Build Your Own Mac With CoreCrib Kit

Mark Dobie writes "I just put up a quick review of the CoreCrib kit I purchased. It is an inexpensive solution to building your own Mac." See our previous Core coverage.

Comments

Mirror

[NETHED]

Before it went KABAM, I made a quicky mirror

here

Waiting for PPC 970

[aSiTiC]

Personally I'm waiting to switch for the release of the PPC 970 to switch from my Windows box to a OSX box.

Can't wait to get away from x86 micro-ops translation to RISC and into the world of straight RISC.

Re:Waiting for PPC 970

[discstickers]

Steps to take:
1) Buy old(er) G4 tower
2) Replace graphics card with said 8500Pro
3) Install hard drives
4) Theres no step 4!

Re:Waiting for PPC 970

[afidel]

The PPC970 is not a pure RISC chip, if it were the decode stage would be unnecessary. There are a number of instructions that break down into two or more internal operations that the execution units have to deal with. From the IBM POWER whitepaper "Cracked instructions flow into groups as any other instructions with one restriction. Both IOPs must be in the same group. If both IOPs cannot fit into the current group, the group is terminated and a new group is initiated. The instruction following the cracked instruction may be in the same group as the cracked instruction, assuming there is room in the group. Millicoded instructions always start a new group. The instruction following the millicoded instruction also initiates a new group." This is much closer to CISC->RISC translation that happens in all modern x86 cpu's then it is to a traditional RISC design.

Re:Waiting for PPC 970

[physicsnerd]

say... would Apple also be following industry standard on ATAPI devices? How about DDR ram? and PCI cards (like my new Audigy 2?) (Things I'de LOVE to know before I upgrade again)

Yes apple does follow the standard on ATAPI Devices. Apple just sticks standard CD/DVD drives in their systems.

Yes they do use Standard DDR ram, in the higher end machines, PC133 in the lower machines like the eMac. Also, the laptop ram is standard SO-DIMM 133 or DDR in the case of the 17".

Yes, PCI cards can be put in the powermac line. I'm not sure if the Audigy 2 has OSX drivers. This tends to be the largest problem I've had with mac hardware. Macs use the exact same standards as PCs, however not all companies will write OSX drivers for them. However, often the *nix/bsd hardware hacks work. Epson never has gotten around to writting drivers for my SS2500, however I use CUPS and it works perfect.

In conclusion, Apple runs the same basic hardware as everyone else. The difference is in the PPC chip, and of course the bios. Everything else is industry standard.

physicsnerd

Re:Waiting for PPC 970

[0rbit4l]

As I'm sure has been pointed out, you'd still need a decode stage in almost any but the most useless risc architecture - got to convert those opcodes to control lines (regwrite, memwrite/read) and register fields. This doesn't come "for free", even with simple risc architectures like MIPS. Ergo, you need a decode stage. More complexity simply means more stages dedicated to decode (a la x86, power series.)

Another point: POWER is not the same thing as the PowerPC ISA. POWER (which is cisc) supports some wacky instruction types such as vector load/store - these get cracked into IOPs. The vast majority of PPC instructions do not need to be cracked, though cracking can be useful depending on the microarchitecture that implements the ISA (for instance, fused multiply-add which is common in multimedia apps may get cracked into 2 separate instructions.)

SLASHDOTTED

[rkz]

Here is a mirror: Click here I couldnt get all of the images though.

I considered corecrib

[OmniVector]

But then i found out about this site: www.purchaseprogram.com. I haven't bought a system from there yet, but even after you pay the $250 fee, and tax, and shipping, you can still get a kick ass dual 1.25ghz powermac for less than the spare parts that corecrib offers.

Main text (sans pictures)

[mrklin]

from the /. page:

My first Mac was a Beige G3 junked from work. I upgraded it to the max, but found it lacking the speed needed to run OS X. I started looking into buying a Power Mac but I was turned off by the inflated prices. $1500 for a box w/ no monitor? Insane. I like Apple's constant innovation but their prices are way too high. I finally came across this story about John Fraser, and his idea to sell a Mac kit aimed at do-it-yourselfers. I've built quite a few PC's but never a Mac. I decided this was the route for me.

My core crib arrived on Sat. May 3, 2003.

As you can see, it arrives in a non-descript brown box from USPS.

The packaging was done well. The CoreCrib was secure in the box and was not damaged. Contents include, power cable, tower case, Apple Gigabit Ethernet motherboard, Apple Power Supply and blue/pink LED case fan. This is a very barebones kit. Provide your own IDE cables, drives, processesor, memory, video card etc....

