This will be an in-depth look at the Dell WorkStation XPS 690 which is a prime candidate for the Mac OS X Leopard. On a deeper look at the specifications of the Mac Pro and comparing it with the Dell XPS 690 they’re very similar. Here is what it looks like:
The current MacPro 3,1 runs on the Intel’s 5000 series modified motherboards supporting EFI specific to Apple with 2x 2.8GHz-3.2GHz xeon 54xx series cpus. Taking advantage of the FB-DIMMs at 2×667MHz or 1333MHz speed with Error Correction and Fully Buffered to handle the toughest tasks.
The Breakdown:
MacPro 3,1
cpu: Xeon 54xx series 2.8GHz-3.2GHz
mem: DDR2 FB-DIMM (upto 4GBx8 = 32GB)
vid: ATI HD 2400 XT 256MB to nVidia GeForce 8800GT or the nVidia Quadro FX 5600
The Dell XPS 690 is not a bad contender against the MacPro either, sure it was released back in the February of 2007 it runs on the Intel’s 5000 series motherboards also with an enhanced BIOS and works with the Xeon 51xx series from 1.60GHz to 2.8GHz. its got 4 Risers with 4 slots and using the DDR2 FB-DIMMs at 1066MHz. The breakdown:
Dell XPS 690
cpu: Xeon 52xx series 1.6GHz-2.8GHz
mem: DDR2 FB-DIMM (upto 4GBx16 = 64GB)
vid: ATI FireMV 2400 (4 monitors) to nVidia Quadre 285, 290 and 440.
Looking at the short specs of the two systems tells us that the MAC OS X shouldn’t have any trouble. Well you’re right. There are slight differences between the motherboards used by Apple and Dell.
The major differences are as such: The Apple motherboard comes with 4x PCI-e X16 slots (standard issue) where as the Dell comes with 1x PCI-e X16 slot, 3x PCI-e X4 slot, 1x PCI and 2x PCI-X (64bit) slots. Which shows you that this is serious server board especially after looking at the huge memory-risers supporting 64GB ram.
My cousin happen to buy this Dell 690 ofcourse he had consulted me before purchasing but we had no idea that Leopard would be so easy to install on the PCs thanks to the team on insanelymac, Boot-132, chamelleon and many different releases such as Kalyway’s 10.5.1, iDeneb 10.5.4, iATKOSv4i and LEO4ALL made it extremely eash to load up the PC with the grand OS we’re so fond of.
After short-research we set out to upgrade the machine from XP-32bit to the powerful 10.5.4. Packed up the DVDs and other essential software to load on the machine, we head out to FRY’s to purchase an extra harddrive for OS X and more memory (bought 2×2GB = 4GB FB-DIMMs). We arrived at the location and removed the cover to start operating. Upon opening the case we verified the location of all hardware and where the memory and the harddrive would go. Installed the memory in Riser 3 and Riser 4 (since the older memory was installed in Riser 1 and Riser 2. Installed the harddrive and unplugged the XP drive (as a safety precaution)
Started the boot process with iDeneb booted from the DVD but unfortunately there were issues on the DVD as it wasn’t burnt properly, then we tried and successfully booted into the setup screen with the iATKOSv4i DVD.
The system as this point had a single 1.86GHz Xeon, 6GB Ram, and the 500GB harddrive. We removed the ATI FireMV video-board as we knew that it wasn’t supported by the OS, the default video that we used was the nVidia Quadro4 285 PCI-e X16. Being an nVidia and a chipset that was normal and shared the history from older nVidia GPUs easily detected by OS X as it played through the Welcome Video upon reboot. We checked all hardware and seemed like everything was working. Upon a deeper look at the System Profiler the Audio and the Ethernet both did not work. The Audio started working as soon as we added the proper kexts. The only thing remaining was the Ethernet, to which we were going to more research to get the onboard working or get an adapter for the gigabit network possibly PCI.
Now the big question comes.. can we run 4 monitors on the OS? we looked inside and thought that we had 4 PCI-e X16 slots, we head out bought the video cards. We purchased 2x 8500 GT (this way we have 2 identical cards in the system and would run fine with a single kext. We get back to find-out that the Dell had 4x PCI-e x4 slots and only a single X16 slot!! we were upset and pissed as Dell should’ve put the X16 slots over the x4 but then realized that this was a server system.. this started a new search and research on which video card would fit in the X4 slot, obviously there aren’t any video cards that are designed for the X4 slots all boards are either X16 or X1, and funnily the ATI FireMV which supports 4 monitors runs on a X1 slot.
We ran across boards such as the nVidia Quadro4 440, Quadro 290 and the FireMV boards which are all X1 slots but not support on the mac since Apple never uses proprietary graphics hardware which always comes at a high price, e.g. Quadro4 440 costs anywhere from 350-550 (today).
Anyhow after search far and wide we ran into a X4 to X16 adapter, we were like YES! this will solve our problems, hence we then looked for a Video card that would support 2xDVI monitors and would be low-profile so it can fit in the case after using the X4 to X16 adapter. So we purchased the adapter which was about 22 dollars for an X1 to X16 (since the X4 to X16 was 42 bucks +10 dollar shipping)
We found the low-profile video card on NewEgg’s site (love that search feature) and its by XFX the 7300GS with a SM-56 connector (SM-56 to 2x DVI) 256MB X16 board $80 bucks.
This was perfect. We’re now waiting on the parts to Arrive, not to mention that we’ve also ordered the second Xeon CPU + upto 12GB of new RAM. This should definitely make the system scream bringing very close to the power a MacPro would offer. If All else fails we might just put Vista 64-bit 
Look forward to updating you on the results of this Hack.
Junaid Ahmed is a Web, UI and Graphics Designer working with tools ranging from Adobe’s CS3 suite to the multimedia authoring power of Final Cut Pro and Logic Studio Pro. Is well versed in technologies used in consumer products, electronics, computers and many different areas of technology.
