I know it's too early to tell, but what are peoples guesses as fas as these mobos/CPUs working with OSX86?

Gigabyte has a couple of X58 mobos that have me salivating & the lowest-priced Core i7 will be about $350:

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=22358

Well now that it's released, anyone with Core i7 that gets OSx86 running please let us know!

Can't wait!

Same. I had a look on the specs of the Asus P6T, seems to be promising if the CPU plays the same game. Intel ICH10R with ad2000b (Sound out is possible) and some marvell 88E8056 eth controller. Idk about the CPU, its kinda different then core2duo so osx might not work, maybe kernel panik, dont know.

we just got to wait until the real realease of those snazzy new cpus

bump. CPUs and motherboards are starting to show up for sale.

NewEgg now has RAM, CPUs & Mobos.
Config I'm looking at:

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 - $299
i7 920 - $320
G.Skill 6GB RAM Kit - $280
TOTAL - $899

OUCH!

$300 - $400 Mb's are ludicrous with the downturn in the economy, intel is forecasting big losses next Q and they're trying to sell ridiculously priced chipsets?

Mobos start at about $220. Which for a high end mobo, is not bad at all. The only reason why mobos that supported the core 2 duo were already in the $100 or so price range, was because Intel didn't introduce a new socket or platform. Where as with this, a new socket, plus support for new memory which hasen't hit low prices yet. The memory is one of the biggest reasons why lga775 and mobos all around are so cheap right now. It'll be awhile before this socket becomes easier and cheaper to manufactor.

Plus, you have to figure. SLI, and Crossfire stock. No modding needed, any x58 platform has 2 pcie2.0 slots.

That is not bad, many of us recycle our old case, power supply, and drives. A 9800GTX+ is under $200 (USD) now. so for ~$1100 you can have the latest board and processor. However, I would personally wait. I do not run Windows or Linux so I need compatibility with Mac OS. Plus pricing will be dropping soon enough.

Think i'm gonna hold off for a month or two

yeah, it all seems too iffy for me at this point
we still dont have anything beyond rumors that apple will adopt the core i7 over one of the other new chips slated to be launched in 2009.
core i7 seems too pricy for the iMac lineup, and thus far apple has used workstation processors for the lineup of mac pros

will be interesting to see how it all comes together, and what route apple takes

Hi,

I am looking for a new Hack....

Any thoughts on the new platform? Mainboards should be no problem, at least not the Ich10/r. But will the available kernels work with the I7?

Happy Hacking....

I'm going to go out on a limb here & guess that the new Core i7 CPUs won't be recognized yet by 10.5.5.
Probably have to wait until Apple release Mac Pros that have i7 based Xeons or iMacs with i7s that have updated version of OS X.

agreed

What exactly prevents us from using osx86 on i7? The instruction set is the same (or a superset). Problem is probably chipset drivers. i7 requires at least X58 chipset. You can install old XP on i7... if you have the chipset driver. Do we really have to wait for Apple, for Macworld expo in January... or even WWDC in June... to use osx86 on i7/X58?

Ordered this yesterday:
Core i7 920
Gigabyte EX58-UD5
12GB DDR3 1333MHz (6*2GB)
1TB Samsung F1
Sapphire Radeon 4870 512MB (still not supported?)
LG W3000H 30-inch LCD

I am going to run Vista 64-bit on it for now, but I could try installing OSX for kicks, QE/CI is only limited by the graphics card, right?

Well guys, if someone is up to guide me, I'll try when I get my new rig assembled.

I've been watching this thread every second and was about to say... if someone doesn't try this soon I will just order one myself and try it. Thanks MrKaizer. Can't wait to hear your results.

Thanks MrKaizer, go for it....

Graphics could be a problem, no driver so no acceleration, just vesa mode...

BUT GO FOR IT....;-)))

Good choice, this is probably the board to get for OSx86.

Post your OSx86 results ASAP... um... pretty please.

I would recommend a 9800 GTX board for graphics it's now officially supported with 10.5.5 thanks to the new laptop updates or if you really want ATI then a 3870

Well, regarding the 4870: This pc is not intended for OSX, and therefore I won´t buy an other graphics card. The fact that ATi´s drivers already is incorporating OpenCL-support should be promising enough...

