Psystar Moves Forward With High-End Mac Clone
Apparently the legal battles with Apple isn’t stopping Psystar from developing and releasing a high end Mac clone. Apple claims Psystar is selling illegal clones of their computers along with Apples’s operating system. Psystar the Florida-based company computer maker started selling Mac clones back in April 2008. Apple then filed a lawsuit claiming Psystar was committing copyright, trademark and shrink-wrap infringement.
However the lawsuit doesn’t seem to phase the company one bit as this week Psystar launched a desktop machine equipped with a 2.53GHz Core2Quad processor, 4GB of RAM, 1TB hard drive, Blu-ray burner and comes loaded with Mac OS X Leopard. The price starts at $600 US Dollars, and choosing the highest priced options only taps out the price to about $2,000. That’s a bit cheaper than the Mac Pro, which starts at $2,500.
We created an example below comparing the new 4-core Mac Pro to the 4-core Psystar Open Pro to give you a better idea of the price difference:
4-core Psystar Open Pro
• Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 preinstalled and retail boxed version included
• One 2.83GHz Core2Quad Q9550 (not as good as the Xeon, but higher clock than the Mac Pro)
• 8GB of DDR2 800 memory (5 more GB of memory than the Mac Pro)
• 1TB 7,200RPM SATA2 w/32MB CACHE (larger hard drive than the Mac Pro)
• NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT video card with 512MB of video memory
• Dual Layer 20x DVD+/-RW SATA drive (faster drive than the Mac Pro)
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet
• 8 rear USB Ports + 2 on front = 10 USB Ports (twice as many as the Mac Pro)
• 3 Firewire 400 ports (1 std on the rear, 1 mini on the rear, 1 std on the front)
• 7 channel Integrated Audio SPDIF and Optical Output
Price: $1,329.99 US
4-core Mac Pro from Apple
• Mac OS X Leopard 10.5
• One 2.66GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
• 3GB of DDR3 memory
• 640GB 7,200RPM SATA hard drive
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 video card with 512MB of video memory
• Dual Layer 18x DVD+/-RW SATA drive (like a SuperDrive)
• Dual Gigabit Ethernet
• 3 rear USB Ports + 2 on front = 5 USB Ports
• 4 Firewire 800 ports (2 on the rear, 2 on the front)
• Analog stereo and Optical Output
Price: $2,499.00 US
As you can see there is a big difference in price here. Makes one wonder how Psystar can build such a great machine at almost half the price. What do you think?
[via tauw]
[...] also has announced that Windows 7 is supported on all Psystar computers and by their Rebel EFI software. We couldn’t find a list od supported hardware on the site. [...]
Psystar is cranking out top rated computers that use the same Personal computer parts combined with Apple’s OS X operating system. Although the debate is still ongoing as to whether or not Psystar can legally sell these computers, for the price most buyers care less about the legal issues. Lets not forget Psystar is offering computers that run Apple software flawlessly at a fraction of the retail price when compared to an iMac or Mac Pro. Psystar’s Open7 desktop goes for less then $1,800, while Apple’s Mac Pro starts off at $2,500 bucks, as you can see in the above example made by Bob. Both machines come with the same Nehalem processors, however the Open7 has twice as much DDR3 memory and comes with 750 GB of storage compared to the Mac Pro’s 640 GB’s of storage. You can also customize the Open7 and with the dual Nvidia GTX 280s, its pretty clear why Apple is wants to put Psystar out of business. I truly hope Psystar wins this battle.
Wow, if this tiny company with little resources can sell a better spec’d machine than Apple’s Mac at almost half the price, there is no doubt something is very very very wrong with Apple’s prices. I mean Apple has the advantage of having much larger production runs and purchasing clout than Psystar plus a hugh advertising budget. Sure it’s not a Mac, and it’s not built as well, but there is really no excuse for this big of a price difference! None what so ever! I was considering an purchase of the Mac but now, forget about it. Apple can die off far as I’m concerned. I am seriously considering the Psystar model. Thanks for the post.