Motherboard Buying Recommendations

[Ryan Rhee]

Hi all,

 

I currently am running GA-EP45-UD3R, vanilla kernel, Leo 10.5.8.

I'm running RAID 10 with 4 hard drives, os x software raid.

I'm using 1x eVGA 8800 GT card and two monitors.

 

I want to run 4-port SATA hardware raid.

I have two monitors and two eVGA 8800 GT cards, and would like to use both video cards (one card for one monitor, planning on adding a third monitor soon).

 

My current motherboard only has one PCI-e x16 slot, which limits me to one video card.

In addition, there are no hardware raid cards with four SATA ports that fit into a PCI-e x1 or PCI slot. I need the single PCI-e x16 slot for the video card, which means I cannot have hardware RAID. This also means I have no hot-swap capabilities for my RAID.

 

I have a eVGA 680i.

 

1. This is the first motherboard I had, but OS X wouldn't run stably. There are 3 PCI-e x16 slots, but I can't boot the computer without a video card in PCI-e x16 slot #0, which means I can't get the PCI root address on the second PCI-e x16 slot. The PCI root is required to generate the gfxstring, which means I can't have a correctly loaded video card on the second PCI-e x16 slot.

 

2. Also, because this motherboard uses the nForce chipset, I had to use a modified kernel. The system would freeze every few minutes, and the SATA support was horrible. Basically, I'm looking for a motherboard that can run OS X stably, like the GA-EP45-UD3R, with more ports available like the eVGA 680i.

 

I'd like some recommendations on a intel LGA775 mobo that can run OS X without problems, have a card running FULL hardware raid for 4 SATA ports and two PCI-e x16 cards for the video cards. I've looked for a pretty long time and can't seem to find any.

 

Regards,

-Ryan

[Ryan Rhee]

bump..