14 DAY TRIAL // While Apple and Psystar are trying to reach a settlement behind closed doors, the latter continues to sell its Open stuff, having just added new powerful Mac clones to its portfolio. The new Open Computers from Psystar are now shipping, and can be ordered with built-in Blu-ray and NVIDIA 9800 GT graphics cards.
“Our Open Computer features the latest technology in Intel processors to give our customers an affordable, reliable computer capable of running the OS X operating system,” says Psystar. “We preinstall OS X on our Open Computers so that you can begin to use your machine right out of the box. Our basic configuration is ready for office-related tasks and web-surfing, but the configuration for our systems can go from a mild-mannered desktop to a powerhouse.”
As the whole planet must know by now, Apple's EULA specifically forbids other systems, except Apple's own computers, to run Mac OS X. It also says you shouldn't "enable" others to do so, yet Psystar ships regular PCs with OS X pre-installed. This is what the fight between the two is all about.
Back to the Open Computer, Psystar claims you can upgrade your GPU to a GeForce 8600GT, “which can play most modern games,” while equipping an Intel Core2Duo, clocked at 3.0GHz, “will greatly enhance gaming as well as photo editing and other processor-intensive operations.” The company is confident that “with [its] custom configurations you can buy the Open Computer that suits your needs.”
But this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as Psystar's offerings go. The Mac cloner has its own Mac Pro equivalent, which, quite frankly, outperforms Apple's high-end desktop computer by far.
“The OpenPro is well suited for users who use 3D modeling and rendering programs, audio recording and editing programs, and photograph and video recording and editing programs,” says Psystar. “The OpenPro can hold up to 4TB of raw storage so your multimedia files will always be accessible. Leveraging the power of Intel's Core2Quad processors the OpenPro can excel in CPU-intensive operations like rendering and real-time timeline browsing without breaking the bank. For the best in value and power, the OpenPro is the computer for you.”
According to the Miami-based Mac cloner, you can equip both systems with a Blu-ray burner for an extra 350 bucks. Adding the FireWire support (which Apple has discontinued in its systems), the Open Computers apparently make a great buy. However, Apple can just change the EFI firmware updates, so that OS X can no longer be updated on Psystar's machines. Even worse, a new EFI could be created by Apple to completely kill OS X on them.