Psystar Open Computer notes, benchmarks and video
By Nilay Patel 
posted April 30th 2008 4:57PM
posted April 30th 2008 4:57PM
- It's running 10.5.2, build 9C31, which is behind the latest Apple build of 9C7010.
- The mobo is a Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L with an Intel G31 Express chipset. We're not sure which model of Core 2 Duo is in there as of yet.
- The graphics card appears to be an NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT, but it doesn't show up in ASP, so we have to confirm. Psystar's store says it's supposed to be a 256MB card, but we have 512MB -- strange.
- It's LOUD. Crazy loud. OS X doesn't seem to interface with the fan controller, so it runs at full tilt all the time. It doesn't really come across on the video, but it's loud enough so that it's hard to talk on the phone when the machine is running. There's no way we could deal with this thing on a daily basis.
- The DHCP lease drops every fifteen minutes or so and you have to manually renew it in prefs.
- Apple System Profiler doesn't know how to read the configurations of several systems, notably memory and audio. The Audio screen just says there's no built-in audio, while the Memory page returns an error.
- That said, audio works just fine, showing up in prefs as HD Audio Output, and obviously the memory works fine.
- We plugged in a couple cameras, an iPod, and an iPhone, everything worked as expected.
- There's no iMovie or iPhoto out of the box, since iLife doesn't come with Leopard -- you'll have to buy it separately.
- Time Machine seemed to recognize an external HD, but we didn't have time to fully test it out.
- The included copy of Leopard was out of the shrinkwrap, but there's no way to install it -- it shows up in Startup Disk but it won't restart, and it's not recognized at boot.
- Front Row works fine.
- You can grab the entire System Profiler file here, if you're so inclined -- just make sure and share with the group if you notice anything crazy, okay?
As far as benchmarks, it doesn't exactly blow Apple's gear away, but it definitely holds its own -- and the GeForce card just destroys the integrated graphics in the MacBook / Mac mini. Check it out:
- All machines tested with Xbench 1.3.
- All machines tested were using Leopard.
- You can check the bold Xbench scores to compare the cumulative results for each test.
| MBP (2.5GHz Penryn) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, previous gen.) | iMac (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo) | Psystar Open Computer (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | 169.23 | 126.66 | 138.58 | 188.54 | 138.89 |
| GCD Loop | 15.33 Mops/s | 13.43 Mops/s | 14.91 Mops/s | 18.90 Mops/s | 13.70 Mops/sec |
| Floating Point Basic | 3.37 Gflop/s | 2.95 Gflop/s | 3.23 Gflop/s | 4.12 Gflop/s | 2.98 Gflop/s |
| vecLib FFT | 3.93 Gflop/s | 3.36 Gflop/s | 3.66 Gflop/s | 4.65 Gflop/s | 3.39 Gflop/s |
| Floating Point Library | 36.64 Mops/s | 17.80 Mops/s | 19.43 Mops/s | 44.76 Mops/s | 24.08 Mops/s |
| Thread Test | 275.13 | 186.4 | 208.77 | 314.45 | 195.42 |
| Computation | 6.93 Mops/s | 3.58 Mops/s | 3.56 Mops/s | 8.50 Mops/s | 3.73 Mops/s |
| Lock Contention | 9.90 Mlocks/s | 8.48 Mlocks/s | 11.06 Mlocks/s | 10.81 Mlocks/s | 8.97 Mlocks/s |
| MBP (2.5GHz Penryn) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz) | iMac (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo) | Psystar Open Computer (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) |
|
| Memory Test | 168.11 | 150.23 | 150.82 | 211.78 | 146.46 |
| System | 183.01 | 158.95 | 151.56 | 247.04 | 142.68 |
| Allocate | 922.99 Kalloc/s | 856.78 Kalloc/s | 657.80 Kalloc/s | 374.06 Malloc/s | 559.35 Kalloc/s |
| Fill | 7424.09 MB/se | 6480.99 MB/s | 6606.88 MB/s | 9667.21 MB/s | 6585.52 MB/s |
| Copy | 3522.10 MB/s | 2914.92 MB/s | 3014.12 MB/s | 4651.03 MB/s | 2918.53 MB/s |
