Perfect OSX86 Compatible Motherboard

[chrono807]

I've heard that the D975XBX2 (Intel BadAxe 2) is the ultimate OSX86 board - BUT I've never really been able to determine from the information available if the audio, once patched, is true HD including input, or 2-channel out only.

 

With iATKOS coming out soon, I'd like to get a 100% HCL board to run it with. I've heard mention of the Asus P5W-DH board as well, and a couple of P35 boards, but again - I'm willing to go with older technology to ensure full compatibility.

 

I don't mind if I have to install a patch or two to get everything working, as long as once it's working, it's flawless, including multichannel audio.

 

Here's what I'm carrying over from my current PC:

 

* ATI Radeon X1300 (Device ID 0x7142)

* 2GB of DDR2

* TI Firewire Card

* Hard drives (3x SATA), Opticals (2xIDE)

 

Not much, huh?

 

 

So basically, I want to replace the board and CPU. I'm going to buy a Core 2 Duo, most likely an E6550 (1333 FSB).

 

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

[Fatherless One]

I too am in the market for a new motherboard exclusively for Leopard use so I'd love to get input from some of the Leo experts.

[dter]

As has been stated before - there's really no such thing as a "perfect" card. You'll inevitably need to do some tweaking based on experience.

 

But having said that - I was recently in your same position. I decided on the bad axe 2 based on all the searches & reading I did. And I'm pretty happy with the decision. My final installation was done on a GUID-partitioned disk (pc_efi v8) using my retail Leopard installation CD. The only additional kexts I use are dsmos & nvinject.

 

I did need to replace IONetworkingFamily.kext with an earlier version because of my particular onboard LAN chipset. My understanding is that not all bad axe 2's have the same LAN chipset as mine, so there's a chance you wouldn't even need to muck with IONetworkingFamily.

 

I use a USB sound card (Creative Labs Soundblaster Live!, no driver required), but patching for the onboard sound works as well using the Taruga patcher. I believe the patch route only gets you 2-channel output, but I'm not sure.

 

At any rate, I'm pretty happy with the bad axe 2 hardware choice. It's not the latest & greatest, but it's really nice being able to install directly from the Apple DVD. And I managed to get mine for $150 online via a sale, so it wasn't even very expensive.

[chrono807]

As has been stated before - there's really no such thing as a "perfect" card. You'll inevitably need to do some tweaking based on experience.

 

But having said that - I was recently in your same position. I decided on the bad axe 2 based on all the searches & reading I did. And I'm pretty happy with the decision. My final installation was done on a GUID-partitioned disk (pc_efi v8) using my retail Leopard installation CD. The only additional kexts I use are dsmos & nvinject.

 

I did need to replace IONetworkingFamily.kext with an earlier version because of my particular onboard LAN chipset. My understanding is that not all bad axe 2's have the same LAN chipset as mine, so there's a chance you wouldn't even need to muck with IONetworkingFamily.

 

I use a USB sound card (Creative Labs Soundblaster Live!, no driver required), but patching for the onboard sound works as well using the Taruga patcher. I believe the patch route only gets you 2-channel output, but I'm not sure.

 

At any rate, I'm pretty happy with the bad axe 2 hardware choice. It's not the latest & greatest, but it's really nice being able to install directly from the Apple DVD. And I managed to get mine for $150 online via a sale, so it wasn't even very expensive.

 

Someone on the Uphuck IRC last night suggested looking into a couple of Gigabyte P35 boards as well - the P35-DS4 and the P35T-DQ6. Can anyone chime in with any personal experience on those, or the Asus P5K?

[justvisiting]

...I've heard that the D975XBX2 (Intel BadAxe 2) is the ultimate OSX86 board ...

 

board only:

 

*) I have not tried the onboard firewire

*) I have not tried the onboard eSata

*) I have not tried the onboard parallel port

*) I have not tried the onboard serial ports

 

*) make sure you have the latest BIOS, most recent was dated 10/25/2007

*) not sure if the 1333 FSB is officially blessed by intel

 

*) ONLY 2 channel audio out with a Taruga patch and sigmatel data file

*) no proper wake from sleep (could be my software environment)

 

*) my SATA HD and SATA optical burner work

*) PS/2 keyboard works (yay fujitsu 4725, you can bludgeon people to death with it; not that you should)

*) USB mouse works

*) USB card reader ( "12 in one" works)

 

 

I am running Jas 10.4.8, updated by various nefarious means to 10.4.9

I am quite pleased with it.

[~pcwiz]

I think this may help:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=74374

 

Comparison of Bad Axe 2 vs. P5W DH Deluxe vs. Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3x vs. Abit IP35 Pro

 

I'm going with the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P myself. Unlike the Bad Axe 2 and P5W, its based on the new P35 chipset which will support the new 45nm Penryn processors. Audio works (though 2 channel only), Ethernet works, and mostly everything works but there are a few minor problems: For some, IDE works, for others it doesn't (I'd play it safe and get a SATA HD and DVD burner), RAID doesn't work, and shutdown and restart may have problems (have to confirm this).

