Ryanux Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 Hi Everyone, I've read a lot of topics out there, but some say that, and some others say the opposite ... I just want to know, what is the best motherboard for a conroe ma os x86 system right now?? When i say "best" this means that it should work properly without installing patches or other stuff. Edit : For the moment, our great winner is : Asrock Conroe945G-DVI ! Everything works "out of the box" but : - The Sound : Editing 2 lines in a file > Fully Working - The Lan : you have to buy a 5€ cost lan card with a realtek 8931 chipset - You have to buy a firewire pci card, cause it lacks 1394 ports, but this is not required if you don't need it Thanks ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted August 31, 2006 Author Share Posted August 31, 2006 anybody has the answer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mifki Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 Umm, i have a D975XBX, works good, sound need s to be patched tho. havent tried it witjh conroe yet- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted September 1, 2006 Author Share Posted September 1, 2006 yeah, but it's very expensive and not totaly compatible though ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snikx Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 A low-cost option is ASUS P5LD2-VM/C (conroe compatible). You've got 945G (with Intel 950 fully supported CI & QE), Intel gigabit internet fully recognized and azalia audio also recognized (after patching). There is also Asrock conroe with an Realtek ethernet adapter (recognized?) instead of INTEL... Hope it helps. My config: - P5LD2 VM/C - E6300 - 250 Gb SATA - 2x1Gb CORSAIR DDR2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiceTea Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 That´s about the rig I´m looking for too. Did you try to overclock your mobo and how far did you get? My config:- P5LD2 VM/C - E6300 - 250 Gb SATA - 2x1Gb CORSAIR DDR2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snikx Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 I'am still on this !! (For now this is my biggest disapointment with this MB) For now, I can't get more than 275Mhz of FSB, otherwise it doesn't boot !! I have to work on this because i see everody working their E6300 at 333Mhz (1:1 ratio) without a problem and I CAN'T !!! I'am running Bios 901 and ASUS provide a beta bios (902), maybe it will help..... I don't know if it's related to this particular Mobo or to the 945G.... I will keep you inform about the OC and the bench... (I plan to run several bench between my PPC Ibook G4 and my new hackintosh... For now, it's much much faster !!!! even if not OC) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobNyc Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 I think ASUS is the best IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted September 1, 2006 Author Share Posted September 1, 2006 yeah, i knew that! p5LD2 is the perfect mobo for a hackintosh 100% compatible system, but the way that OC is impossible makes it uninteresting for me! Conroes are such a wonderful cpus for overclocking ... the asrock is cheaper, gets the same performance and is more overclockable (299mhz) but the onboard LAN doesnt work ... you can simply add a pci lan card, its cost is small and then you have a 100% compatible system. The problem with it is that Overclocking is really important to me, and the 945 is not that good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TopazBar Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 Why is it limited to 299mhz? what limit it? Hardware or BIOS? If it is bios, maybe we can ask to unlimit it. I have this mobo and it rocks (just love that CI+QE). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snikx Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 Why is it limited to 299mhz? what limit it? Hardware or BIOS? If it is bios, maybe we can ask to unlimit it. I have this mobo and it rocks (just love that CI+QE). do you have OC'ed yours ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted September 1, 2006 Author Share Posted September 1, 2006 Why is it limited to 299mhz? what limit it? Hardware or BIOS? If it is bios, maybe we can ask to unlimit it. I have this mobo and it rocks (just love that CI+QE). I don't know, i dont have one (not yet) but i read it 2 or 3 times... don't know what makes it limited to 299mhz it's just that people can't go further. Have you tried it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
macssam Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 I finally got my 6600 I'm still waiting for: ASUS P5WDH Deluxe, 975X, FSB1066,Audio,1394,RAID,GLAN I heard you can NOT turn off Wireless LAN in BIOS and have to do it through windoz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted September 1, 2006 Author Share Posted September 1, 2006 What about the P5B VM? it would be a great card : - 965P - X3000 - µATX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wondergod Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 depends what you need: the 945 chipset was not originally built for the conroe so it doesn't support the full FSB speeds the conroe makes possible. It is good to note these boards usually have great compatibility with OSx86. I have a gigabyte GA-8I945GZME-RH and everything works on it usb,sata,ethernet, and video the 965 chipset also supports conroe but I think this one might have some compatibility issues...(not sure) the 975 chipset is built with conroe in mind so it supports full FSB plus has great compatibility however its usually more pricey than others... there are other 3rd party chipsets that support it however those probably would take alot more work to get half of it working... