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EFiX Allows Mac OS X to Boot on a PC
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that RAM is not the same as the Mac Pro's. firstly its SO-DIMM and secondly its unbuffered. the Mac Pro uses fully buffered RAM which costs a lot more + it needs heatsinks, youre mainboard doesnt even support FB-DIMM RAM, that case only has a 550W PSU whilst the Mac Pro has a 1KW PSU, and you missed the heatsinks for the dual Xeons which would add another US$60. plus you missed firewire, bluetooth, iLife, Leopard, keyboard & mouse… it all adds up! you fail.
my Mac Pro build with home built parts is a complete list and uses parts from Newegg which is very cheap… but still it its more expensive than buying from Apple (important: at the stock config).
Thats exactly it, if you cant afford one, dont buy one.
What you are saying is "Apples business model does not cater for my needs, therefore I advocate a change in business model that will cannibalize sales, tarnish its reputation and jeopardize it's long term survival"
Intelligent conversation lowered to the ole 'fanboy' stab again I see, how eighth grade.
You're putting words in my mouth. Apple doesn't offer a normally upgradable mid-range desktop computer. Agreed? So if people build such a machine themselves using the dongle and then buy a valid Leopard license to install on that machine - how exactly are they cannibalizing sales and jeopardize anyone's long term survival? They're building machines that aren't sold as such by Apple. They're simply building machines that Apple isn't willing to build and sell.
What you're implying is that competition cannibalizes sales - that way you're implying that the laws of a free market should be changed to accommodate the need of a single company. Which then implies that you're in favor of creating new monopolies. Now I'm putting words in your mouth.
peter
kis: where's 96khz/24bit audio interface? add that too. (probably 100$ extra, the quality of converters is discussable)
add an optical audio I/O.
and a decent Firewire interface that will run (semi)professional audio interfaces. (Texas Instruments based interfaces do that.)
also, my 8800GT shows 512 vram. and the gizmodos review states that it recognises only 256 out of 512 in their's 8800GT.
also, with 8 RAM Modules and two CPU's, be prepare to invest in a proper cooling solution. the average midtower does not have that. add some extra money
Alsoo, competition for Apple computers is not "Hacked apple's" rather then microsoft windows based computers. stealing someones software is not competition. making another software is.
btw, im not a fanboy, ive deleted every "iApp" (except iTunes, because im too lazy to bother with Mp3 proggie) on my mac.
im a mac user for i dont know, 4months.
and the integration of hardware/software is what makes apple computers solid.
its the concept that makes it what it is.
take Protools system for example, they work on the same principle. (you need HW to run SW)
if apple were to approve and license a certain hardware manufacturer (like Digidesign Apogee?) that would be a different story.
add an optical audio I/O.
and a decent Firewire interface that will run (semi)professional audio interfaces. (Texas Instruments based interfaces do that.)
also, my 8800GT shows 512 vram. and the gizmodos review states that it recognises only 256 out of 512 in their's 8800GT.
also, with 8 RAM Modules and two CPU's, be prepare to invest in a proper cooling solution. the average midtower does not have that. add some extra money
Alsoo, competition for Apple computers is not "Hacked apple's" rather then microsoft windows based computers. stealing someones software is not competition. making another software is.
btw, im not a fanboy, ive deleted every "iApp" (except iTunes, because im too lazy to bother with Mp3 proggie) on my mac.
im a mac user for i dont know, 4months.
and the integration of hardware/software is what makes apple computers solid.
its the concept that makes it what it is.
take Protools system for example, they work on the same principle. (you need HW to run SW)
if apple were to approve and license a certain hardware manufacturer (like Digidesign Apogee?) that would be a different story.
Parallelograms
I have a PC, can I install this chip and boot into Mac OS X, then run Parallels and run Windows too?
I like the idea of having cheap hardware that boots into Windows and also boots into Mac OS X, and running a virtual Windows environment.
All I need now is some kind of virtual Mac OS X, so I can boot into OS X, run Windows then run a virtual Mac OS X inside my virtual Windows...
I also like Matryoshka dolls!
I have a PC, can I install this chip and boot into Mac OS X, then run Parallels and run Windows too?
