I use generic replacements?
Cheers for any insights
