Thanks to Timdorr for submitting this in Back Page News in our forums.
While it was always possible (although costly and time consuming) to cobble together a PowerPC Mac from old and new parts, hardly anyone did it. Now that Apple has introduced OS X for Intel processors, however, it’s conceivable that you could soon be building your own Mac from scratch.
One user, CEpeep, shopped around and found everything you’d need to build your own Intel Mac for under $200 - no rebates, no refurbs. Sure, the case is a little ghetto, it's only got a 20 gig hard drive, and it’s no Millennium Falcon in terms of speed, but it runs Quartz Extreme and everything else that Tiger x86 requires. Most of us could actually build one for less with a few spare parts we have lying around. Well, ok. Lying everywhere.
Obviously, there are still many reasons why you’ll want to buy a true Mac – Apple quality and support (and innovation), the current lack of a legal x86 OS X, etc. But it’s interesting to think that the days of the do-it-yourself Mac may be just around the corner.
View: The Full Article @ OSX Project
While it was always possible (although costly and time consuming) to cobble together a PowerPC Mac from old and new parts, hardly anyone did it. Now that Apple has introduced OS X for Intel processors, however, it’s conceivable that you could soon be building your own Mac from scratch.
One user, CEpeep, shopped around and found everything you’d need to build your own Intel Mac for under $200 - no rebates, no refurbs. Sure, the case is a little ghetto, it's only got a 20 gig hard drive, and it’s no Millennium Falcon in terms of speed, but it runs Quartz Extreme and everything else that Tiger x86 requires. Most of us could actually build one for less with a few spare parts we have lying around. Well, ok. Lying everywhere.
Obviously, there are still many reasons why you’ll want to buy a true Mac – Apple quality and support (and innovation), the current lack of a legal x86 OS X, etc. But it’s interesting to think that the days of the do-it-yourself Mac may be just around the corner.
View: The Full Article @ OSX Project
What's new in Advanced Installer 3.1:
- Editing the Library Path of a Java product.
- Single instance Java Product with notification and parameter passing on secondary launch attempt.
- Added translations in the French and Norwegian languages.
- New type of prerequisite: Open Site option.
- Improved Organization Page.
- Auto-detect main class in JARs and folders.
- Bug fixes.
Case - $9.95
Motherboard - $52.99
Celeron CPU - $60.77
2x 256 RAM - $38.00
20 Gigabyte HD - $25.95
DVD Drive - $12.00
Wow, that's a quite innovative way of building an Intel PC for a low cost... :p
hrmm, lemme read back my posts, because i sure don't remember criticising anybody.
That was an ignorant comment, considering a Mac is a PC.
That was also an ignorant comment, considering it's not a Mac unless Apple brands it a Mac.
If there's a way to put MacOS running on every x86 machine (either legally or illegally), of course there will be many people creating their own x86 machines, or use the ones they've already got.
They won't be Macs, but they will run MacOS.
The only reason I see for them to make it so easy is to generate buzz. Then they are going to roll it out.
Actually thats pretty cool. I never really thought about building a mac...
As an aside - I'm just waiting for Aristotle-Dude (or any random Mac zealot) to come in and again, as he has done in many recent "x86 OSX" threads, tell us x86 users how this will suit us all down to the ground as we're ever so cheap/poor, that being the sole reason we will never own a "real" Mac.
I spent £200 on my G4 Powermac and that has over 1GB of RAM. I've since added a GeForceFX 5200 Ultra for £16, bought Tiger for £58, an Apple keyboard at £17 and an external firewire drive caddy at £18. No significant expense, and I now have a nice fast workstation!
I'm not bothered about the 'prestige' or whatever it is the haters seem to think that owning a mac is all about.. for me its just a vehicle for running OS X because i'm sick to death of Windows and wanted a change. Or am I not allowed to say that? Are we only allowed to sing about how wonderful Windows is, before all the zealots leap on us and tell us that Linux is a hobbist OS for losers and MacOS is for eliteist polo neck wearing snobs, and that Windows is the only choice for 'professionals'?! (comments usually made, I might add, by 14 year olds who pirated their copy of Windows anyway)
Whatever happened to having an opinion ffs.
I'd rather do that than get an underpowered mac mini
The GeForce FX 5200 Ultra came from eBay (again I must have just been lucky as I know the Radeon 7500 i'm going to sell on will probably be worth more on there!) - as I say, I think I was just lucky and the auction got overlooked by a few people so I was able to get a steal.
Tiger I bought online with educational discount, and likewise the keyboard I bought from the Apple Store in Birmingham with the educational discount - I work for one of the best universities in the UK so, entitled to the discount. And finally, I bought the external caddy from Eclipse Computers (http://www.eclipse-computers.com) - its not amazing quality but for £18 its a bargain - and it came with both the USB and Firewire cables! Steal!
I bought the Powermac for the exact same reasons as you.. the Mini is a great package but you're a bit stuffed for upgrade options and expansion space..
