Once and for all which is the best motherboard for osx86?

[indiekiduk]

Ok lets clear it up once and for all, which mobo should we buy. None of this audio doesnt work, ethernet doesnt work, core image doesnt work. Come on which intel motherboard with a GMA900 or GMA950 i.e. Core image working - is fully supported by osx86?

 

The reason I say on board graphics is I'm pretty sure no dedicated card is fully working yet and supports core image.

 

Thanks.

[bofors]

You can either go with some Intel D915 series with a GMA 900 or an Intel D945 with a GMA 950.

 

On the Intel D945's, you want one that has a SigmaTel 9220 (not the 9223) for better audio support. However, even with the 9220, audio has some issues: you have to use the 10.4.3 version of AppleHDA.kext and audio is limit to output-only, out the wrong port in the back. But it sounds fine.

 

I think some of the D915 boards have perfectly working audio, but I do not kow for sure. Check the HCL's.

[SupraCoup3]

The Shuttle SB86i barebones PC works awesome, it's a 915 chipset motherboard. With 10.4.6 everything is recognized, the LAN even works at gigabit speed.

 

Hex edit the mach_kernel and add the ACPI string and you've got a fully responsive dual boot OS X box.

 

SB68i Barebones: $199 (new egg)

Celeron Processor: ~$50

1 GB of RAM: $73 (PQI)

160 GB SATA: $64

Pioneer DVD Drive: $40

 

Total Price: $426 (plus shipping obviously)

 

Note: the 915 is a P4/Single Core chipset, it doesn't support Pentium D processors.

[palopalo]

100% recommendation:

 

Asus P5LD2-VM (newer P5LD2-VM DH should work as well).

Everything is supported. Only sound will need some workaround.

I didn't have to bother about sound because I use Soundsticks

which were detected immediately - every USB-Audio device

should work that easy.

 

To build a perfect system:

Asus P5LD2-VM

2 x 1 GB 667 Mhz RAM (or better 4x if you run Parallels AND Rosetta apps...)

a SATA 2 drive (WD drives run fast and are inexpensive, Raptor isn't worth the price)

a DVD Burner (I bought a Plextor PX-750A)

Pentium D930: The best value after Intel's price drop.

Chieftec Case: Inexpensive, enough room for drives, solid, no heat problems

a 400-450 Watt Power Supply (you never know...ah: and take care about having 4 SATA power connectors, this baby can eat up to 4 SATA 2 (300) drives)

if possible, buy a DVI ADD2 card

a FireWire PCI card

 

Then, overclock to 3.3 GHz with Asus BIOS dummy settings.

(I could get it to 3.76 GHz, but the system was not 100% stable over the day, running now at 3.62 100% stable) BUT: 3.3 GHz is really,really fine. Stock CPU cooler and fan run fine, because of ASUS fan control

on the board. You can even UNDERCLOCK the CPU a little bit, and switch the fan to SILENT mode in the bios.

No heat problems, very quiet. IF you don't overclock to more than 3.3, then you don't even need a case fan for the chieftec case (or any midi-tower case). THTAT'S why I say: 3.3 GHz is enough.The Pentium D920/930 processors are definetly a complete different CPU than 805-830. Don't buy them - they are old, use to much power, generate too much heat. Stories about overclocked 805s? I prefer a quiet and cool system.

 

What do you get?

 

Processor Power is about 30% better than iMac Core Duo 2.0 GHz

HD Speed is much better (with a good SATA 2 Drive) than an iMac, which is important for OS X

Graphics: If you are no gamer (I am not), then this GMA 950 is really fast! I only need 2D Acceleration and the GMA950 blows away my PowerMac Dual G5 1.8 graphic card (

With an DVI ADD2 Card, you have 1xDVI up to 1920x1200 and VGA up to 1920x1200 dual display support.

(I use a Dell 24" TFT and it runs great). Diabled Beam Sync: great UI speed improvement, no problems at all. Sound: If you have analog equipment, then fiddle a little bit with the AZALIA.KEXT thing. It's worth the work, because the board has HD Audio which sounds really good. Anyway - I prefer my HK soundsticks with iSUb via USB which worked right from the welcome screen.

