A company called Psystar claims that it’s selling a “generic Mac†for $549 (or $399 without OS X). While such a move seems to violate Apple’s end-user license agreement, it indicates just how the age-old topic of running the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware has mutated in this modern, Intel-Mac age.
While I'm not going to advocate that Apple’s users rush out and configure a faux Mac of their very own, the reality is that Apple’s computers are now Intel-based PCs through and through. The existence of modern Mac clones—whether they come in a complete package from the likes Psystar or in pieces from a variety of computer-parts manufacturers—allows me to ask several questions about Apple’s Mac hardware. Yes, it lets me gauge the price and performance of Mac hardware by comparing it to non-Apple hardware. But it also lets me explore a topic that, prior to Apple’s switch to Intel processors, I could only speculate about: The performance of Mac systems that simply don’t exist.
Take the “mythical mid-range Mac minitower,†as Macworld's Dan Frakes called it. While Apple has an excellent selection of laptops, entry-level Macs, and high-end machines, it doesn’t offer anything at all in the way of a moderately powerful expandable tower model. Though the iMac offers good performance, it’s an all-in-one machine with limited expandability and a monitor that not everyone may need. As Dan wrote:
What I’d like to see is a minitower design with—and this is just one possible configuration that would fulfill my wish—a reasonably powerful processor (perhaps a higher-end Core 2 Duo or a single Xeon); a good graphics card in an upgradeable slot; a decent amount of RAM and hard-drive space; a single free PCI Express slot; and room for one additional hard drive. The ability to swap out the optical drive would be a nice touch.
http://www.macworld.com/article/133028/2008/04/building_mac_clone.html?lsrc=top_1