Psystar Open review (Q)

Editors' note (December 2, 2009): As of December 2, 2009, Psystar has discontinued sales of its OS X-based products to comply with a legal settlement with Apple.

Editors' note: This review has been updated since its original posting to reflect that the price as configured is $699, not $799. We have also noted that Psystar now includes iLife and iWorks out of the box.

If nothing else, Psystar's Open(Q) should serve as a message to Apple that it's long overdue in bringing quad-core CPUs to its mainstream desktops. Because as much as the Open(Q) lacks Apple's design polish, this $699, illicitly OS X-based midtower runs circles around Apple's $1,499 24-inch iMac on our benchmarks. Ongoing legal troubles raise questions about Psystar's future as a going concern, which tempers our recommendation for any Psystar system, especially to mainstream users. But the fact is that Psystar has successfully hacked Apple's new Snow Leopard version of OS X onto a more cost-effective desktop than anything offered by Apple itself. We thus recommend the Open(Q) to anyone interested in an affordable OS X-based computer, with the usual caveat that you take the time to understand what you're getting into first.

Like all Psystar systems, the Open(Q) traded its looks in exchange for its fast performance. The off-the-shelf case has a few convenient tool-free drive bay pegs on the inside, but, driving the aesthetic gap home, for some reason they're wrapped in neon green plastic. The exterior of the case comes in bland black with silver accents, and while it's unobtrusive enough to fade into almost any background, it's clear that the company spent no time on enhancing this system's visual appeal.

For many of you, this system's bland looks won't be an issue as long as it works. After all, technological and design fetishism aside, a computer is a tool to be used. As we've found with other Psystar systems, the Open(Q) works as we expect it to from a software standpoint, which is to say that it does everything you'd expect from a Mac running Snow Leopard. We don't have an Exchange 2007 server in CNET's New York office to try out Snow Leopard's native corporate e-mail support, so we can't report on that feature, but the other new features in Apple's latest OS update, like Expose, and changes to Stacks and the Finder, worked flawlessly.

Also new to this system, Psystar, for the first time, has included Apple's iLife and iWorks digital media and productivity software suites. Previous Psystar systems came without these programs, which created another ding for Psystar against a true Apple system, which includes iLife and iWorks as well. With competing software available as free downloads for both iWorks and iLife, their usefulness is debatable, but since neither Psystar nor Apple ask you to pay for them outright, it's hard to be too judgmental about them either.

For better or for worse, the Open(Q) also came with up-to-the-minute software installed for all of its applications, its hardware components, and the operating system itself. Normally we're glad to see a vendor keep its system up-to-date, but in this case, that meant we weren't able to test Psystar's capability to update Snow Leopard reliably. The Psystar OpenPro we reviewed last year updated with no trouble during our limited time with it, and Psystar tells us that nothing about its update procedures have changed with the move to Snow Leopard.

The most apt competitor for the Psystar Open(Q) is arguably Apple's baseline 24-inch iMac. Granted the Psystar is a $699 standard midtower desktop, and the iMac is a $1,499 all-in-one PC, but the Psystar's performance is closest to that of the 24-inch iMac, and for the $800 price difference between the two systems, you can fill out the Psystar with features it lacks, like a display, a wireless networking card, or a Webcam. Psystar offers most of those features and others on its Web site as options for the Open(Q).

The secondary features aside, we can focus on the core components of each system that account for performance. The Psystar's 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 is the chief differentiator here, as Apple simply doesn't offer a quad-core chip on its iMac line. One of the traditional arguments against quad core in iMacs has been that OS X is so efficient compared with Vista that it can get away with fast dual-core CPUs like the 2.66GHz chip in our comparison iMac. Based on the benefit to the Psystar's multitasking capability in particular, it's clear that the quad-core chip has a noticeable benefit.

Cinebench
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Rendering multiple CPUs

Rendering single CPU

ZT Group Affinity 7334Ma

12,742 

3,502 

Gateway SX2800-01

10,085 

2,773 

Psystar Open(Q)

9,065 

2,659 

Apple iMac (24-inch)

5,797 

3,092 

Apple Mac Mini (2.0GHz)

4,270 

2,287