While Blu-ray offers movie-watching and storage options, the GeForce 9800GT promises increased graphics performance for high-end game play and media editing. Apple currently does not offer the 9800GT on any computer.

"Blu-ray has already won the format war," said Rudy Pedraza, president of Psystar. "Not only is there fully functional and mature support for Blu-ray in other operating systems, but you can now rent Blu-ray discs from almost any rental chain. Blu-ray has become pervasive technology that is being widely adopted by consumers everywhere."

Pricing Promotions

Pedraza did not offer details about what "widely adopted" means. Rather, he focused on the Blu-ray drives, pointing out that Blu-ray is not just for movies.

"The ability to burn 25-gigabyte discs is a feature that can help users in media-editing or enterprise environments keep archives of large file sets," he said. "Our systems, regardless of configured operating system , can now provide this functionality."

Psystar is currently offering several sales promotions, such as no-cost processor upgrades and shipping discounts. Psystar buyers can choose to upgrade a Mac clone with a 6x Blu-ray burner for $310 and a 52MB GeoForce 9800GT card for $200. Psystar also offers a 2x GeForce 9800GT 512MB card for $400.

The Open with Mac OS starts at $554.99 with OS X Leopard v 10.5. That comes with 2GB of DDR2 memory. A 19-inch monitor is an additional $199. This stripped-down Mac clone doesn't come with a Firewire port or a wireless protocol, or even a keyboard and mouse.

Is the Risk Worth It?

Psystar is betting the combination of a Mac clone with both a Blu-ray drive and the GeForce 9800GT will give Apple a run for its money. But it's not clear to some analysts if the mainstream market is going to accept unsanctioned devices running unauthorized copies of the Mac OS.

"It's not like when Apple authorized Mac clones back in the 90s and it was sanctioned and official. If something goes wrong with these machines, you are not going to get any support from Apple," said Micahel Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy at Jupitermedia. "That risk-reward ratio may not be worth it to most consumers. I think that's going to be a Psystar's challenge with doing a notebook. Apple is also banking on the fact that the MacBook experience is a combination of software and hardware working together."

Gartenberg took it a step further: Most folks, he said, would be wise to stay away from these Psystar products. The company is small and it will be difficult for it to provide the type of support Apple offers. It may not be able to keep up with security releases for the Mac OS X and third-party application support may be nonexistent in some cases.