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Core2Duo (Conroe) chipsets and chipsets for OSx86

bofors

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Arcanis
Arcanis
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There are already working 975X boards that are fully supported by OSx86, like the Asus P5WD2-E.

 

It seems the 975 chipset is supported, just we need to find boards with compatible sound and LAN and we are set. The problem with 975X chipsets is they're really expensive..

 

965P is a mainstream chipset, but noone has tested compatibility with OSx86 still.

 

Talking about graphic cards, when they release the Mac Pro with a fully discrete solution, we should study more about them, I think it's too early for now.

 

And if we can't crack a 10.4.5+ kernel I think we are stuck using 1 core with the newer processors..

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mifki
mifki
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Dual Core works on the 10.4.4 kernel, just not for core duos but it works for Pentium D's. Alos i have a Intel board, D975XBX based board, sure it was a bit expensive but its a awesome board, the only thing that is lettingme down is my CPU (32-bit, Pentium 4 3.0ghz @3.5 Ghz), its still bloody fast but considering i was goign to buy a quad core Woodcrest system at the end of the year (when i was still working in 3D) i am quirte ahppy with it, i boought my 975XBX board as it is new, fast, supports Conroe, and has blue heatsinks :).

 

I too wil get the E6300 or the model above it, as they overclock extremely well.

 

I got 1 gb ddr2 ram, but its genric which is ok, but i need tighter timings, i have heard that Pqi sell extremely good RAM that doesnt cost your left {censored}, or if you wanted all out extrem RAM, get a pair of Orange GeIL modules, they are teh best.

 

My motherboard doesnt have the new GMA3000 but i do have a EAX1600XT card which is usuable (hahah, more than usuable). My motherboard also has room for 3 PCI-E x16 slots so if the Mac Pro ever gets Crossfire i will too. This is a good feature too as ATi has announced its new physics technoligy (being able to use any X1000 based card as a dedicated physics card, as long as the card is above a X1600 i think) so it provides good future proofing, everyhting works out of the box with this Mobo, apart from the Audio, which is pissing me off but is easily fixed (just that the sound comes out of the Line Out port)

 

It all comes down to EFI i think, Leopard will (should) embrace the standard tighter than Tiger has and that will make it harder for it work on BIOS pc's.

 

EDIT: Or you could just buy one of these (ala the Ageia phyx card adn the nvidia garbage but it'd be a good system otherwise

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RiceTea
RiceTea
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Cheapo and OSX86-compatible Conroe solutions can be based on Intel chipset 945GZ- or 945G-mobos. The latest layout of the ASUS P5LD2-VM mobo (945G chipset with Intel 950 graphics) supports the Conroe. 945GZ chipsets seem to be limited to a 800 MHz FSB. According to Anandtech the Asus P5W DH mobo (975X chipset) is king for overclocking the Conroe, but it is expensive and one would need an additional graphics card as well.

 

(1) I run dual displays, what is the plan to deal with limited OSx86 graphics drivers: Intel forthcoming GMA X3000 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA#GMA_X3000 ), Asus EAX ATI x1600 card, or some new Mac Pro card with EFI firmware;

 

(2) which chipset: 965 versus 975;

 

(3) which motherboard has the best combination of features and cost;

 

(4) what kind of RAM do I need for overclocking, what is the best deal.

 

I plan to continue this thread in a blog-like manner with information relevant to these issues and others which I am less concerned about.

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bofors
bofors
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Regarding chipsets and graphics, here is some really bad news about the the G965 which supports the GMA X3000:

 

Intel G965 is pretty awful

 

OEMs give praise though

 

By Charlie Demerjian: Wednesday 02 August 2006, 12:01

 

 

 

IT IS OLD news that the G965, AKA Broadwater is having problems. The latest embedded graphics chipset was unveiled at Computex to a crowd mainly glad to see that it had stopped raining outside.

The chip still is nowhere to be found, but luckily, early word from multiple sources is not encouraging.

 

It seems the last and more common stepping, C1, is a mess, with image corruption problems on top of the previously mentioned speed problems.

 

The current stepping, C2, is reported to put up the images more or less correctly, let's be fair, more correctly, but the speed problem seems pretty well fatal.

 

We are hearing that the chipset is actually slower than its predecessor, Lakeport/i945G. Much slower. Things get brighter in heavily shader intensive situations, but there is a problem there as well. We are told that if you go above 800*600, well, things approximate a slideshow, but with the added shader firepower, it is a very attractive slideshow.