[chrono807]

I think this may help:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=74374

 

Comparison of Bad Axe 2 vs. P5W DH Deluxe vs. Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3x vs. Abit IP35 Pro

 

I'm going with the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P myself. Unlike the Bad Axe 2 and P5W, its based on the new P35 chipset which will support the new 45nm Penryn processors. Audio works (though 2 channel only), Ethernet works, and mostly everything works but there are a few minor problems: For some, IDE works, for others it doesn't (I'd play it safe and get a SATA HD and DVD burner), RAID doesn't work, and shutdown and restart may have problems (have to confirm this).

 

I was also looking at the DS3P. Questions for those experienced with the board - btw, I have checked the wiki's HCL and it contained the following info:

 

GA-P35-DS3P Intel P35 Chipset

 

* Audio works with ALCinject.kext and AppleHDA.kext

* Headphone out on front panel and digital out on back tested, both inputs show up but not tested

* LAN working out of the box

* Install method: BrazilMac + EFI

 

Unknown No: Only audio requires patch

 

I've seen mixed reports on the audio - some say it is 100% working with all inputs and outputs, but pcwiz says 2-channel only.

 

The HCL also says that it was installed using BrazilMac, but I'd like to build a machine that can run the official apple updates. Has anyone gotten the DS3P working with nothing but the audio patches?

 

Sorry to sound like a n00b. My main concern is making sure this machine can last me a few years with no further board replacements. The 945P Neo2 that I have right now is almost perfect, but it can't run a Core 2 Duo, therefore no vanilla kernel, and therefore not good enough for me anymore :-P

[~pcwiz]

Yes, you can install the apple updates after you install EFI. BrazilMac is just the patched disc, after you install that, you install EFI which will let you install the software updates. Newer discs like the newly released iATKOS DVD come with EFI pre-integrated. I'm really not sure about the DS3P audio. Socal swimmer made an excellent guide on how to install Leopard on the DS3P so you may want to ask him about the audio.

[rtomek]

I used the P5W DH Deluxe motherboard. That one is excellent and everything except sound works on first boot.

[rhalls]

I installed Leo with EFI 8.0 and BraziMac patched DVD. It runs perfectly on my Test Machine (see my sig). the Mainboard is nearly identical to THe DS3P (which i will try in the next couple of days), i assume all will work the same on the DS3P. Only thing to patch is Audio, which works very well. For the Asus 7300GT silent videocard, no patch or addition was necessary. I can only test Audio out 2Channel cause of the lack of 5.1 or 7.1 speakers, but Audio works very well. Just tested: Front Audio Out: Waorking. Front Mic In: Not Working (maybe my fault). BAck Mic-In: Working. Back Line In. Working.

[chrono807]

I installed Leo with EFI 8.0 and BraziMac patched DVD. It runs perfectly on my Test Machine (see my sig). the Mainboard is nearly identical to THe DS3P (which i will try in the next couple of days), i assume all will work the same on the DS3P. Only thing to patch is Audio, which works very well. For the Asus 7300GT silent videocard, no patch or addition was necessary. I can only test Audio out 2Channel cause of the lack of 5.1 or 7.1 speakers, but Audio works very well. Just tested: Front Audio Out: Waorking. Front Mic In: Not Working (maybe my fault). BAck Mic-In: Working. Back Line In. Working.

 

So it sounds like the P35-DS3P is a winner... The D975XBX2, open box on NewEgg, is $119, and the P35-DS3P is $129. Spending $10 more allows me to use a 1333FSB processor, which ironically is about $40 cheaper than a 1066FSB with similar speeds (E6550 vs E6600).

 

Should I keep the DDR2-667 that I have right now, or would a different speed work better with that CPU? I haven't really paid attention to FSB vs memory clocks in a LONG time, and I forget if it's best to keep the RAM clocks at some ratio with the FSB (667 x 2 = 1333 for example). I've been out of the game purchasing whatever was cheapest for TOO long :-)

 

Anyway, the RAM i have now is 2GB of Corsair.

[Azurael]

DDR2-667 will perform best with that CPU in the real world. Dual channel RAM running at sync is enough to saturate the FSB (as Intel FSB is QDR, so it has 4x the set data rate, whereas RAM is DDR, and thus requires 2 channels to saturate the FSB) - obviously, dual channel doesn't get you 100% more bandwidth than single channel, due to overheads, but faster RAM would run async to the FSB, which is always a big hit with Intel; chips, and the extra bandwidth usually doesn't help when latency is higher.

 

The only other 'sync' configuration possible with P35 + a 1333MT/s CPU is because it supports DDR3, although that board doesn't, if it did you could run DDR3-1333 and stay at a rational memory multiplier (x2), but since DDR3 is expensive and offers nearly no performance benefit, the best thing is DDR2-667 at 1:1, anyway.

[chrono807]

Thanks for all the information everyone.

 

** EDIT **

 

According to Socal swimmer's thread I will probably have to set up the system with the ICH9R set to AHCI mode, will this disable the onboard IDE? I have two IDE DVD burners I'd like to save, but if I have to buy a SATA then I guess I will.

[Azurael]

No, you can use AHCI mode for the Intel controlled ports and IDE mode for those (IDE+SATA) controlled by the onboard JMB363. The JMB363 works for everything except booting in AHCI mode under OS X, anyway.

 

I switched to all-SATA a couple of weeks ago, but only because I was convinced that the JMB363 was causing high-speed DVD burns to fail under Windows (which would equally have been the burner itself.)