The board can run as high as 1077 MHz, so the future is yours...

 

Myzar 10.4.5 works perfect as does Jas 10.4.6. You can stay on 10.4.5. No speed improvements and the security things don' bother me too much.

 

Tips:

Install DVD on primary IDE port, PATA IDE port (red) doesn't work

Install SATA drive on a SATA master port (you have 4 SATA ports)

When installing OS X, partition your hard drive as OS X then makes an MBR entry and booting is no problem. 2 partitions are fine. If you want to boot OS X from two different SATA drives, then make sure that the second drive is also on the (second) MASTER connector.

When mounting the CPU fan, don't push too hard. Nor brute force needed here!

If anything went wrong (bad cooling, the MB AND the CPU have emergency shutdown options.

When starting BIOS first the first time, watch the CPU temperature. At standard 3.0 GHz it should be UNDER 50 degrees Celsius (40-45). An don't forget: if you stay 3.3 which is more than enough, you don't need a special CPU fan because the default setup stay really quiet.

One more thing: Don't buy {censored} RAM. I use 1GB from Crucial and they ran easily at approx. 800 MHz

On the other hand: Don't buy expensive GEIL HYPER TURBO GIGA WHATEVER. We are cool Mac guys, not kiddy-{censored}-game-nerd-overclockers. 3.3 GHz is enough.

 

I am very happy with this setup. The machine runs quiet - speed, os x and app support are perfect.

I wanted Parallels to run on it, so a D930 with VT is perfect. I installed Win 2000 on an IDE drive, too - just in case if I want to do a BIOS update or use speciual hardware utilities. I never saw a faster windows box!

But hey, I am a Mac guy...so the AMD boyz out there will grin themselves to dead

 

Cheers

 

Rudi

 

Asus P5LD2-VM

Pentium D930@3.62GHz

CPU Temp@50deg.celsius

System Bus@967MHz

2 GB Crucial@640MHz (or so...)

1xWD Raptor

1xWD SATA2 Drive

1xPlextor DVD RW

100%happy

[u1m2]

The Shuttle SB86i barebones PC works awesome, it's a 915 chipset motherboard. With 10.4.6 everything is recognized, the LAN even works at gigabit speed.

 

Hex edit the mach_kernel and add the ACPI string and you've got a fully responsive dual boot OS X box.

 

How do you do that exactly? Is it in the wiki, it's been a while I checked the wiki...

[SupraCoup3]

How do you do that exactly? Is it in the wiki, it's been a while I checked the wiki...

 

 

http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?s=...ndpost&p=111481

 

and for changing the machine name (ShuttleMac anyone?):

 

Depending on which DVD you installed from, it may say something like jMac or Apple Developer.

 

Open:

/System/Library/SystemProfiler/SPPlatformReporter.spreporter/Contents/Resources/SPMachineTypes.plist

 

You will see a list of all supported computers and it's description.

 

Look for:

<key>ADP2,1</key>

<string>What ever you want to call it</string>

 

 

back on topic: anyone else know some good motherboards? the 915 is nice, but how about some dual core bad boys?

[palopalo]

See my post No.4

[iMacME]

i'd say everything palopalo says except i'd vote for the Pentium D 805. best bang for the buck and it was a hell of a lot cheaper. but with recent Intel price drops, not sure how much difference it is now. i'm also using DDR2-533 memory which is offers further price savings. all this O/C at 3.3ghz stable with stock cooling.

[cardinal]

Graphics: If you are no gamer (I am not), then this GMA 950 is really fast! I only need 2D Acceleration and the GMA950 blows away my PowerMac Dual G5 1.8 graphic card (

With an DVI ADD2 Card, you have 1xDVI up to 1920x1200 and VGA up to 1920x1200 dual display support.

(I use a Dell 24" TFT and it runs great).

