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Please help me choose a motherboard

aushack

By aushack,
in Hardware Components and Drivers

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aushack
aushack
Posted
Posted

hi guys

 

i want to build a Hackintosh but im a bit of a newby to OSX86 and building PCs themselves. i need help choosing a motherboard that will be compatible with Leopard. reading the forum it looks as if ASUS and Gigabyte are the most popular and compatible with Kalyway & iAKTOS 10.5 installs.

 

im pretty sure my setup will contain:

 

- Core 2 Quad ~ 2.5 GHz

- 2-4 GB DDR2 RAM

- 7200 RPM HDD

- 16x DVD±RW

- a quiet, cool case which has up to 4 HDD bays, 2 DVD drive slots, 4 or more PCI slots and audio, USB and firewire on the front like an Antec or something

- GeForce 8600 series (whichever one is more compatible with 10.5)

- a mobo that has 2 PCIe slots, ethernet, good sound card (& maybe WIFI)

 

will OSX86 Leopard support this?

 

also im thinking of buying a mobo that has on board firewire or buying a firewire PCI card. but how do i attach the mobo or the PCI card to the front firewire port?

 

thankyou for reading. any input is greatly appreciated.

 

EDIT: also will i be able to install windows for gaming on a seperate hard drive or does it have to be on a partition on the main drive. i mean its just an ordinary PC with BIOS right.

aushack
aushack
Posted
  • Author
Posted

thank you very much for the reply

 

sorry i should of asked which mobo would be most compatible with my setup and an OSX86 Leopard install. im pretty sure im gonna get an ASUS but im not sure which.

 

i have a macbook pro and im using Leopard right now but i also want to build a Hackintosh and Dual boot to vista for gaming. is this possible which install should i choose to do this?

 

thanks

mister_doodi
mister_doodi
Posted
Posted

Asus P5B Deluxe is working great for me right now. iAKTOS revision 2 has the patch for ethernet and installs audio drivers automatically. I'm trying to build another machine most likely another Asus board but X48 this time which will be released around mid March.

 

But, pretty much all the releases work with this board including Kalyway and TOH but iAKTOS works the best with Vanilla kernal.

 

Reguarding 2 PCIE slots, you probably should go with ATI if your going to use 2 video cards with Hackintosh because theres are only few motherboards that support Nvidia SLI that works well with Hackintosh. Most of the motherboards I've looked at that appeals to me and seem compatable with Hackintoshes are crossfire boards. Or, you can install 1 Nvidia card on a crossfire board.

 

Asus P5NSLI supports SLI, you should do some reasech on it if you insist on using SLI with Nvidia cards.

InteliMac Pro
InteliMac Pro
Posted
Posted

I'm in the same boat here. I've never built a computer before and naturally decided a hackintosh will be my first attempt. I want to build something that will be fairly upgradable a year from now so i think i'm going to go with a gigabyte x35 mobo. I checked the osx86 wiki and have come to the conclusion that the GA P35 DS3 and DS3L are my best bets, however the problem is they are hard to find in stores like microcenter and are being replaced now by newer boards that support DDR3 memory. I believe one such card is the GA EP35 DS4, which also has two PCIe slots. Does anybody know if these new boards will still work, or should i grab a DS3L off of ebay?

 

Another thing i'm not sure on is if osx86 will support dual graphics cards and if so what is a good mobo for this? the DS3/L only have one PCIe slot from what i've seen.

 

I too am going to go with a core 2 quad 6600 and am debating between a geforce 8600 or 8800, but i'm open to suggestions there too.

 

I want to go with at least two SATA hard drives, but i've read that there can be some kind of problem with SATA's and IDE hard drives/optical drives, but i'm not sure if these problems are still being encountered with the Kalyway install or not.

 

Finally, I would really like to have a setup that is low maintenence. My understanding is that running EFI and a vanilla kernal will allow for updates directly from apple, but i'm not sure on this. Any clarification here would be great. I also see that mister_doodi's above reply may have answered some of my questions, so i will research his recommendations as well, but any more clarification would still be appreciated.

 

If anybody can give me a clear answer about these questions I would greatly appreciate it as well.

mister_doodi
mister_doodi
Posted
Posted

Don't even bother with IDE drives anymore get an enclosure and use it for Timemachine or something. Q6600 is a really good processor but get it from reliable sources like Newegg or you might get stuck with backpiled B3 stepping which will defineatly suck. Also depending on if you overclock or not and if you do video editing, you should also look at the Q9300. It's pretty much same cost as 6600 but runs cooler, uses less power, and up to 50% better on video editing. But you give up a little on overclocking.

