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Hi,

 

I'm looking to buy some osx86 compatible components. Right now, I'm looking for a good, cheap compatible motherboard.

So far, I've been looking at the Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P:

 

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct....d=5&subcat=

 

Whilst it seems compatible, it seems you have to jump through hoops somewhat to get it installed and working:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?sho...=28439&st=0

 

I'm sure this question comes around a lot, and yes I've looked at the wiki, but I still can't find a good motherboard so I thought I would come here for advice. I live in the UK, so unfortunately for me Newegg is not an option.

 

Thanks for any help, it is greatly appreciated.

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I'm using the Asrock Conroe945G-DVI mATX board - very stable, cheap and easy to use with OSx86, and only £46 from Ebuyer:

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119413

 

I setup OSX on an 80gb SATA drive using the JAS 10.4.8 with 8.8.1 DVD and the only thing I needed to do afterwards was install some readily available packaged drivers for the ALC888 audio and Realtek network port. Audio is currently output only, so I'm using an iMic to record my synth into Garageband :censored2:

 

I'm using an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86 which it picks up fine, 2gb of Elixir DDR2-667 RAM and a BFG 7600GT OC graphics card which the standard nVidia drivers on the DVD supports perfectly. I have also tried the onboard Intel GMA950 integrated graphics using the install DVD option, and that just required a conf edit to get the screen mode I wanted.

 

Everything else pretty much works out of the box and it seems fast and stable.

 

Full instructions for this board here: http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/ConRoe945G-DVi

 

Though what they wrote about getting the audio working is a bit old and long-winded - I just set mine up with a few clicks using the Azalia install package, I'm sure!

 

It's not a great overclocking board, though I got my E6300 to 2.10ghz (about a 15% boost) with little effort.

 

Unfortunately no Firewire on this board, but I picked up a card with 3 ports locally for under a tenner.

 

You could feasibly build yourself a great little Hackintosh box for under £200 with this board, if you went for a cheap CPU like the Celeron D 347 like so: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/123584

 

Don't be put off by the Celeron name - this is basically a single core version of the original Core Duo 'Yonah' chip used in the first Intel Macs but with less cache. Still pretty fast and good value, especially at less than £30.

 

Core 2 Duo prices are coming down next week though :)

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