I like the idea of having cheap hardware that boots into Windows and also boots into Mac OS X, and running a virtual Windows environment.
All I need now is some kind of virtual Mac OS X, so I can boot into OS X, run Windows then run a virtual Mac OS X inside my virtual Windows...
I also like Matryoshka dolls!
I find this completely stupid.
First because it is only limited to a very few hardware specifications, mine for say isn't compatible.
I often get to talk to people in my class, who try to hack OS X on a PC. I'm doing an ICT (IT) study, and people find it oh so interesting to put a skin over Windows that makes it look like OS X. Leopard background, but a Tiger dock. Fools... And when someone finally has OS X running on a PC they go bragging wow I did it, and within 10 days they somehow break it because it just doesn't work so seamless.
And then they ask me for a solution how to fix it?
Simple, buy a mac, stupid
First because it is only limited to a very few hardware specifications, mine for say isn't compatible.
I often get to talk to people in my class, who try to hack OS X on a PC. I'm doing an ICT (IT) study, and people find it oh so interesting to put a skin over Windows that makes it look like OS X. Leopard background, but a Tiger dock. Fools... And when someone finally has OS X running on a PC they go bragging wow I did it, and within 10 days they somehow break it because it just doesn't work so seamless.
And then they ask me for a solution how to fix it?
Simple, buy a mac, stupid
Overclocking
Dear "Peace" and others who contend that one cannot build a Mac Pro equivalent for less money,
You forget the ease with which one can overclock components to achieve far higher performance than they are rated for. This is all but impossible to do well on a Mac, whereas it would be a piece of cake on a Hackintosh.
The 45nm Harpertown chips used in the Mac Pro are especially conducive to overclocking. To wit (all prices from everyone's favorite Egg):
Skulltrail 2 CPU MoBo: $630
Two 2.5 GHz E5420 Harpertown Quad Cores (same cache as that in the $2799 Mac Pro): $350 each, $700 total
Two Super Talent 1GB FB-DIMMS, DDR2 800, $48 each, $96 total.
If my math is correct, these core components come out to be right around $1,426. That leaves us $1,400 to play with for storage, optical drives, case and power supply, and a video card that isn't as anemic as the 2600 XT that the base Mac Pro comes with. I think one could probably come in at right about $2,000 total, for a savings of about $800.
As for the overclock, going from 2.5 to 2.8 is a very modest bump, and could easily be accomplished by bumping the FSB up a few MHz (both the MoBo and the RAM are capable of such speeds). Tom's Hardware found the Skulltrail board to be fairly decent at overclocking. I would venture to say that with luck, one could crank the Xeons up to a full 1600 MHz FSB, yielding a speed of 3.0 GHz (an option that, when specified on the Mac Pro, raises the total price to $3,600). For those who would like to argue that this would require an exotic cooling solution, I would point out that the higher spec'd chips come with the same heatsink as the lower ones do, and so they should be more than capable of dealing with the excess heat.
Whether or not this is what the Mac experience is supposed to be like is irrelevant; the point is, one can indeed build a system that performs equivalently for less money, and it would not be terribly difficult. Once the settings are made and tested, such a system will be as fast as (and possibly faster than) a Mac Pro for far less money.
Dear "Peace" and others who contend that one cannot build a Mac Pro equivalent for less money,
You forget the ease with which one can overclock components to achieve far higher performance than they are rated for. This is all but impossible to do well on a Mac, whereas it would be a piece of cake on a Hackintosh.
The 45nm Harpertown chips used in the Mac Pro are especially conducive to overclocking. To wit (all prices from everyone's favorite Egg):
Skulltrail 2 CPU MoBo: $630
Two 2.5 GHz E5420 Harpertown Quad Cores (same cache as that in the $2799 Mac Pro): $350 each, $700 total
Two Super Talent 1GB FB-DIMMS, DDR2 800, $48 each, $96 total.
If my math is correct, these core components come out to be right around $1,426. That leaves us $1,400 to play with for storage, optical drives, case and power supply, and a video card that isn't as anemic as the 2600 XT that the base Mac Pro comes with. I think one could probably come in at right about $2,000 total, for a savings of about $800.