While I find OSX to be a good alternative to Windows Vista on mobile platforms (I own both iPhone and Powerbook G4 12-inch), I am not sure on the desktop platform. I find the features I like with OSX to be too buggy for serious work. Example: Exposé/Spaces combined with Microsoft Office 2004/2008, Macromedia Fireworks 8 and so on. I need to be able to do my work without having to wrestle with my computer to have it to stay in the workspace I´m using OR spending multiple hours trying to fix errors Apple should have fixed a long time ago. Using the same amount of money on a card that performs worse in games now, and will perform worse in OpenCL later on (4870 has 1,2TFLOPS computing power...), just isn´t an option for a student like me. I´d like to have full OSX support, but then again: Only if it doesn´t come with too big sacrifices, and if I can´t cope with Vista/Win7 in the event the 4870 never gets drivers, I´ll just head out and pick up a HD2600PRO for $25... However, I really like much of the stuff OSX brings to the table, just so we are clear. I wouldn´t be spending time on Insanelymac if not, would I?

Anyway: This is not the discussion now, we want to find out whether or not EX58/i7 runs OSX properly, don´t we?

Exactly
The 4870 will run OS X just fine for now, without acceleration.
There's a good chance the 4870 will work perfectly in the future with OS X anyway, so go for it! You're breaking new ground!

Lol someone spent a few grand

I don't know how we got on this spin, the price of the i7 is very reasonable compared to the last couple Decembers when Intel only launched the EE versions of their new CPUs for $1000. Chill.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/new...ailywibble-2008 "Steven at Legion Hardware is knee-deep in Core i7 overclocking. The thing about the Core i7 is that it introduces a whole new set of variables to consider while overclocking, but Steven would have none of that and marched on to the 4GHz barrier with the i7 965EE, and a more impressive 3.8GHz with the i7 920... lots of value in that last one, we guess. Give it a read.

http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=790 "With a few easy steps, which we will show you shortly, it was possible to push the Core i7 920 processor to a remarkable frequency of 3.80GHz, an impressive 43% overclock. This 1140MHz boost in clock frequency per-core will naturally have a profound impact on performance, and this is what we want to show you. The Core i7 965 Extreme Edition processor was a little less impressive, going from an already high 3.20GHz clock frequency to 4.0GHz, achieving a 25% overclock."

So, the i7 920 is 40% more powerful per clock cycle. And it overclocks 40%. Do the math (1.4 x 1.4) and its basically twice as powerful as the old line, and it costs $300. Its out, the price is fair (OK, except for the RAM), and it overclocks nicely. Only question is...

...is what? ^^

Yeah, the MB and RAM is pricey, especially here in Norway after the Norwegian Krone (NOK) plunged against Euro and USD... Think the setup cost about USD3300 (with cabinet, mouse, keyboard etc.)


Do anyone have opinions of how far I should be able to clock the 920 on boxed cooler? I am considering to go with the Noctua-something for LGA1366 later on, but it would be interesting to know what to expect.

Status update on receiving HW:
- CPU is ready to pick up at the postal office
- Monitor and MB: Still in transit, MB possible ready to pick up tomorrow
- The rest: Not sent yet, will call tomorrow to find out what´s happening.

I have an ASUS P6T and an i7 920 on the way... not sure how long it'll take since I have to wait for shipping from the US to Japan but I'll post what I get when it gets here provided it doesn't blow up my house's tiny circuit box.

As far as cooling, I'm not sure I'd push it very far on the stock sink and fan... I personally ordered a Thermalright Ultra 120 with an LGA1366 bracket for mine along with a Noctua fan to mount on the fan bracket... FrozenCPU is one of the couple sites that have them but I think they might be out of stock now. Play it safe, spend the extra on a good sink and fan if you intend on overclocking... it's a lot more money wasted if it burns up.

The only question is if it runs osx86! Or do we have to wait until Macworld in January or WWDC in June for Apple to squeeze out 10.6 and/or hardware that uses i7.