 

The chipset's performance was described to me quite succinctly by one major OEM as 'it sucks'.

 

From what we understand, nothing short of a miracle will fix this chipset, it is more of a design problem than a bug. Basically, stick with i945G or go with ATI^h^h^h other solutions. This is kind of problematic for OEMs who want Centrino kickback money but also that Vista sticker. µ

 

http://theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33433

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xerxes1358
xerxes1358
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I heard the new 965 doesnt have the southbridge and therefore misses some cool features. But 975 over clocks better. So its a hard choice.

 

Price: you can get an INTEL 965 for $100,- and a 975 for about $200,- But the 975 is good for overclocking giving better CPU value in the end. 965 has newer south bridge 975 has not. Both are pretty efficient and quiet with heat right I heard.

 

 

 

xerxes

 

p.s. thanks bofors editted 975->965

 

p.s. you guys read this review from anand. http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2797&p=3

 

It was helpful for me

 

Results in short: 965 vs 975

 

general performance= pretty the same

over clocking: 376 vs 400 points

gaming: pretty much same

SLI performance: 76 points vs 120 points for 975 duh :-)

 

 

There is also a piece on memory timings about synchronous and asynchronous timing which is interesting. Wauw I feel already this topic is going to be hot :-) Lets start it

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bofors
bofors
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I heard the new 975 doesnt have the southbridge and therefore misses some cool features.

 

I think you mean the 965. It has the ICH8 southbridge which [currently] lacks built-in IDE/PATA support.

 

But 975 over clocks better. So its a hard choice

 

Yes, the 975 seems to be the high performance choice right now, but these may be because the 965 BIOS is underdeveloped. It is also unlikely that Apple will use the 975. However, it is interesting to note that Intel's 975XBX ("Bad Ax") has some overclocking features and EFI.

 

 

Yes, that is one of better Conroe resources on the net and something I want to analyze in detail. Here is the first page: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2797&p=1

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xerxes1358
xerxes1358
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He now since we are on it, I heard 10.5 preview/beta? will be seeded to developers this week or somewhere early next week. Suppose someone manages to get it to run on osx86. Will this mean it is then possible to os86 with 10.5 ? I ask this because no one now knows if it possible to hack 10.5.

 

Also suppose Apple releases new INTEL power macs. DOes this mean we can study the motherboards and take exactly same (well something with the same config) and use it ? Because you say Apple is not going to use 975 board? Why not ? Isnt a good board?

 

 

xerxes

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bofors
bofors
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He now since we are on it, I heard 10.5 preview/beta? will be seeded to developers this week or somewhere early next week. Suppose someone manages to get it to run on osx86. Will this mean it is then possible to os86 with 10.5 ? I ask this because no one now knows if it possible to hack 10.5.

 

Here is my take on the OS X hacking situation with respect to Conroe.

 

In terms of Tiger (10.4), what the hacked kernel currently does not run well on Core Duo's and basically needs to be re-hacked for Conroe. This has to with do primarily with the fact that the Core Duo's introduced a new timing mechanism called HPET. While some people have working on this lately, I suspect things will get more serious in a few weeks when Apple releases new hardware and software (like perhaps 10.4.8), and people start showing up here with Conroe boxes. Leopard (10.5) may actually requre a Core Duo (or at least a HPET CPU). This is again is due the fact that Apple has pulled support for the old RTC timings from the kernel.

 

Also suppose Apple releases new INTEL power macs. DOes this mean we can study the motherboards and take exactly same (well something with the same config) and use it ?

 

Yes, unlike the current Intel Macs, which are based on laptop chips and chipsets, we can expect Apple to release reall desktop systems that we can come closer to buying retail.

 

Because you say Apple is not going to use 975 board? Why not ? Isnt a good board?

xerxes

 

I see the 975 chipset as being a little unusual (an expensive, high performance part designed to support Intel's Extreme Edition CPU's) , I think that Intel will be pushing Apple to go with the 965. Furthermore, Apple will likely be using the GMA X3000 in several products and that only works with the G965. So, I think Apple will standardize on the 965 on the desktop line.

 

However, I certainly could be wrong and given the problems Apple could fail back on something like the 946GZ.

 

See this for more details on Intel chipsets: http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/express_flyer.htm

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bofors
bofors
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Interesting that Intel says the 945G chipset is not for the Conroe. Looks as if Asus doesn´t agree with that.

 

Yes, I was looking at the too. I think Asus might be trying to stretch the limits of the 945 with a special BIOS.

