[X4U] OS X On Generic PC Hardware

[Zane H. Healy]

At 3:34 PM +0000 11/17/07, Stroller wrote:
>I don't see anything on a dual-proc motherboard 
>that would make them inherently more expensive 
>to build than a single-proc one. Older Xeons 
>used to require an additional voltage regulator 
>board, but I don't know if this is still case. 
>Nevertheless, most of the expense of these 
>boards is R&D, so Apple must be able to absorb 
>that somewhat, if they're only manufacturing 
>Xeon-based m/boards for their towers. 
>Additionally, it seems to me that Apple may well 
>have the largest sales-volume of Xeon-based 
>machines, spreading the cost.

There are additional costs in a dual processor 
motherboard.  They require a more complex 
chipset.  The Xeon chipsets on their own are more 
expensive than the plain Core 2 Duo, yes this is 
in part due to the lower sales volume.  However, 
this is also due to a different target audience.

Still it does looks like the price of 
Motherboards has dropped, I can get a dual CPU 
mother board that will take two quad-core CPU's 
for only $260 from my favorite PC "chop shop". 
Still just the 2Ghz dual-core CPU's are about 
$400 apiece, those quad-core chips are **** 
expensive.  The place I'm looking wants $1380 
apiece for the 3Ghz quad-core Xeon CPU's.

>Nevertheless, I believe that the hackintosh 
>article doesn't simply raise the question of 
>what someone might expect to pay for a 
>comparable PC, but what they might expect to pay 
>for a PC which meets their needs. Were I buying 
>a machine to run XP or Linux on my desktop I 
>certainly wouldn't be looking at quad- or 
>eight-core Xeons - it is only Apple's limited 
>range that pushes me in that direction, and I 
>would be quite grateful for a £1000 Mac tower.

The Core 2 Duo portion of the family uses 
chipsets that are capable of handling 2-4Gb of 
RAM, while the Xeon portion can handle up to 16Gb 
of RAM.  It is my understanding that the real 
reason for going with Xeon processors is due to 
the ability of their chipsets to handle larger 
amounts of RAM.  It wouldn't have done to release 
the Mac Pro with a Core Duo as it would have only 
been able to take 4Gb RAM at that time, a 
definite step down from 8Gb in the G5 Towers.

It will be interesting to see what they do with 
the newer chipsets that can apparently handle 8Gb 
in a Core 2 Duo system.  I'd really like to see a 
Core 2 Duo based tower that could take 8Gb RAM, 
and come in between $1400-1800.  I figure 1-2 
card slots, and 1 video slot as well.  It would 
probably make sense to only have two drive bays 
in such a system as well.  By having such a 
configuration it would fill the void that 
currently exists, and there would be a very 
visible reason why the Mac Pro would be better.

Of course if the MacBook Pro is able to have 8Gb 
RAM by the time it is time to replace my G5, I'll 
be seriously tempted to get a laptop.

Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
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