When you build your own PC, you must decide exactly what goes into it-absolute freedom that comes with absolute responsibility. While this amount is much more than what Psystar claims it will charge, I wanted to build a more powerful machine than what that company is offering, and then see how well it worked compared with machines from Cupertino. To realize my dream Mac system, I set myself a budget of $1,000 (not including keyboard, monitor, or mouse), and started shopping for computer parts. Think of it as me building an off-brand Mac so that you don’t have to. Rather, for this article, I’m focusing on the parts I used to make my own computer, the end result of my machinations, and how the machine performs. Note that I’m not planning on diving into the technical details of building your own Mac. And thus began my experiment to assemble my very own OS X-running machine. Tired of waiting and hoping for the Mac of my dreams to appear, I decided to take the technology into my own hands and build it myself. (I want more than one slot and room for more drives, however, so my minitower might be more of a medium-tower.) I’m generally with Dan on this one-I don’t want or need a machine with a built-in monitor, I don’t need the power of an eight-core Mac Pro, but I’d like my Mac to be faster and more expandable than a mini. The ability to swap out the optical drive would be a nice touch. What I’d like to see is a minitower design with-and this is just one possible configuration that would fulfill my wish-a reasonably powerful processor (perhaps a higher-end Core 2 Duo or a single Xeon) a good graphics card in an upgradeable slot a decent amount of RAM and hard-drive space a single free PCI Express slot and room for one additional hard drive. But it also lets me explore a topic that, prior to Apple’s switch to Intel processors, I could only speculate about: The performance of Mac systems that simply don’t exist. Yes, it lets me gauge the price and performance of Mac hardware by comparing it to non-Apple hardware. The existence of modern Mac clones-whether they come in a complete package from the likes Psystar or in pieces from a variety of computer-parts manufacturers-allows me to ask several questions about Apple’s Mac hardware. While I’m not going to advocate that Apple’s users rush out and configure a faux Mac of their very own, the reality is that Apple’s computers are now Intel-based PCs through and through. While such a move seems to violate Apple’s end-user license agreement, it indicates just how the age-old topic of running the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware has mutated in this modern, Intel-Mac age. Behold the terrifying, er, beauty of the Frankenmac!Ī company called Psystar claims that it’s selling a “generic Mac” for $549 (or $399 without OS X).
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