Need a PC buld for my Sister 850-900$ Budget ( US ) - Hardware & Software

Now my sister is in need of a new PC. None of the Parts can be used again except MAYBE the HDD but she does need a new one. Also she wants the OS on this to be a MAC based Operating System ( I don't know why but she thinks Apple is amazing and such). Anyways, the things she will be doing is Playing games such as Skyrim, Sims 3, COD, And such. She is also using it for normal Internet browsing. Could anyone give me a good build for her? Thanks! NOTE: She needs a New monitor size can be between 23" to 27"' Also a Mouse keyboard, and speakers.

Skyrim OS X. Uhhhh....... How about you giver her win 7 and use a mac theme. 10 dollars says she won't know the difference. Alternatively tell her to deal with it as hackintosh is a pain in the ass unless you spend a lot of time hunting for specific hardware and drivers. Also, are monitors with speakers acceptable or do you want an actual sound system?

She would recommend a sound system. Also she only has played Skyrim once on her old shitty HP with 6 FPS. I just threw it in there cause of that :P

Specs of her old computer? And, yeah, tell her to deal with it and use Windows 7, since using a hackintosh is a pain in the ass and most games don't run or run poorly on macs. I understand using OS X on an actual Mac because that's what they're made to run but not with PC parts.

Err I am not sure. Let's just say the PC is 7 years old.

[QUOTE=Cinnamonbun;37778764]Err I am not sure. Let's just say the PC is 7 years old.[/QUOTE] Burn it with fire.

Getting Skyrim and such working on OS X would require so much tweaking that it wouldn't be worth it, not to mention getting OS X itself to work with Windows/Linux hardware. The legality of getting OS X on a PC is quite questionable, so I'll err on the side of caution and not dive into detail on it. Zephyrs' suggestion of slapping a OS X skin on is the best alternative. Here's something for her: [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/imhM]PCPartPicker part list[/url] / [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/imhM/by_merchant/]Price breakdown by merchant[/url] / [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/p/imhM/benchmarks/]Benchmarks[/url] [b]CPU:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80637i33220]Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor[/url] ($129.99 @ Newegg) [b]Motherboard:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-z77pro3]ASRock Z77 Pro3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard[/url] ($102.55 @ Newegg) [b]Memory:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f312800cl9d8gbrl]G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory[/url] ($40.99 @ Newegg) [b]Storage:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd5000aakx]Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive[/url] ($59.99 @ Newegg) [b]Video Card:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-112010020g]Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 1GB Video Card[/url] ($116.97 @ Newegg) [b]Case:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-case-s210e002]NZXT Source 210 Elite (White) ATX Mid Tower Case[/url] ($49.99 @ Amazon) [b]Power Supply:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/antec-power-supply-bp550plus]Antec Basiq Plus 550W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply[/url] ($60.89 @ NCIX US) [b]Optical Drive:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-optical-drive-drw24b1stblkbas]Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer[/url] ($24.98 @ Newegg) [b]Monitor:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-monitor-vh236h]Asus VH236H 23.0" Monitor[/url] ($139.99 @ NCIX US) [b]Operating System:[/b] [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/microsoft-os-gfc02050]Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)[/url] ($90.89 @ Amazon) [b]Total:[/b] $817.23 [i](Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)[/i] [i](Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-09-23 22:11 EDT-0400)[/i] About [del]$70[/del] $80 left for a keyboard, mouse, and speakers. The reason I left out a keyboard and mouse is because we're not entirely sure if she needs a gaming keyboard/mouse or if any keyboard/mouse will do. Not entirely an expert on speakers myself, which is why I left that out.

I thought apple changed their EULA with snow leapord, or whatever flavor of the month cat it is, and you are allowed to install it on anything that you can. Regardless it's still a colossal pain in the dick to try and get hackintosh running on anything but hardware closely related to what apple has, which drives the price up considerably. I would recommend going with the 3220 i3 since it's a bit better, and outright dropping the cooler. Stock cooling is fine on i3s. If OP wants to add some extra power, he can juice it up a bit with a 3570k and the cooler, but it's wasted on anything at stock settings. Might be able to get a cheaper power supply with rebates, but I don't see anything suitable at the moment.

I was meaning to remove the cooler, but didn't. Thanks for reminding me. That now leaves practically $100 in headroom for a keyboard, mouse, and speakers.

For reference. [url=http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80637i33220]i3-3220[/url] Bit more powerful, lower power consumption. Also supports 1600 RAM out of the box, but that has very little impact on performance.

Thank you guys for your help! I just changed the I3 to a I5-2500K And keeping the cooler to overclock it a bit :P

You should really go for the 3570k. There is no reason not to go with the ivy bridge chips. IIRC it's 10 or 15 dollars more.

Getting OS X on a self build pc is a lot easier than it used to be because a lot of the hardware people use nowadays is supported in OS X. For example I'm sure most of the sandy and ivy bridge processors are supported and most of the recent Nvidia gpus like the kepler ones and the new amd gpus. The only real problem might be to get everything on the motherboard to work like the Ethernet port or sound output but if you do a quick search you might find a dsdt file for your motherboard which should make everything work just fine.

Can you even play Skyrim or CoD on a mac based system ?

[QUOTE=cNova;37787426]Can you even play Skyrim or CoD on a mac based system ?[/QUOTE] In theory, you could, but not without making lots of tweaks thus making it not worthwhile.

Call of Duty 4 has a mac version :p Anyways, if she actually has tried Mac, then it might not just be a theme. But if she really needs it, then just Boot Camp...