Jump to content

Best haswell motherboard


7 posts in this topic

Recommended Posts

Guys,

If Money is not an object; What is the best (BEST PERFORMANCE and futuristic )  Hackintosh motherboard I can buy?

Uses:
   Overclocking & Virtual Machines ( daily )
   Gaming on Windows 8 ( regular )
   XCode / Photoshop & Flash ( regular )
   Media / File Server ( daily )
   Occasional 3D Rendering / Video encoding( 3/4 times a year )

thanks in advance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I defer to RPD's superior judgment in this case - however, if price is no object then why not get a board that supports the new Xeon E3-12xx series? That is, after all, the only Haswell based Xeon on the market right now - you'd have to go with the standard i3, i5, or i7 for other Haswell boards - and the best part is that any board you get that'll support the E3 will support the standard i3, i5, or i7 chips as well... You did say price was no object: Proc / MB .  I am sure there are others, but that was just a quick search. I chose the H87 chipset because of built in RAID, but your mileage may vary. Also, as Haswell matures, more boards will support the E3, and even some boards that are out now will support it in the future with firmware updates. Here is a killer board that isn't E3 certified as of yet and probably doesn't have OSX support for some of its guts. Have you considered an IvyBridge MB? Yes I know its so last spring, but its tried, true and tested, and about as stable as you can get. Also, don't forget the X79 that was recently upgraded to IvyBridge-E.

 

And again, I'll reiterate that MB and GPU choices are very dependent upon personal preference. Some people like the challenge of getting an AMD to work with 10.8.4, others just want it to work OTB. I have a soft spot for ASRock boards, others like Gigabyte. Nobody likes biostar that values their sanity... Fortunately, whichever path you take, there are lots of resources at the top of the forum that you can use to help you along.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I defer to RPD's superior judgment in this case - however, if price is no object..... .............. ...... others like Gigabyte. Nobody likes biostar that values their sanity... Fortunately, whichever path you take, there are lots of resources at the top of the forum that you can use to help you along.

 

thanks for your advice. Money is not an object as this is a long cherished dream machine for me, I however have other challenges.

I am from India, and many of the high end stuff are not available here and sometimes if I import it, I may not have the warranty here. Also, I have already ordered a 4770K. Its already in the courier office, will get it tomorrow (I might be able to cancel it until then).

 

I agree with your thoughts about the Xeon, however since this is a personal/home rig - I would never need the Xeons. Now, I have been thinking about Ivy Bridge; Also, was very much interested in the 64GB RAM capability,  I think it would be interesting to create 40GB RamDisk with a RAID-6 for persistence.

 

But, I wanted maximum hackintosh compatibility as I use OS X as my day to day OS. (already have a macbook, etc..) - So, I thought LGA1150 is safer than LGA2011, for the power management, etc.

 

Also, does the RAID support vary with H87 / Z87 ? Is the H87 bios raid usable in hackintosh ? I am planning to get an Areca RAID card for native OS X support.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like the new Asus Z87 Sabertooth and the MATX one as well. Nice little board that looks good and can OC like a champ. 

 

Other then that all the boards for Haswell are basically the same and lacking separation from each other at this time. 

 

Also as for LGA 2011 support you are very much mis-guided. Everything works fine on LGA 2011 and you can run 10.6.3-10.9 without any issues. PM works with NullCPU install under 10.8 and under 10.9 with a patched AICPM.kext it works without NullCPU. If you want a amazing system then LGA 2011 is the way to go. Also 64 GB of ram support is academic for LGA 2011 as that is what I have had for a long time now... 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you already have the Haswell chip, then as RPD pointed out, that Asus Sabertooth is a pretty sweet board. Again, I'm showing my bias here but its a great option. Agreed with RPD that there just isn't a lot of separation right now between the boards - when you look on a site like newegg, there are more than twice the IvyBridge boards than Haswell... This will change with time... I suggest Asus, ASRock, Gigabyte or MSI - and pick a more top of the line one as these will most likely come with improvements for features and stability and overclock improvements with firmware (BIOS) updates. Not sure about native support for RAID in OSX on the H versus Z series - I just know that the H has it, the Z sometimes has it, and the Z is more geared towards performance - i.e. overclocking.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, based on the availably here and the features, I am looking at these motherboards:

 

ASRock Z87 OC Formula

ASRock Z87 OC Formula/ac

ASRock Z87 Extreme9

ASRock Z87 Extreme9/ac

Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC  ( Obviously, will not need a patch, etc. )

 

I am really really interested in the AsRock boards(especially the formula). So I have two questions..

At least with a Patch, what is the probability of getting hackintosh set up on the OC Formula / Extreme9 ?

 

Also, any idea about the Bluetooth and WiFi chipsets used in their AC versions? Are they supported in OS X ? If not, AC versions are off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...