 

Crossfire and SLI will not work with Hackintosh (dual video cards). Only will it work if you boot into Windows.

 

Ever bought stuff online before? No need to go to Microcenter.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...BYTE-_-13128087

 

By fairly upgradeable, I guess most p35 boads are fairly upgradeable but you'll need a new board next year if you are going to use the new intel processor.

InteliMac Pro
InteliMac Pro
Posted
Posted

Thanks for the reply. Yes i figured SLI and crossfire wouldn't work on Hackintosh, but i am planning on dual booting so it would still be nice to have.Thanks for the tip on the Q9300. Do you know where i can find it? Is it out yet? I couldn't find it at tigerdirect or newegg or ebay, but found some reviews after a google search. And yes in my research i've seen that i need to be sure to get the G0 stepping. I'm not overly concerened with overclocking but would like to get it to 3.0 Ghz if i can.

 

Also, as far as ATI cards, what is a good solution? I'm trying to stay on a budget under $1000 here too, so that's a consideration for me. I can always upgrade later. I just want something that's gonna blow the doors off the x1600 in my old Macbook Pro.

 

And yes, i've bought stuff online before. I'm not that much of a noob =)~ I just went into Microcenter because i wanted to check some stuff out.

 

Thanks a lot for all your help and suggestions. I really appreciate it. Please keep'em coming!

 

Oh and also i see you linked to the gigabyte GA EP35 DS4 LGA I mentioned. Is that a recommendation? That board looks like it would be just what i want if it'll work. What kind of board would you recommend then for upgradeability?

mister_doodi
mister_doodi
Posted
Posted

9300 will be released next month. Not all motherboards will support it but a lot of them will with a bios upgrade. Do some research on that. 3Ghz will be no problem.

 

http://www.google.com/products?q=q9300&amp...d&scoring=p

 

I'm not big on video cards so I coulden't tell ya. I have a x1650 and it works good on office apps.

 

If anybody is looking for ram this is the one to get if your on a budget and if you want high end.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231145

vlad1966
vlad1966
Posted
Posted
Ah i think you just gave me a new favorite. I like the external sata ports.

 

I really like the IP-35 Pro - It's a solid board, good overclocker - LOL!

I still have the original BIOS on it. I need to upgrade to the latest BIOS so it

can have 45nm CPU support.

 

One of the things I love about it is the external CMOS clear switch - comes

in really handy if you like to OC.

 

I wouldn't mind having a couple more internal SATA ports like some of the

Gigabyte boards have 8.

aushack
aushack
Posted
  • Author
Posted

thanks a lot guys! sorry for the late reply im in Australia and you guys replied overnight.

 

thanks for the mobo suggestions :) i will go for an ASUS and maybe a Gigabyte but im still not 100% sure on any models yet :)

 

the Asus P5B Deluxe looks nice and looks to be very compatible with Leopard but isnt compatible with intel quad-cores http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....Asus+P5B+Deluxe. also i dont want dual ethernet , dual firewire & WIFI onboard now as illl buy a wireless PCI. but would still like optical out, 2 or 1 PCIe x 16 and PCIe x1, 1 onboard firewire port & no mouse PS2 port (not essential) ... very specific i know!

 

this one seems to suit my needs and has Realtek audio http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131225 but is it compatible with kalyway or iATKOS?

 

i wont be buying just yet, maybe in the middle of the year... so ill wait for the 45nm Core 2 Quads.

 

Reguarding 2 PCIE slots, you probably should go with ATI if your going to use 2 video cards with Hackintosh because theres are only few motherboards that support Nvidia SLI that works well with Hackintosh. Most of the motherboards I've looked at that appeals to me and seem compatable with Hackintoshes are crossfire boards. Or, you can install 1 Nvidia card on a crossfire board.

 

im only going to use 1 nvidia video card but i thought i would need another PCIe x16 slot for expansion later on. do only video cards use PCIe? im not sure on this.

mister_doodi
mister_doodi
Posted
Posted

Old models are already phasing out as P5B deluxe non wifi is no longer avaliable. Theres another model from the P5b line... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16813131164R

 

Dual ethernet dosent work anyway. Only the bottom port works.

 

Most motherboards you'll want comes with PS2 so you don't want to alienate a whole segment of pro ps2 motherboards. Plus PS2 can come in handy sometimes when working with boot cds.

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