| Stream | 155.45 | 142.41 | 150.08 | 185.33 | 150.44 |
| Copy | 3059.86 MB/s | 2799.64 MB/s | 2926.68 MB/s | 3653.38 MB/s | 2853.57 MB/s |
| Scale | 3008.89 MB/s | 2797.66 MB/s | 3022.24 MB/s | 3652.08 MB/s | 2888.89 MB/s |
| Add | 3525.00 MB/s | 3196.17 MB/s | 3364.41 MB/s | 4165.23 MB/s | 3484.55 MB/s |
| Triad | 3523.21 MB/s | 3211.97 MB/s | 3328.48 MB/s | 4147.22 MB/s | 3514.66 MB/s |
| MBP (2.5GHz Penryn) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz) | iMac (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo) | Psystar Open Computer (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) |
|
| Quartz Graphics Test | 198.29 | 154.32 | 193.4 | 228.36 | 213.88 |
| Line | 12.43 Klines/s | 9.69 Klines/s | 11.64 Klines/s | 15.27 Klines/s | 11.00 Klines/s |
| Rectangle | 70.01 Krects/s | 51.66 Krects/s | 70.02 Krects/s | 252.7 Krects/s | 67.11 Krects/s |
| Circle | 15.29 Kcircles/s | 11.54 Kcircles/s | 15.29 Kcircles/s | 16.46 Kcircles/s | 14.73 Kcircles/s |
| Bezier | 4.92 Kbeziers/s | 3.79 Kbeziers/s | 4.51 Kbeziers/s | 5.64 Kbeziers/s | 4.32 Kbeziers/s |
| Text | 12.17 Kchars/s | 10.39 Kchars/s | 12.66 Kchars/s | 15.06 Kchars/s | 41.75 Kchars/s |
| OpenGL Graphics Test | 165.99 | 23.36 | 152.66 | 201.68 | 143.78 |
| Spinning Squares | 210.57 frames/s | 29.64 frames/s | 193.65 frames/s | 255.84 frames/s | 182.39 frames/s |
| User Interface Test | 326.63 | 244.28 | 335.18 | 443.26 | 324.71 |
| Elements | 1.50 Krefresh/s | 1.12 Krefresh/s | 1.54 Krefresh/s | 2.03 Krefresh/s | 1.49 Krefresh/s |
| MBP (2.5GHz Penryn) | MacBook (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) | iMac (2.4GHz) | iMac (3.06GHz Core 2 Duo) | Psystar Open Computer (2.2GHz Core 2 Duo) |
|
| Disk Test | 33.08 | 39.64 | 80.72 | 78.47 | 70.94 |
| Sequential | 60.60 | 66.07 | 115.15 | 106.39 | 137.51 |
| Uncached Write | 52.17 MB/s [4K blocks] | 53.34 MB/s [4K blocks] | 72.17 MB/s [4K blocks] | 84.32 MB/sec [4K blocks] | 92.61 MB/sec [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Write | 47.88 MB/s [256K blocks] | 47.63 MB/s [256K blocks] | 66.51 MB/s [256K blocks] | 77.36 MB/sec [256K blocks] | 82.91 MB/sec [256K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 9.89 MB/s [4K blocks] | 10.83 MB/s [4K blocks] | 27.81 MB/s [4K blocks] | 17.43 MB/sec [4K blocks] | 29.79 MB/sec [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 39.17 MB/s [256K blocks] | 49.62 MB/s [256K blocks] | 69.83 MB/s [256K blocks] | 80.85 MB/sec [256K blocks] | 86.51 MB/sec [256K blocks] |
| Random | 22.75 | 28.31 | 62.13 | 62.16 | 47.80 |
| Uncached Write | 0.81 MB/s [4K blocks] | 1.03 MB/s [4K blocks] | 2.67 MB/s [4K blocks] | 2.51 MB/sec [4K blocks] | 1.87 MB/sec [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Write | 18.56 MB/s [256K blocks] | 22.73 MB/s [256K blocks] | 48.45 MB/s [256K blocks] | 62.96 MB/sec [256K blocks] | 34.00 MB/sec [256K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 0.41 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.48 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.63 MB/s [4K blocks] | 0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks] | 0.64 MB/sec [4K blocks] |
| Uncached Read | 18.44 MB/s [256K blocks] | 19.31 MB/s [256K blocks] | 27.08 MB/s [256K blocks] | 28.77 MB/sec [256K blocks] | 28.12 MB/sec [256K blocks] |
Nothing against OSX86, I have a Sony UMPC that dual boots XP and Tiger and wotks pretty well. I like OS X, and Apple doesn't make a small portable. I use it a bit less than I used to, as I can now do email and such on an iPod Touch,
I don't think the Psystar is a value at all. $155 for Leopard? and you still don't have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or FireWire or the iLife software or a monitor, etc. A refurbished iMac or a Mac mini plus an external hard drive are in about the same price range, and the iMac also adds a camera, mic, and remote control.