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Arcanis
Arcanis
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Basically the 945G/P/PL and the 955X supports Conroe too.

 

The problem is the motherboard layout, because Conroe requires new power standards, that's why Asus released a PCB 2.0 for some products based on olders chipsets that add Conroe support.

 

945G/P and 955X supports FSB 1066 too, so there is no problem using them for the new processors.

 

Im interested on the release of the Mac Pro, because we will maybe get support for more components. And since they're real desktop platforms too we could study them better.

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bofors
bofors
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The problem is the motherboard layout, because Conroe requires new power standards, that's why Asus released a PCB 2.0 for some products based on olders chipsets that add Conroe support.

 

This motherboard revision for Conroe is also an issue with the Intel D975XBX "Bad Axe" board. Versions prior to "304" are not supposed to support Conroe.

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RiceTea
RiceTea
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So we have identified a couple of OSX86-compatible mobos to run the Conroe, all we need now are a couple of pioneers who actually do it!

 

 

This motherboard revision for Conroe is also an issue with the Intel D975XBX "Bad Axe" board. Versions prior to "304" are not supposed to support Conroe.
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bofors
bofors
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So we have identified a couple of OSX86-compatible mobos to run the Conroe, all we need now are a couple of pioneers who actually do it!

 

Guess what:

 

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?...mp;pagenumber=1

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=23403

 

These use the Intel D975XBX and some unspecified Gigabyte 945 board. Interestingly enough, there are no suggestions of any problems what so ever. Neither the lack of recognition of the 1066 bus speed which Bearcat has been expecting nor the HPET related problem requiring the one core to be disabled:

 

The main issue I can think of at this point is that the current OS X does not support the chipsets and doesn't recognized the bus speeds. My guess is that's due to the new 975/ICH8 combination.
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RiceTea
RiceTea
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As pointed out by Mash, the Photoshop results seem pretty dubious.

 

Guess what:

 

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?...mp;pagenumber=1

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=23403

 

These use the Intel D975XBX and some unspecified Gigabyte 945 board. Interestingly enough, there are no suggestions of any problems what so ever. Neither the lack of recognition of the 1066 bus speed which Bearcat has been expecting nor the HPET related problem requiring the one core to be disabled:

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bofors
bofors
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As pointed out by Mash, the Photoshop results seem pretty dubious.

 

I think the difference is that the Windows version of Photoshop is not optimized for SSE3 with the OS X (PPC) version is optimized for AltiVec. As long as Rosetta efficiently translates from AltiVec to SSE3, which is now twice as fast with Core2Duo, these results are not unreasonable.

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Arcanis
Arcanis
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We will prolly get the annoying "waiting for root device" error on the 965 boards.

 

I'm currently selling my ECS 945G-M3 on another site and I'll buy an Asus P5B, it has a "JMicron PATA/SATA controller", as already pointed out, the 965 chipset doesn't offer native SATA support.

 

Does anyone know if the PATA to SATA adapters works on optical drives?

 

With that we could have troubleshotted the problem of lack of PATA support.

 

But I wonder if the ICH8 is simmilar to the ICH7 or we won't even get audio/sata support.

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Bearcat
Bearcat
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These use the Intel D975XBX and some unspecified Gigabyte 945 board. Interestingly enough, there are no suggestions of any problems what so ever. Neither the lack of recognition of the 1066 bus speed which Bearcat has been expecting nor the HPET related problem requiring the one core to be disabled:

This is excellent news.

 

When I did my little test a while ago, I used a disk with 10.4.4 on it. The article claims it used a 10.4.6 version. Something in the newer subsystems, have added support for these things.

 

All I can say is "WOW", makes me want to go out and spend about a 1000 bucks, lol

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RiceTea
RiceTea
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This would be very impressive indeed, the Conroe rocks!!

 

I think the difference is that the Windows version of Photoshop is not optimized for SSE3 with the OS X (PPC) version is optimized for AltiVec. As long as Rosetta efficiently translates from AltiVec to SSE3, which is now twice as fast with Core2Duo, these results are not unreasonable.
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bofors
bofors
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... as already pointed out, the 965 chipset doesn't offer native SATA support.

 

I think you mean PATA/IDE support.

 

We will prolly get the annoying "waiting for root device" error on the 965 boards.

...

But I wonder if the ICH8 is simmilar to the ICH7 or we won't even get audio/sata support.

 

I expect that Apple will adopt the 965 chipset for Macs and that these types of issues will be dealt with by an upcoming version of OS X, perhaps 10.4.8.

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