Sorry about the NOK. Guess Intel doesn't sell many Extreme Edition CPU there since that would also cost $3000. I hear its pretty costly in Iceland too, but at least they have lots of snow there to cool it with... That said, I thought Norway was one of the richest countries in Europe thanks to its offshore oil wealth and in fact largely stayed out of the EU and EMU to hoard their riches, n'est pas?

I'd say why fool with the stock cooler when there are so many good alternatives available (plus quieter). http://legionhardware.com/document.php?id=790 is the first review I saw of OC the i7, maybe post your question there if its not already answered in the discussion there.

For what it is worth, I started posting this question about two months ago.

Netkas, who should know, said he thought OSx86 would run on x58 without a major problem.

So far I've tried an older 10.5.2 Kalyway disk on the Gigabyte GS-EX58-UD5 with an NVIDIA 8800GT. The DVD boots up and the install goes great, but very shortly after Mac OS starts to load, I get a black screen and immediate reboot. Thus far I'm not able to get in via safe mode or single user mode either. I'm going to try the install again tonight without the NVIDIA drivers chosen and see if I get better luck or trying a kernel other than vanilla. I'll also be on the hunt for a later install disk to see if that makes a difference.

Maybe try this technique http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=117834 which I think is basically more detail on the boot-132 approach here http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=113288

Also try to select options for a verbose boot with lots of messages and post info about where it dies.

SUCCESS!

Kalyway is up and running with the Kabyl 9.2.2 kernel! Core Image and Quartz Extreme all good.

Forgot to add the sounds drivers, so doing a quick reinstall to see if they'll work right off the DVD installer. It's a Realtek ALC889A chipset, so I'm hoping it works easily.

Onboard NICs working also.

@luh3417: Wow, that's a crazy process. I'll try to give that a whirl over the weekend.

Still no audio, and definitely some quirkiness in Mac OS reporting what it's seeing, but working well overall. I'll try getting the audio to work over the weekend probably, and post what I find. I'm also really excited to try the retail DVD method. Here's some screens of what Mac OS thinks it sees

I'm hoping to receive a i7 for christmas, will update then

Great, thanks for the report.

I noticed that only 4 cores are reported by OS X in Profiler.app, did you have HyperThreading turned off in BIOS?

My pleasure.
No, Hyperthreading is enabled and is detected fine by Vista.

So, does OS X see the 8 virtual cores at all?

Do they show up in ActivityMonitor.app?

Thanks again,
~bofors

Strangely enough, ActivityMonitor.app shows only 1 core.

Now that is really messed up.

I would probably run some command line diagnostics next.

I would also check in with real experts like Netkas and see what the plan for x58 is going to be.

Ok guys,

please run all the diagnostics, all cores running? Hows the speed with the i7? Any xbench, ibench, visualhub encoding time, cinebench would really be appreciated.

I have to buy a new rig and would really like to order a I7...

thanks

PoloBear,
So far it's only showing 1 core, but I'm finding performance to be amazing. I'm sure X58 drivers will make it out in due time and get everything working 100%. Intel has already said they've gotten Mac OS running on i7.
Attached is the xbench I just ran. Anecdotaly: it's the fastest system I've ever handled, bar none.
For anyone interested: I've been running some games on it for testing, and they've run perfectly with settings on full.
As I said before, the only issue I'm having is with sound, but since it's a common chipset (that's been working on other gigabyte boards) I'm fairly certain I just need to find the right implementation of the driver.
If there's any other tests/benchmarks you'd like me to run through for you, please let me know.

EDIT:
Front panel is working, but in my haste I forgot to change it in the Sound Preferences. There does seem to be some crackling though. I'm hoping the digital out works as well, I'll be testing that later. I'm still planning on dumping the codec through linux, which I'll post later. In the mean time, here's what I'm using for anyone who's using the GA-EX58-UD5.

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?act...st&id=37775

Cruisin Aruban...

Thanks for the Xbench. Last couple of months I switched my mainboard two or three times, and because of the sound problems, even after the Leopard updates I bought a creative Xfi-USB. So no more sound problems at all...

The I7 920 looks pretty good, its fast and compared to the C2Q9550 its also cheaper. But because of the mainboards and the new memory, the update is about €400.

Could be so kind to run cinebench. And if you are in overclocking, give the feed the monster and go to 3,4 and run the benchs again.....

