Any good parts for making a custom MacBook Pro 15" Retina from scratch?

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Level 1

9 points

Any good parts for making a custom MacBook Pro 15" Retina from scratch?

I want to build a custom computer meant for gaming and editing (using FCPX), but I don't know what parts are best for it (especially the motherboard). I don't care for cost as I'll have a few years to save up money for it since I'm halfway through my sophomore year of high school and looking for a job. I know that I want to get an Intel i7 processing chip if Macs can handle it. Is there any place I can buy just the body of a MacBook without the motherboard and hard drive and all the other parts? And is there something I need to buy in order to switch Operating Systems (from Mac OS X to Windows) easily since Windows runs more games?

Here's a list of what I have found to be the best so far:

Intel Boxed Core I7-6700K 4.00 GHz 8M Processor Cache 4 LGA 1151 BX80662I76700K (Processing card)
Transcend 128GB (32GB x 4 Kit) JetMemory DDR3- 1600 ECC Registered DIMM 4Rx4 For Mac Pro Late 2013 (TS128GJMA534P) (RAM)
1TB 2.5" Hard Drive for Apple MacBook Pro (17-inch, Mid 2009) (17-inch, Mid 2010) (15-inch, Mid 2010) (13-inch, Mid 2010) (Hard Drive)
Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB Portable External Hard Drive with 200GB of Cloud Storage & Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (STDA4000100) (External drive for footage or extra games)

Thank you!

MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Feb 17, 2016 8:41 PM

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Answer 1

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 17, 2016 9:30 PM in response to SirChocolate

You don't build Mac's, Apple does that for you.

You can find spare parts if you search but they are probably refurbished, cloned or worse – recovered from stolen devices.

One Apple logicboard will not fit inside another model, so you would have to buy all the parts for a specific model & build it yourself. New Apple parts are hard if not impossible to purchase. You would have to find older parts, it could cost more than the price of an actual new Mac (Apple parts are not cheap).

Mac's are also not great at gaming either - if you want a great experience (all the latest games, best graphics, online gaming with servers that are not empty) get a PC or a console. You can play many good games on a Mac, but frankly a console is better or install Windows & use that on a Mac. Bootcamp is a part of OSX - it lets you install & boot into Windows.

https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

Take a look at Steam & compare how many games are for Mac & how many are for PC. See if you can find the games you'd like to play on OS X, it really depends on your tastes. OS X may be all you need, you may still have issues with some games on a Mac running Windows - not all graphics cards that Apple use are supported.

http://store.steampowered.com/

I like your enthusiasm to do it all yourself but these device are really not suitable for building yourself.

Take a look at the teardowns on iFixit.com to get an idea of how Macs are put together, Apple laptops have very low tolerances, bits glued together, some parts can require specialist tools…

You may be think it is easier to build a PC & install OSX, sadly you cannot install OS X. It needs to be installed on 'Apple-branded hardware' otherwise it is against the SLA…

https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1011.pdf

Save up for a cheap Mac with a large SSD and buy a console too, you'll have fun with both.

🙂

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