Running OS X on PCs typically involves using software patches of dubious legality, but Gizmodo blogger Matt Buchanan has been testing out a much more elegant alternative: EFI-X. In essence, the EFI-X USB dongle includes the firmware necessary to install a retail-boxed version of Mac OS X. There are catches, of course. You can only use a handful of processors, motherboards, graphics cards, Wi-Fi adapters, and sound cards. And right now, EFI-X supports neither AMD processors nor most AMD graphics cards. Benchmark results suggest performance is peppy, and Buchanan claims he was able to use the OS X auto-updater to install Mac OS X 10.5.5 without a hitch - he even has a video to prove it. The only major downsides Buchanan bemoans are the spotty hardware support, the fact that the dongle can prolong boot times, and the price tag: $169. Considering the markup on Apple hardware, though, that may not be too bad a deal.

There are, of course, rules you have to adhere to, as there tends to be when using black magic. The major one with EFiX, and its only real "catch," is that you have to use the supported hardware, not a very long list indeed. But outside of the Gigabyte motherboard requirement (reportedly some Asus boards using a P45 chipset also work), it's actually fairly generic. I just happened to have everything on the list.

If you've got the hardware, the whole process is simple, so that even if you've never cracked your desktop before, you could still get this done with a quick search online for the requisite know-how. I plugged the EFiX dongle into a USB header on my motherboard�not, as you might have assumed, to a USB port on the outside. That's really it for getting your hands dirty, though. I restarted my computer, selected EFiX as the boot device�it was listed under hard drives, actually�and was greeted with a drive selector. After selecting the Leopard disc, it started installing without a hitch.

Okay, there was a slight hitch. My video card, an Nvidia 8800GT, isn't supported by the firmware EFiX ships with. EFiX already has the update on the site, but its updater is only coded for 32-bit Windows. If, like me, you run Vista 64-bit, you will have to install Vista 32-bit on the drive you intend to put Leopard on, just to update the stupid firmware.

After I did that, everything was peachy. The only slight inconsistency is that my 8800GT shows up as a 256MB card, when it's actually a 512MB card, and my 1066MHz RAM is only running at 800MHz apparently. But that's sorta trivial.