 

Asus P5LD2-VM

Pentium D930@3.62GHz

CPU Temp@50deg.celsius

System Bus@967MHz

2 GB Crucial@640MHz (or so...)

1xWD Raptor

1xWD SATA2 Drive

1xPlextor DVD RW

100%happy

 

Can you please clarify the bit about 1920x1200 (I have a Dell 24" as well). I am concerned with GMA 950 ability to drive this monitor through DVI. I understand I would need an add-on card for that, but a couple that I found on the net seem to support 1600x1200 max. Can you confirm 1920x1200 and say which card exactly you are using (and where one might find one, as it seems that such cards are not very common).

 

I am planning on getting a setup just like yours. I would also be running Aperture or Lightbox, and I understand that they are greatly aided by fast graphics cards to render non-destructive editing quickly. Have you tried either of these and how was the performance? Slowness of GMA 950 and lack of likelyhood that fast graphics cards would run properly on this machine given lack of EFI is what is holding me back from building one.

 

Other then sound being a little mixed up, and inability to directly apply Apple's OS patches, and possibility that future versions of OS X might not work at all, is there anything else that looked/worked differently on this machine then on a stock Mac? I just wonder if there are things that people on this board take for granted, but newcomers don't know (say, sleep doesn't work the same, or control panel options for something are not working so it requires editing of config files, etc)

 

Thanks.

[palopalo]

Can you please clarify the bit about 1920x1200 (I have a Dell 24" as well). I am concerned with GMA 950 ability to drive this monitor through DVI. I understand I would need an add-on card for that, but a couple that I found on the net seem to support 1600x1200 max. Can you confirm 1920x1200 and say which card exactly you are using (and where one might find one, as it seems that such cards are not very common).

 

I am planning on getting a setup just like yours. I would also be running Aperture or Lightbox, and I understand that they are greatly aided by fast graphics cards to render non-destructive editing quickly. Have you tried either of these and how was the performance? Slowness of GMA 950 and lack of likelyhood that fast graphics cards would run properly on this machine given lack of EFI is what is holding me back from building one.

 

Other then sound being a little mixed up, and inability to directly apply Apple's OS patches, and possibility that future versions of OS X might not work at all, is there anything else that looked/worked differently on this machine then on a stock Mac? I just wonder if there are things that people on this board take for granted, but newcomers don't know (say, sleep doesn't work the same, or control panel options for something are not working so it requires editing of config files, etc)

 

Thanks.

 

Clarification: I am currently running the 24" dell on the VGA port. I ordered the ASUS DVI ADD2 card at my online dealer - nobody has it in stock here in Germany. As the card is just a kind of loop-through I can imagine that the limitation to 1600x1200 might apply to the GMA 900. The card is officially built for both GMA950 and GMA900. We have to wait until it arrives and this might take some time...

 

To be honest: I don't count on my machine's future. I built it to test the speed against my G5 DP 1.8 and to see how Parallels is running. I wanted OS X AND WIN on the same machine due to my work, MacBench scores are aorund 130 but this is nothing about real world "feelings" which are 100% good. All native software runs FASTER than PowerPC code on the G5 DP 1.8. The G5 will live his life as an Adobe machine from now on. My core machine is the D930 PC. For me this PC is just a gap filler until the next generation Mac towers arrive. I am sure, that Apple will deliver great performance at a good price. The relationship between Apple and Intel looks very encouraging. Apple may constantly be 3-6 months ahead of the component industry which is enough for marketing purposes and "feelings". I don't want to spend my time on fiddling around with PC components and drivers. That's why I built THIS PC and didn't use other approaches from this (GREAT!) forum.

 

I just use it as it is. It runs fast and quiet and - as any other Mac I owned the last 15 years - it will be replaced by a newer Mac. The decision was easier to make because I can use this PC as very very good server in my environment: 4 possible SATA Drives. Raw Power for a good database and file server and AMP. This kind of setup doesn't like system updates anyway...

 

Aperture: Well newest infos indicate that the MacBook is running aperture and it uses the GMA950. So technically, this should be fine. But we will have to wait for real world tests. There is no demo available so I can not test it for you. In my opinion Aperture has a lot of room for speed improvements. The hardware requirements are too high - they will decrease in future, optimized versions.

 

At the end: See it as a professional. You build a PC now. You want to use certain software now. If you are happy with this, then do it. But forget the future possibilities. Using a PC like this for one year as a professional should be enough for being worth the money, but not the extra time.