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted September 2, 2006 Author Share Posted September 2, 2006 Wow the GA-8I945GZME-RH seems to be a very good cad for building a hackintosh ... What is the difference between the 945G and 945GZ ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TopazBar Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 do you have OC'ed yours ? No, not yet. I will eventually get around to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark_Elf Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 I have an Asus A8V Deluxe (so an AMD system) and I got everything working with the appropriate patches: LAN Audio (2 channells) All USB ports Firewire I didn't test SATA because I have only ATA133 HDs (I had bad experiences with a SATA HDs) Now I waiting for an ATI Radeon X1600 Pro PCI-E, so I will change my mobo with an Asus A8V-E. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROXR Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 I have a Gigabyte P965-DS4, and work well, but it have two problems, first the sound ALC883 not work (I can't find the codes vendor etc for patch), second: the IDE controller is not into ICH8, it is into an special chip gigabyte, because this CD rom and DVD not work under OS X, one possible solution for it is use an DVD SATA. The serial ATA HD work well and the ethernet Marvell also work well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROXR Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Hello The first problem is solvented, I found the codes of audio ALC883 and it work. this is 284b8086 the procedure: (I copied ) 1) Delete AppleHDA.kext: In Terminal, type: sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions.mkext sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions.kextcache 2) Edit AppleAzaliaAudio.kext: In Terminal, type: sudo pico /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAzaliaAudio.kext/Contents/info.plist Search for (use hotkey= ctrl + w): <key>IOHDAudioCodecVendorID</key> change the string to: <string>0x10ec0883</string> Exit pico sudo pico /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAzaliaAudio.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleAzaliaController.kext/Contents/Info.plist Search for (use hotkey= ctrl + w): <key>IOPCIPrimaryMatch</key> change the string to: <string>0x284b8086</string> Exit pico 3) Clean up the system: In Terminal, type: sudo diskutil repairpermissions / sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAzaliaAudio.kext kextcache -k /System/Library/Extensions/ 4) Then, reboot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted September 3, 2006 Author Share Posted September 3, 2006 this is great information for those who wants a powerful Mobo for their conroe ... But the IDE/ICH8 problem is a big one, it's not easy to find a sata DVDRW... Maybe it would be supported soon with the upcoming apple upgrade, and the (hopefuly) P965 included in the new imacs or 965G with X3000 on mac minis and macbooks. For the moment i think the most compatible mobo with best results is the Asrock Conroe945G-DVI it just have a LAN problem which can be solved by buying a pci lan card @ 5€ , the 945 is performing equally with 965 & 975 in all benchs, its only problem is that overclocking is not huge ... Dark_Elf > Great news for AMD fans (i'm one of them, but i had too much problems with my DFI Lanparty Nf4 & Gigabyte 6600) but we'll keep on Intel based systems only because of AMD systems will always need patches & other stuff while intel is natively supported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rainman01 Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 The Asrock Conroe945G-DVI seemed like a good choice for me at first glance, but now I'm not so sure as it lacks firewire and s/pdf out. Overclocking is really abysmal even though over at ocworkbench.com they were able to get it to 320mhz FSB (see one of the news items, it's not in the original article). There's a recent review of the board over at anandtech also. Considering people are able to OC the E6300 to over 3.5Ghz (that's > 500mhz FSB!) on the asus P5B (on aircooling only!), the Conroe945G-dvi just pales in comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
passport Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 The 945G-DVI does seem kinda pale in comparison but even at 300 mHZ fsb the 6400 I'm running it puts an AMD X2 4200 @ 2.65 gHZ system in the dust. The system runs cool and quite and is compatible enough to run everything I've thrown at it without any drama. I do have a old firewire board and an Intel MT/1000 board in the system to round things out. For the money I've spent I'm very happy with the results not to mention the desktop real estate I've reclaimed by going to a matx system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aberracus Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 im buying a Gigabyte ga-945p-s3 if its half the ga-965-s3 it gonna rock! i have read both manual and the overclock options appear almost identical.... will see.. soon... keep you informed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryanux Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 Aberracus > I don't think that you can do the same as the ga965-s3 because the limitation of these mobos seems to be the 945 and not the bios as there's no 945 that overclocks well as i know ... 320mhz FSB is a good enhancement, sure it's not a p5b but the price isn't the same anymore, and the asrock offers a GMA950 which is "out of the box" and running very well in 2D environnement with QE/CI and people like me who won't play find that it's a great feature ... The lack of firewire sucks, but as passport said, you can plug in a pci device and then you have a fully compatible mac os system, totally stable, very cheap (not only the mobo itself, but also the GMA950 that keeps you from buying a graphic card in most cases) and with average overclocking! when you buy a "real" mac you don't ask for overclocking don't you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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