As for the overclock, going from 2.5 to 2.8 is a very modest bump, and could easily be accomplished by bumping the FSB up a few MHz (both the MoBo and the RAM are capable of such speeds). Tom's Hardware found the Skulltrail board to be fairly decent at overclocking. I would venture to say that with luck, one could crank the Xeons up to a full 1600 MHz FSB, yielding a speed of 3.0 GHz (an option that, when specified on the Mac Pro, raises the total price to $3,600). For those who would like to argue that this would require an exotic cooling solution, I would point out that the higher spec'd chips come with the same heatsink as the lower ones do, and so they should be more than capable of dealing with the excess heat.
Whether or not this is what the Mac experience is supposed to be like is irrelevant; the point is, one can indeed build a system that performs equivalently for less money, and it would not be terribly difficult. Once the settings are made and tested, such a system will be as fast as (and possibly faster than) a Mac Pro for far less money.
agreed.
You are failing to see the bigger picture, and the long term implications of what you are suggesting.
If apple were to do as you suggest (above), the model would be no different than MSFT. Agreed?
And MSFT's model is currently different to Apples. Agreed?
We have been here before, in the 90's this was attempted and failed miserably. Apple is not willing to build and sell these machines, not for a fun, but because they will eat into sales of higher margin products. Reducing profits, reducing r & d etc
I'm well up for a free market. I'm all for other companies (or maybe yourself) developing competition for Apple by designing their own OSX equivalent and integrated hardware.
The recent success of Apple has done wonders for the industry and competition in general, RIMM, GOOG and others pushing forward with devices/OS such as blackberry and Android. Even the sleeping dinosaur MSFT has had to wake up, take notice, and (attempt to) improve their products.
And how did Apple survive and flourish under MSFT's monopoly? Because they had a business model that differentiated itself, that ensured tight integration of technologies, that encouraged innovation and increased brand awareness. It's ALL about the model man
No seriously, and there is room for more models in the future, Android being a perfect example of what will become an advertisement driven OS affordable by the masses.If all companies were forced to allow others to use their IP, what would be the incentive to innovate?
There is no mcdonalds in my town, and certain portions of society may like one built. But that does not give me the right to start a restaurant under the mcdonalds brand name without prior permission just because I have noticed a niche.
I'd buy this to boot up into mac os x and then run parallels software to get into windows vista. Why? Simply because I can! Then I would load up a windows skin to make it look like apple os x. Oh man ..... that would make for a crazy Friday night!
In all seriousness though, it does address the need for a midrange / lower end desktop computer. The Mac Pro is way overkill for most individuals and the mac mini is just really really sad. It is half assed just like the apple tv (* I say kill apple tv, overhaul the mac mini and make it a media center like what pc's do) The imacs are nice but I do not have a need for a monitor and I know a lot of individuals that want the monitor seperate from the desktop itself.
There were many individuals that jumped at the pystar. It shows there is a market there if only apple would take it seriously.......
The belief of volume over profit. Lower price point, attract more buyers, increase market share, then also cash in on accessories to the apple brand.
In all seriousness though, it does address the need for a midrange / lower end desktop computer. The Mac Pro is way overkill for most individuals and the mac mini is just really really sad. It is half assed just like the apple tv (* I say kill apple tv, overhaul the mac mini and make it a media center like what pc's do) The imacs are nice but I do not have a need for a monitor and I know a lot of individuals that want the monitor seperate from the desktop itself.
There were many individuals that jumped at the pystar. It shows there is a market there if only apple would take it seriously.......
The belief of volume over profit. Lower price point, attract more buyers, increase market share, then also cash in on accessories to the apple brand.
2.5 GHz Hackintosh (see attachment)
2.8 GHz Mac Pro (add 8800GT)
$2,949
OK so its $400 cheaper and all but professional users arent going to be overclocking 2 processors up 300 MHz just to save money creating more heat and unstability. 2x 2.8 GHz Xeons at the Mac Pros price is a great deal. plus the extra money for an aluminium and well designed case, better cooling and stability that comes with a Mac is defiantely worth the extra money.
so whos going to buy a Hackintosh with the same specs as a Mac Pro? no-one! but what people are going to buy is a Hackintosh with a single Core 2 CPU, desktop grade board, RAM and good video card for consumer gaming and video editing. thats my point!