 

If you compare the total costs, Apple will always look much better than some people may think:

 

We both own a 24" Dell display...so that one is just sitting on our desk.

 

Home made (quality!) PC with my board 2GB RAM/160GB SATA is around 700 USD

+ Firewire, Bluetooth, Wireless, Apple USB Kex/Mouse, DVI ADD2, 17 inch wide screen display = 1100 USD

 

iMac Core Duo 17" with self mounted 2GB of RAM and MiniDVI to DVI adaptor is around 1400 USD

 

Let's say that OS X is worth 100 bucks, he? And the iMacs ATI x1600 accounts for 100 USD more value than the GMA950.

 

What do we get? 1400/1300: 100 USD more for a future-proof real mac, full HW support and warranty.

I needed 4GB of RAM and 2 faster HDs. The system runs about 30% faster than the iMac. I can replace HDs easily. I can use it as a server in the future. That was my decision.

 

It's up to you.

[coolio2004]

@palopalo- thank you for your detailed informations about your system. I intend to build a comparable PC to yours. Perhaps we can share experients in native language (german ?).

 

Coolio

[bofors]

100% recommendation:

 

Asus P5LD2-VM (newer P5LD2-VM DH should work as well).

 

Thanks for bring this up, consider the overclocking potential of the 805, the Asus P5LD2-V (note it is supposed to overclock better than the P5LD2-VM) may be a good choice too: http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=17328

 

 

Otherwise, we seriously need a Wikipage on this topic. It just comes up over and over again. Perhaps someone here would like to start one: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

 

This could be an independent page with links on the HCL and FAQ pages

[cardinal]

Thank you, palopalo, for detailed reply. I find myself having a hard time deciding between these options (I currently have 24" LCD, a linux file server and a windows machine, 1gb lan):

 

- Get a MacBook, upgrade ram to 2gb, access bulk of the data over gblan. Slow video. ~ $1500

- Get mobo/cpu/ram and retrofit my PC to Hackintosh. Probably just a temporary solution as Apple might tighten security. Slow video. ~$500

- Wait for PowerMac $$$$. Will likely ofer little or no benefit over above solution performance wise, even with new generation of chips, in initial release, but future proof. ~$2500

 

I'll probably just spend the $500 (this will be my first Mac since the Classic), and see how things pan out this fall with new CPUs, new desktops, Intel binaries of Adobe software and 10.5. I do some freelance web development, which works fine on my PC, so this is not a business need, and hard to justify expense of PowerMac. It is just that... OH GOD I WANT A SHINY NEW POWERMAC.

 

I think I'll just wait for a bit to see if there is any advance on EFI front, so I can decide if I should get Asus (for overclocking) or Intel (for EFI). Or wait for Asus to come out with EFI board, or... sigh.

[XNT]

Get this Mobo:

 

MSI 915GVM6-L

 

Works Out of the box with JaS 10.4.6:

 

Core Image + Quartz Extreme (GMA 900)

Sound (Realtek ALC655)

Network (Realtek RTL8100C)

 

3x PCI

4x Sata I

1x IDE

1 x serial port

1 x parallel port

4 x USB 2.0

1 x LAN RJ45 10/100

1 x VGA

1 x line in

1 x audio out

1 x mic in

 

Its Sockett 775

 

Works like a charm here with my Celeron D 3,06 Ghz and 2 Gig's of DDRII :whistle:

[cardinal]

MSI 915GVM6-L

 

Works Out of the box with JaS 10.4.6:

 

Core Image + Quartz Extreme (GMA 900)

Sound (Realtek ALC655)

Network (Realtek RTL8100C)

 

How about sound? I know ASUS P5LD2-V sound only works from line-in and requires some kext trickery to even get that far.

[XNT]

How about sound? I know ASUS P5LD2-V sound only works from line-in and requires some kext trickery to even get that far.