If its any consolation, I had to pay full price of about £130 for the 6600GT I bought for my PC..
Anyways, I agree with Chicane. Use what you want, if you get bored, try another. If you don't like it, move along, don't be an idiot.
BTW, a 6600GT for £65 is a PRETTY DAMN GOOD deall. A steal, if anything.
Which sounds about right to me, do apple really want you to go out and buy for $199 what they sell for $1000+
Build your own mac from any x86-compatible parts lying around? Riiiiiiight.
The day I can swap out the cpu for another one, stick any videocard in there, throw in a couple of sticks of RAM from xyz company, and play with the mobo as painlessly as with any PC is the day . . . .
You end up with thousands of variants of hardware, different chipsets, and quite often products that the OS vendors knows nothing about - cheap unreliable hardware can make your product look bad! As it is, if they support a core number of products, they can make it work much much better..
As a good example of this, I swapped my Radeon 7500 over to a GeForce FX 5200 in my G4 last night. Switched it on, and no driver chaos or even a reboot to load up the new driver.. first boot the new card was already enabled and fully ready for 3D accelleration because the OS knew what it was already and had support for it. Surely that kind of model makes it far easier for the consumer (especially people who aren't that sure about hardware) and takes a lot of the guesswork out of things?
Notice how when you buy a iBook or G4, they are always around the same price. You never see a sale on Mac products either. This is all because of Apple. Dell wouldn't be a good hardware vendor simply because it would cut into Apple's potential products.
The only reason you would build your own is if you are mad about them. And if you mad enough about them it means in the past you have paid twice as much as you need to for a PC. Which means you are probably mad enough to spend as much again and therefore wouldnt bother to build one.
The only people who will build them are people doing for fun - whether thats "challenging building fun" or "push down a hill in a shopping trolley to see how much it smashes when it hits something fun" they really have little use. After all if you like macs enough you will have most likely owned one in the past... which means you have enough money to buy one.
Im not flaming macs or anything - ive never used one and never care to either. Im simply saying why would anyone build one?
I, for one, build my own computers because it's cheaper than buying a new one. Simple as.
I hope Apple cracks down on the Torrents offering this. As well, I hope they catch the developer(s) who leaked the development OS. And I hope that their hardware protection on the x86 systems will be unhackable.
And unsexy mac is NOT a mac.
Sure, Mac OS X will work with standard drivers, but if that means no sounds, 800x600 resolution, no Core Image or Quartz Extreme and no support for peripherals then, novelty value aside, I can't see anybody wanting to run OS X on a frankenstein box.
And I know you're suggesting that people go out and buy, on the cheap, only parts that are currently available Macs. Be that as it may, but lets remember that all the current Macs run proprietary motherboards, which can't be bought retail.
Building one's own Mac would just seem to be full of pitfalls and gambles.
Oh, and laptops.... :|
Last edited by 26908 on 17 Aug 2005 - 19:03
I dd'd the VMWare image to my Dell Inspiron 500m just to see if it'd work. The 500m is a Centrino machine, and the Intel Extreme 2 graphics are not supported in OSx86. All I get is fuzzy and grey. Sound works, ethernet works, haven't been able to test the wifi or any other peripherals, but I was thinking about dumping the same image onto my Dell SC420, because I have heard good things. I would not even consider using it as my main workstation, but I am definitely curious.
Cheers roadwarrior, and cheers to everyone that has fooled around out of curiosity or for entertainment value.
And to whom said Mac Mini is underpowerd, well he is wrong, runs all my apps fine
Can you tell me what fat binaries are, too?
You know Apple aren't Dell - they don't sell hundreds of thousands of boxes to, basically, everyone.. it stands to reason they aren't going to be making a $2 profit on each machine then simply because they don't sell in huge huge numbers.
And dude.. i've heard of being a troll but my god you seem to take the cake - how could any true geek NOT love the design of the Mac Mini?! Its gorgeous! Even people I know who hate Apples would almost cave to own one of those.. i'd love one!
Anyways, back on topic. Lets see if this post doesn't vanish as well.
The highest acceptable markup is 30%. In the PC market its lower but in general its 30%. That being said 30% is hardly ever the markup, especially in the computer industry. Example newegg marks up as little as 1% - 3%, same with tiger direct. Smaller stores like buy.com mark up 3 - 5%. A typical markup for a manufacturer is 5%.
285 plus 30% is 370.5
So the apple markup is over 30% which isn't acceptable. When you can get a brand new HP Pavillion PC with 17 inch monitor and printer 3.0 GHZ P4 and 512 MB ram $349.00, doesn't sound like much of a markup. So that little craptastic box filled with inferior substandard parts is overpriced.
Last edited by 118323 on 18 Aug 2005 - 19:18
PS: Something tells me that is not even necessary since Vista is slowly but surely packing a punch.
Title should be renamed "How to build a cheap linux box with $199"
Intel Celeron D spec page
Note the features at the bottom of the page, which includes Streaming SIMD Extensions 3 (SSE3).
Huzzah!
FUGLY!