If you are looking to save money, build one yourself. At least you will be able to reinstall Leopard without shipping it back to Psystar and paying $50 for the privilege.
I agree with everyone
I so hope, this teaches Apple a lesson. If they allow OS X on PC's and let hardware developers (sounds, graphics etc) develop for the OS then Microsoft would be really tainted..Think of all the people who would replace Windows for OS X.
I got mine ...works great and its faster than my MBP ... It is noisy but the tower is on the floor and I can live with it. Boot Camp will not work neither will Mac Updates. Hey for $555 plus tax its def a great buy.
noisy as hell!!
Its not a Mac solution its more of a bargain all-done-for-you x86 project. Good specs though for a game machine.
Leopard installed just fine on my HP laptop, after a little bit of tweaking, the only thing that doesn't work is the audio in/out jacks. Sleep works fine, wireless/enet with WEP & DHCP pick up instantly. Seriously, I spent $500 after rebate on this notebook. Leopard license ~$200... Easy to upgrade hardware, software upgrades work (except for major version), save yourself the time, aggravation, and chance to get scammed by this rip-off company(their whole philosophy is ripping Apple off, why wouldn't they rip consumers off too, hmm?) and do 10 minutes worth of research before going out and buying a PC, a lot of times STOCK PC parts will work fine, it's the no-name, generic, bargain bin hardware on the Open Computers that make it crash!
Have a nice day :) !!!
Hey everybody,
Apple calls the core of OS X "Darwin" for a reason. Development for x86 compatibility was happening years before the first Intel-based macs were released, and Darwin has been open-source all along. On the software side, Macs have long benefitted from a strong and devoted end-user and programmer community. The whole idea is to let hackers and end users proliferate the Mac OS into historically Windows-ruled x86 territory for them, without risking any major resources. This Psystar thing is a flash in the pan, but it represents the future of the non-Apple x86 world. Lots of people hate Windows, particularly Vista, but can't stomach the price point on a new Mac when a spec-to-spec comparison makes a Windows PC look like a better value. There are also concerns about compatibility. What do they do? Get the Windows machine, find out about OSx86, and sink an extra $100 for the superior OS. I think it's just a matter of time before retailers start offering a choice of OS with new PC sales and offering OSx86 installation services, particularly when Microsoft continues to brutalize PC manufacturers with absurd licensing fees and restrictions. Meanwhile, Apple succeeds in protecting it's image as a premium computing experience, because none of the OSx86 systems you will see have the spiffy case designs, apple logo, tech support and ease of installation that a Mac has. The previous attempt at cloning was a disaster because the clones were offered as equivalents to a Mac for less money, and some really did offer a better all-around value. At that time, Apple was also saddled with the lackluster performance of Motorola's chip-fab capabilities. This time around, the choice is between running a superior OS on regular hardware or running that OS on premium hardware. Also consider that in this model, PC users can get a taste of the Mac experience without committing to a $1000+ investment. Once they've gone a few rounds with an OSx86 machine, I'll bet 3 out of 4 will be looking to Apple for their next system.
Pull out to 2 GB of RAM and put in a better fan... I would :P
I have just recently built 5 Hackintosh computers for company/use Graphic Design
Asus P5KC Mobo
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 2.4
Kingston 8GB 800Mhz RAM (2X4)
Western Digital 1 TB HDD
TOTAL COST $1,200.00
Installed and working with sound, the only problem i had was the onboard LAN would not work. Easily fixed by adding a pci LAN card. $8
The Machines are Blazing fast, adobe rendering is very quick considering we work with billboard size ads. The hackintoshes are a lifesaver.
A macpro setup Equivalent would have costed me much much more..
SO GO x86.... keep up the good work..
Kalyway RULES>>>
Why not uninstall the OS, sell it for $100, and take the proceeds to buy a copy of Vista if you're so inclined?