 

Thats where the fun part comes in to town:

 

No Kext editing required, I just clean installed JaS 10.4.6. right off on my Maxtor Sata 160 Gig ,

 

Just plugged my speakers to the Green Jack for speakers and it works great

Microphone works as it was ment to be as Microphone in (The pink jack)

Line in not tested yet but it shows up in the system preferences (The blue jack)

[cardinal]

Thats where the fun part comes in to town:

 

No Kext editing required, I just clean installed JaS 10.4.6. right off on my Maxtor Sata 160 Gig ,

 

Just plugged my speakers to the Green Jack for speakers and it works great

Microphone works as it was ment to be as Microphone in (The pink jack)

Line in not tested yet but it shows up in the system preferences (The blue jack)

 

I assume this requires sticking to 915G chipset? Is complete audio support available on any 945G-based boards?

[XNT]

I assume this requires sticking to 915G chipset? Is complete audio support available on any 945G-based boards?

About 945G-based boards I have no idea if the work or not but i guess 915G chipsets will work with the same audio chipset

[cardinal]

I assume this requires sticking to 915G chipset? Is complete audio support available on any 945G-based boards?

 

To answer my own question, I was able to find one 945G board with Realtek ALC882 sound: Gigabyte GA-8I945GMF. I don't know quality and overclocking options on this board, but it may be better then Asus alternative for sound reasons alone. Wiki has very little info on this board.

 

I am narrowing the choice of boards down to:

 

ASUS P5LD2-VM

Gigabyte GA-8I945GMF

Intel 945G based boards

 

I will try to summarize the differences in the next couple of days as I investigate further.

[indiekiduk]

Thanks please do summarise your findings. The GA-8I945GMF is looking good, kinda would like DVI tho.

[Stander]

Hello,

 

 

one quick question...

 

would I be able to work in Adobe Photoshop & Indesign in 1600x1200@85Hz

with that onboard GMA900 or GMA950 intel graphics cards ?

 

thank you!

[shuttle]

100% recommendation:

 

Asus P5LD2-VM (newer P5LD2-VM DH should work as well).

Everything is supported. Only sound will need some workaround.

I didn't have to bother about sound because I use Soundsticks

which were detected immediately - every USB-Audio device

should work that easy.

 

To build a perfect system:

Asus P5LD2-VM

2 x 1 GB 667 Mhz RAM (or better 4x if you run Parallels AND Rosetta apps...)

a SATA 2 drive (WD drives run fast and are inexpensive, Raptor isn't worth the price)

a DVD Burner (I bought a Plextor PX-750A)

Pentium D930: The best value after Intel's price drop.

Chieftec Case: Inexpensive, enough room for drives, solid, no heat problems

a 400-450 Watt Power Supply (you never know...ah: and take care about having 4 SATA power connectors, this baby can eat up to 4 SATA 2 (300) drives)

if possible, buy a DVI ADD2 card

a FireWire PCI card

 

Then, overclock to 3.3 GHz with Asus BIOS dummy settings.

(I could get it to 3.76 GHz, but the system was not 100% stable over the day, running now at 3.62 100% stable) BUT: 3.3 GHz is really,really fine. Stock CPU cooler and fan run fine, because of ASUS fan control

on the board. You can even UNDERCLOCK the CPU a little bit, and switch the fan to SILENT mode in the bios.

No heat problems, very quiet. IF you don't overclock to more than 3.3, then you don't even need a case fan for the chieftec case (or any midi-tower case). THTAT'S why I say: 3.3 GHz is enough.The Pentium D920/930 processors are definetly a complete different CPU than 805-830. Don't buy them - they are old, use to much power, generate too much heat. Stories about overclocked 805s? I prefer a quiet and cool system.

 

What do you get?

 

Processor Power is about 30% better than iMac Core Duo 2.0 GHz

HD Speed is much better (with a good SATA 2 Drive) than an iMac, which is important for OS X

Graphics: If you are no gamer (I am not), then this GMA 950 is really fast! I only need 2D Acceleration and the GMA950 blows away my PowerMac Dual G5 1.8 graphic card (

With an DVI ADD2 Card, you have 1xDVI up to 1920x1200 and VGA up to 1920x1200 dual display support.