I had an old Beige G3 I decided I'd rob parts out of. Most of what was in that box was old PC hardware I had laying around. At first, I could not get the Crib to boot, I checked the support forums and noticed that the only other person who had received a CoreCrib kit said you "HAD" to update the firmware on the motherboard. I assumed this was my problem. So I put the Crib aside and tried to track down an older G4 processor.

On Tues. May 6 another post arrived in the forums that the firmware was not needed to run newer CPUs. I then decided to investigate on my own. After an hour of testing, my problem was solved. The PC100 memory I tried to use from the Beige G3 did not like the faster G4 800 Giga Designs processor. I put a stick of PC133 memory in and the Crib instantly booted.

Here are some pictures of the box itself.

Here are some photos after my parts were installed:

Back plane is missing. Personally I don't care, I push it under a desk.

The Crib has changed colors and price. It is now available as Pro model and comes in a nice gmono white case. http://www.2khappyware.com/corecrib.html

My current expense list:

CoreCrib kit: $379, Gigadesigns G4 800 cpu, $275, 256mb pc133 $20, ATI Radeon PCI 7000, $100 The other parts I installed were extras from upgrading PC's. I've spent $775 on this machine and it runs OS X smoothly and without problems. I did purchase OS 10.2. I forgot to include that in the price. 2khappyware also sells complete and custom systems, you can add whatever parts you want if you don't want to buy them on your own. This case is expandable, you can add up to 5 hard-drives and multiple optical drives. Which is much different than the new Mirrored Power Macs. My next stop is to add the Radeon 8500 AGP card, the PCI card doesn't do Quartz Graphics.

Overall I'm extremely happy with the Crib. The noise level is very low. No windtunnel noise going on here. It is upgradable to dual CPU's if you want to spend the cash. A new Support Forum has started flourishing, so help is available. I highly recommend buying this kit.

Parts purchasing:

http://www.macsales.com

Information:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
- Permalink
Posted by Mark Dobie on 5/7/03; 11:36:45 AM

Apple sells refurbished Macs

[Andrew Lockhart]

It's silly to compare these kits to a brand new Mac when Apple themselves sell refurbished products.Keep in mind that the refurb'ed PowerMacs already come with ram, an hd, graphics, a superdrive, an os, etc. Oh yeah, they also have a one year warranty from Apple and are still eligible for their AppleCare Protection Plan. Two things that I doubt these kits have.

Re:Aw man

[Sethb]

I'm the admin of the server in question, it's running Manila from Userland as the web server/weblog product. Everything is dynamic on there, even the pictures are served out of the database, and it's basically running out of CPU horsepower in this case, Frontier.exe is using about 90% of my CPU time. :)

it actually seems to be cheaper...

[vena]

CoreCrib Dual 1200 Computer for $1799.99

CoreCrib Fully Assebled System
G4 Dual 1200Mhz 2MB cache
1024MB Memory
52x CD-RW
120GB Harddrive
Geforce4MX 32MB ADC DVI and DVI-> VGA Adapter
2 Firewire, 2 USB Ports, 10/10/1000 Ethernet, Audio in/out
Front Firewire, 2xUSB and Audio OUT
Just Add keyboard, mouse, and OS
ATA, Power Cable and Fans/Heatsink are included.
Just plug in, add keyboard/mouse, boot from OS Install CD and install your OS. No hardware Installation!

you're losing .05 ghz of speed (like you'll notice) but gaining ram and hd space for $200 cheaper

Real cost comparison or The myth of low cost

[gerardrj]

Using the prices the author posts in the review, adding in $120 for Mac OS X and $50 for labor the real cost for hardware for this machine comes to $944, and that doesn't include shipping. Let's assume $5 per item and that's another $20 for a total of $964 for this "low cost Mac"

Okay, but Apple sells a spiffy new machine for $1,500. That's a difference of $536. Now the question is this:

Are the "extras" you get with the new Apple Mac worth the extra $536? Lets look at the "extras":

(numbers in parenthesis are estimated upgrade costs)
1. Support and warranty. You have someone to point the finger at with hardware failures (priceless??)
2. 200Mhz faster CPU speed ($225 assumes purchasing 1Ghz instead of 800)
3. 33Mhz?? faster bus speed (can't upgrade)
4. 2x faster memory (can't upgrade)
5. 32MB more Video RAM ( $65 more than the 7000 for the Radeon 8500)
6. GPU is about 2x more powerful
7. FireWire 800 ($100 includes USB2)
8. USB 2.0
9. Built-in AirPort antenna
10. AGP port is 2x faster (can't upgrade)
11. A better looking case

The things that can be upgraded will cost $390 to do so, and a total build-it-yourself cost of $1,356.
And this machine still doesn't perform as well as the new system will, and would cost only $140 less than the new Apple PowerMac.

I'll take the Apple eqipment for the extra $140.