One problem which occurs whenever you try to optimize or speed up your computer is measuring how much of an effect your efforts have made.
Confirmation bias can make it very, very hard to simply “eyeball” your computer’s speed because you’ll usually want to confirm that your efforts made an impact.
This can be a problem as your computer ages. If you have no objective way of knowing how fast your computer is you won’t be able to figure out which optimizations work and which don’t.
That is where free benchmark testing software comes in. Downloading a free benchmark will give you a firm, objective way of judging the perform of your computer.
As you make adjustments to your computer you can see just how much, or how little, your computer’s performance has changed.
There are many great tutorials on the web for using a Mac to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a PC. Unfortunately, you may be unable to follow such tutorials if you do not readily have access to a Mac to perform the preparation necessary for the installation.
Great progress has been made in hacking PCs to run OS X, and it is now possible to install Mac OS X without a Mac. Thanks to some great tools put together by some brilliant hackers, it is also much easier and does not involve nearly as much time and effort as was once required.
Step 1: Getting The Hardware Ready
I recently purchased the following set of hardware for the purposes of building a Hackintosh (often PCs running Mac OS X are referred to as such):
* Intel Core i3-530 Clarkdale 2.93GHz * Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 Motherboard * 4 GB DDR3 1333 RAM (2 x 2GB) * DVD Burner * MicroATX Computer Case * 585 Watt Power Supply * 4-pin to 8-pin Power Adapter