Hmm, I think I'll keep an eye out for used Mac Pros on Ebay that are being sold as "parts only". If I stay on top of it and know what I am doing (probably won't and probably do), then I might be able to pull this off....
this will last until I replace my current machine, anyway.
Andy
Really? You could get a dual socket Xeon motherboard and a few gigs of FB-DIMM memory? Unless you are buying each by the ten thousand from a distributor in China, I think it's safe to say you CANNOT do that.
You probably think a Core2Quad chip and some DDR2 RAM is "about the same" as a Mac Pro. Well, let me tell you, as a Mac Pro owner, your hacked together solution comes nowhere near the performance level of an ACTUAL Mac Pro.
Now I guess we see who has "no idea"...
Edit: it appears that people are doing it for cheaper by buying used parts and overclocking them. As for used parts, ...well, need I say more? And overclocking reduces the stability and reliability of your computer. Enjoy your piecemealed computer.
I think we aren't talking about the same thing here. I'm not postulating that Apple should build cheapo computers. Neither am I implying that Apple should license OS X to 3rd party hardware manufacturers (which, btw., was Apple's problem in the 90s, not that they didn't make mid-range computers). All I'm asking of Apple is to build a desktop computer that's equally or slightly more powerful than the iMac, that's upgradable like the Mac Pro and that's competitively priced, also like the iMac. In short: I fail to understand why Apple is continuing to ignore the mid-range market.
Businesses yearn for such a computer - why doesn't Apple deliver it?
peter
Don't worry, I wouldn't whine about it. If I built it myself, I definitely wouldn't complain. Although I do see other people doing that.
Well, if you read my first posts in this discussion you'll see that that was my thought as well - I (and some other people) got carried away a bit here.
And my point is: if people are going to build their own mid-range machines, why doesn't Apple offer a computer that fills the gap and makes building such "hackintoshes" unnecessary?
Older parts (available longer, but still new), can be used with overclocking. Even now, when I compare part by part, the Mac Pro is still cheaper than building one.
For workstation/servers, overclocking is dangerous, as it can kill reliability. May not be much of a problem for a home user, but unacceptable to a business that must have the computers up 24/7.
Which would apply if you are a business customer.
EULAs are pretty much unenforceable for standard consumers, and often have unfair clauses that *if* it ended up in court, would be struck out. The only things that would apply would be things like the number of machines you could install it on, etc. Apple wouldn't want their EULA tested, so if you're a standard consumer you can install the software on other machines without an issue. This USB EFI dongle isn't turning the hardware into a Mac, it's just creating hardware that happens to be compatible with Mac OS X. I don't think Apple can do much about it.
What Apple can do however is not provide support for non-Apple hardware configurations, and refuse to take back the product if opened because it didn't install on the non-Apple hardware.
QFT
This of course leads us to another issue. In what is this medium tower PC better than one dual booting Windows and your favourite flavour of Linux?
iTunes?
Safari?
Please show me the quad core processor equipped tower for less than a grand in Apple's line-up, please.
If you can't, I'll show you my Intel motherboard equipped tower with 1.5TB of drive space that costs less than an iMac, that I built myself.
I'm not saying I dislike Apple's hardware, just that there's a gaping whole in their desktop line. They need a real headless iMac with expandability, not the Mac Mini.
OVerclocking also calls for glitches because the components are not designed for that speed. After a certain threshold calculations get wrong results, overclocked GPUs do some pixels wrong, physics in games become weird etc. In normal office use, you probably wouldn't notice until some files would be corrupt and the system crashes because addresses were wrongly computed from time to time.
Then again, it's all about the threshold. CPU makers like to produce fewer chip models than they market. So a 3 GHz chip would be sold as 2.6 GHz version, 2.8 GHz and 3.0 GHz with some technology to keep them from reaching maximum speed. If you're lucky, your 2.6 GHz chip can be unlocked with certain tools and safely be overclocked to 3.0 GHz. If you're not lucky, your chip was chosen to be a 2.6 GHz one because testing in the factory determined that it wasn't perfect enough to work at full speed.
Just don't overclock laptops. They can't handle the extra need and it's very hard to swap out a fried CPU when it's soldered onto the board.