(I use a Dell 24" TFT and it runs great). Diabled Beam Sync: great UI speed improvement, no problems at all. Sound: If you have analog equipment, then fiddle a little bit with the AZALIA.KEXT thing. It's worth the work, because the board has HD Audio which sounds really good. Anyway - I prefer my HK soundsticks with iSUb via USB which worked right from the welcome screen.

The board can run as high as 1077 MHz, so the future is yours...

 

Myzar 10.4.5 works perfect as does Jas 10.4.6. You can stay on 10.4.5. No speed improvements and the security things don' bother me too much.

 

Tips:

Install DVD on primary IDE port, PATA IDE port (red) doesn't work

Install SATA drive on a SATA master port (you have 4 SATA ports)

When installing OS X, partition your hard drive as OS X then makes an MBR entry and booting is no problem. 2 partitions are fine. If you want to boot OS X from two different SATA drives, then make sure that the second drive is also on the (second) MASTER connector.

When mounting the CPU fan, don't push too hard. Nor brute force needed here!

If anything went wrong (bad cooling, the MB AND the CPU have emergency shutdown options.

When starting BIOS first the first time, watch the CPU temperature. At standard 3.0 GHz it should be UNDER 50 degrees Celsius (40-45). An don't forget: if you stay 3.3 which is more than enough, you don't need a special CPU fan because the default setup stay really quiet.

One more thing: Don't buy {censored} RAM. I use 1GB from Crucial and they ran easily at approx. 800 MHz

On the other hand: Don't buy expensive GEIL HYPER TURBO GIGA WHATEVER. We are cool Mac guys, not kiddy-{censored}-game-nerd-overclockers. 3.3 GHz is enough.

 

I am very happy with this setup. The machine runs quiet - speed, os x and app support are perfect.

I wanted Parallels to run on it, so a D930 with VT is perfect. I installed Win 2000 on an IDE drive, too - just in case if I want to do a BIOS update or use speciual hardware utilities. I never saw a faster windows box!

But hey, I am a Mac guy...so the AMD boyz out there will grin themselves to dead

 

Cheers

 

Rudi

 

Asus P5LD2-VM

Pentium D930@3.62GHz

CPU Temp@50deg.celsius

System Bus@967MHz

2 GB Crucial@640MHz (or so...)

1xWD Raptor

1xWD SATA2 Drive

1xPlextor DVD RW

100%happy

 

 

Rudi,

 

I need to ask one question concerning the DVI ADD2 card. You talk about the dual display in which the DVI works with the VGA. Is the VGA connection already on the motherboard? (I know this is a somewhat silly question but I just wanted to be clear in my head).

 

A small extension to the original post is which graphics card would work with your recommended rig? (a card which could be added with the least amount of tinkering). If there is one then the DVI ADD2 card would in essence be the graphics card and therefore negate the need to buy the DVI ADD2. Am I correct? Would a graphics card added to your recommend specs improve the performance of video editing programs (final cut pro)?

 

Hope you can help?

[aberracus]

My mobo is awesome in FCP, it blows the QUAD G5 i have tested the benchmarks, and tried a G% Qyad personally in an Apple Store...

 

 

look my signature for details.

 

The only thing isnt working yet is the second monitor,

 

0 Artifacts in video btw with ATI x1600XT

 

 

Some tinkering needed

 

But iam very very happy

[indiekiduk]

I found another bunch of 945G motherboards here:

http://indigo.intel.com/mbsg/results.aspx?...0&aryAttrID=157

 

Foxconn 945G7MA-8KS2

Foxconn 945G7MA-8EKRS2

MSI 945G Neo2

MSI 945GM2 Series

[cardinal]

My mobo is awesome in FCP, it blows the QUAD G5 i have tested the benchmarks, and tried a G% Qyad personally in an Apple Store...

look my signature for details.

 

The only thing isnt working yet is the second monitor,

 

0 Artifacts in video btw with ATI x1600XT

Some tinkering needed

 

But iam very very happy

 

In your sig you say that you system is fully supported. Please clarify if:

 

- You have sound working with input

- Can sleep and wake up

- Get DVI out of your x1600

 

I'm looking for a setup that can fix above issues.