Apple seems to have no interest in selling a mid-range expandable Mac. But Mac enthusiasts have interest in buying one — and now they have an option, if they're game to take on Apple's potential wrath. EFI-X USA's new kit is priced at $1599 for the PC components and $199 for the EFI-X USB Boot Module. You can assemble it yourself, or you can inquire with EFI-X USA to pre-assemble and tune the CPU to 3.8 GHz for an additional fee. You must provide your own retail-purchased copy of Mac OS X ($129 suggested retail, $110 at Amazon).

The EFI-X kit offers the ability to run Mac OS X Leopard without hacks, to run Windows without special Boot Camp drivers, and to run nearly any other personal computer operating system from Linux to Solaris to OpenVMS! It's not quite the seamless experience of Apple's Mac computers, but it comes darn close. Its quad-core 3.82-GHz Core 2 Quad, combined with a fast Nvidia 8800 GT video card and 10,000-RPM Western Digital Velociraptor hard drive, leaves even today's quad-core Mac Pro in the dust. For anyone but scientific and engineering users, the EFI-X kit offers even more real-world performance than Apple's high-end, eight-core Mac Pro costing over twice as much.