OK, here's the cinebench. Of note: It detects 8 processors on it's own, which should mean that while the Mac OS reporting utilities don't know which end is up, the OS is presenting 8 cores (4 physical, 4 hyperthreaded) to the apps. This seems confirmed by the 4X multiprocessor speedup (though I'm admittedly no Cinebench expert).

CINEBENCH R10
****************************************************
Tester :
Processor : Quad Core Intel i7 920 (Added by me)
MHz : 2667 (Added by me)
Number of CPUs : 8
Operating System : OS X 32 BIT 10.5.2

Graphics Card : NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512 OpenGL Engine
Resolution : <fill this out>
Color Depth : <fill this out>

Rendering (Single CPU): 3497 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 14240 CB-CPU

Multiprocessor Speedup: 4.07

Shading (OpenGL Standard) : 7091 CB-GFX

@PoloBear: Thanks for the suggestion on the USB xfi. I've been hoping to find USB sound that worked. Also, this is my 1st system since a couple of oven-hot P4's, so my overclocking lingo is horribly old. 3,4?

So, it looks like I'll be putting off messing with the vanilla kernel this weekend. The power supply in my old system went up in smoke (literally) so this is my only system until I get that replaced. I'll still be happy to run any benchmarks and may still do some more audio testing.

With propper air cooling, the I7 920 should be able to reach 4ghz, only slight increase in core voltage. My overclocking showed me, that windows is more forgiving. I could get every q6600, q9300, c2d6400 primestable in windows, but for running osx, I had to increase processor speed.
My q9300 was running on XP at 3,5 GHz, OSX was possible with 3,2. Now I have a q6600 @3.1 which is capable of 3,6 on XP....


So for my computing needs, mainly visualhub, I am thinking of buying me a Macpro, but then the fun will be gone...no more overclocking, surfing insanelymac for new methods of hacking, no more SSD-Harddisk tryouts...
I have allready replaced my iphone 2G and bought me a Iphone 3G which robbed me the fun of jailbreaking.....

well, I dont know...

My cinebench results are

C2Q 6600 running at 3,1 GHz stock 8800gt

Rendering 1 CPU: 3180 CB-CPU
Rendering x CPU: 9260 CB-CPU
multiprocessor speedup 2.91 x

Opengl 5496 CB-GFX

My advice is to stick to Seasonic brand power supplies. The i7 is not a power hog...

...but if you want to overclock it it starts to use some watts. OC info: http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=790&p=2

HOLY SMOKES I7 runs OS X@!!!!@U#Y$*732y48!~~!!!


I guess Im getting i7 for christmas


I was actually thinking of going with the Asus P6T...I like the features better on the asus, especially the overclocking, is there any reason in particular to go with the gigabytes?

I like the Asus P6T, too, but I think it's an issue of more OSX86 compatible hardware. I'm not sure.

Both boards have the same Northbridge (duh) and Southbridge. SATA plus RAID support is handled via Southbridge (ICH10R). Differences are below:
ASUS:
• LAN: Marvell 88E8056
• Audio = ADI AD2000B
• Firewire = VIA VT6308
• SAS RAID = Marvell 88SE6320 (don't know about this)
• PATA and eSATA = Marvell 88SE6111 (don't know about this either, but doubt many would use it)

GIGABYTE:
• LAN: Realtek 8111D
• Audio: ALC 889A
- Firewire: TI TSB43AB23
• PATA: GIGABYTE SATA2 chip?? (
• Floppy drive (LOL!): iTE 8720


We'll leave it to Cruisin Aruban to get all the bugs worked out.

regards,
MAJ

I have this combo (Gigabyte) working from a retail install using Chameleon.

Vanilla kernel does not work, needed to use modbin, ICH10R is recognized and all aspects seem to be working well, used combo update to 10.5.5, no orange icons etc.

Only issue is shutdown and sleep not working correctly

Is it identifying your processor cores? Or just one?

no vanilla kernel? no sleep/shutdown

what method did you use to try the vanilla kernel?

EDIT: wait, isnt modbin for AMD CPUs????? that is possibly the reason for no shutdown/sleep.