Yes, you can build your Mac!

[Banana]

Being the curious kind (I was traumatized by overexposure to Curious George ;)), I poked around to see if it is possible to build a Mac from ground up and yes, it can be done. For comparsion I selected a 2.0 Ghz PM, as it's midrange and supposed to be expandable.

Apple's specs for 2,499.99

Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5
1GHz frontside
bus/processor
512K L2 cache/processor
512MB DDR400 SDRAM
Expandable to 8GB SDRAM
160GB Serial ATA
8x SuperDrive
Three PCI-X Slots
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem


DVWarehouse specs for 2,092.95

Power Macintosh G5 233Mhz logic board , Dual $799.00
Processor, 2.0 GHz Dual Power Mac G5 V1 $655.00
1GB PC3200 KIT 2 X 512MB $190.00
SuperDrive DVD-R /CD -RW IDE (All PowerMac G5 /4XDVDR ) $129.00
Hard Drive, Serial ATA, 80 GB, 7200 rpm $110.00
Power Supply 450 W Power Mac G5/New $195.00
ZIP Drive 100MB IDE Internal $14.95

Note: Missing a case, so should add anywhere $20-50. Missing a video card because they only had standard ones; I know that there are better to be had for better price, so add another $100-$200. Missing modem, as dial up is unwanted anyway. [I didn't see any info on ethernet- would it be built on the logic board?]

So for $500 less, I could get similar power (not sure how much FSB will affect the performance), more RAM, plus a ZIP and save some money off the unneeded stuff (mostly modem).

Would this kind of thing be a good investment? I know for a PC, it'd be. But that's oranges to apples, so your .02 cents will be appreicated. :)

[MCQ]

Or, you could buy a Apple refurbished Dual 2.0 PMG5 for $2099 (before taxes). No effort having to assemble, and at least that'll have a 1 year warranty. Grab 2x512 Corsair from Newegg for $90-$100, and you're set.

[Banana]

Um...

Good point. So I guess building a mac isn't just as cost effective as with a PC.... Unless of course, you had some kind of weird specs that Apple simply wouldn't meet (unlikely for 99% of us).

But it was interesting and somehow weirdly reassuring to know that yes, it can be done. (Must be my ingrained PC habit?)

[Brad]

I agree... that it's just your ingrained PC habit.

Mac components (namely the mobo and CPU) are simply nowhere near as mass-produced as generic PC components. It's literally two magnitudes of difference. So, you're not going to be able to build an equivalent Mac for much cheaper any time soon.

[Banana]

For an interesting read-

Modular Mac (http://www.applelinks.com/articles/2003/05/20030516124909.shtml)

It sounds like that the author thinks a older system rebuilt with current perhipals (speeling) would be a better deal than a new system. I'm not too sure, tho.