No mATX for OC?

[adriangb]

Is it just me, or is there no perfect mATX over-clocking board?

Let's start with Gigabyte. What's all the hype about native PWM? Don't all the boards (most Z77 ATXs and all mATXs if I'm not mistaken) have VIA audio chipsets? This would imply using Voodoo HDA, and why would someone pick being able to sleep (speedsteping, etc can be fixed on other boards and most of them sleep as well) over native audio? I tried VIA two years ago, and seriously didn't like it, maybe it's changed...

Then the rest of the manufacturers seem to not have native power management! Right now I'm running an ASRock Z77 Pro4-M and it has some serious sleep issues that I haven't found a fix for (it's probably inherent of the UEFI). I haven't been able to find a single mATX Z77 board that has confirmed to sleep/wake properly (i.e., fast and without problems).

Thoughts?

 

[pwalth21]

There is the ASUS P8Z77-V PRO, but read this before you switch: http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/43486-asus-1155-patched-bios-repository.html

 

[Asus-Freak]

Asus P8Z77-M Pro mATX

http://www.tonymacx86.com/user-buil...ld-p8z77-m-pro-i7-3770k-nvidia-gtx-670-a.html

 

[adamthecarny]

Is it just me, or is there no perfect mATX over-clocking board?

Thoughts?

OP my understanding is that you are correct. The GA-B75M-D3P and GA-Q77M-D2H are the only 2 "perfect" IB mATX boards for hackintoshing, but both are essentially not overclockable. The Z77 Gigabyte mATX boards available at the moment have VIA audio.

A few options I've come up with over the last few months while waiting for my case to be released:

• Use a Z68M board, for instance GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3. You will miss out on a PCI3.0 x16 slot (they only support PCI2.0), but it supports OC ram (2133), has 4 USB3 ports, DP, eSATA and 4x SATA3 ports (+3x SATA2), which is better than most Z77 mATX boards. I've not been convinced there is a massive downside for using an IB cpu on a SB board with a hackintosh, but then again I've not seen it in the wild either.
• Use the Z77N ITX board instead. Obviously I don't know your requirements so maybe the 2 ram slots and 1 PCI-E slot is too much of a restriction for you. But it is a "smaller than ATX" board that supports overclocking.
• Don't overclock, instead going with the GA-Q77M-D2H, saving $$$ to use on a better processor, or to upgrade sooner than planned.
• As you said, deal with either VoodooHDA or no power management.
• Move up to ATX with a small ATX case.

If you come up with anything else, let me know.

 

[adriangb]

I'm unclear with those two as to what exactly is fixed by the patched UEFI. In the case of my ASRock for example, I have native speedsteping, but sleep isn't really working... I've been looking at the P8Z77-M Pro, since it's in stock @ microcenter, but it seems to have issues with USB3...

 

[samisnake]

thread about what the patched bioses fix
http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/71307-modified-uefi-rom-faq.html

with your current board, are you using a patched bios or patched aicpupm kext?
it might be that you need to make an edit to your dsdt.
have a look at http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/3940...srock-z68-motherboards-lion-6.html#post443419

 

[Asus-Freak]

There is the ASUS P8Z77-V PRO, but read this before you switch: http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/43486-asus-1155-patched-bios-repository.html

This is not an mATX board.

 

[adriangb]

thread about what the patched bioses fix
http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/71307-modified-uefi-rom-faq.html

with your current board, are you using a patched bios or patched aicpupm kext?
it might be that you need to make an edit to your dsdt.
have a look at http://www.tonymacx86.com/dsdt/3940...srock-z68-motherboards-lion-6.html#post443419

Modded BIOS + self edited DSDT. I'll try that DSDT edit right now, I've been looking for a fix for a month now!

 

[adriangb]

OP my understanding is that you are correct. The GA-B75M-D3P and GA-Q77M-D2H are the only 2 "perfect" IB mATX boards for hackintoshing, but both are essentially not overclockable. The Z77 Gigabyte mATX boards available at the moment have VIA audio.

A few options I've come up with over the last few months while waiting for my case to be released:

• Use a Z68M board, for instance GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3. You will miss out on a PCI3.0 x16 slot (they only support PCI2.0), but it supports OC ram (2133), has 4 USB3 ports, DP, eSATA and 4x SATA3 ports (+3x SATA2), which is better than most Z77 mATX boards. I've not been convinced there is a massive downside for using an IB cpu on a SB board with a hackintosh, but then again I've not seen it in the wild either.
• Use the Z77N ITX board instead. Obviously I don't know your requirements so maybe the 2 ram slots and 1 PCI-E slot is too much of a restriction for you. But it is a "smaller than ATX" board that supports overclocking.
• Don't overclock, instead going with the GA-Q77M-D2H, saving $$$ to use on a better processor, or to upgrade sooner than planned.
• As you said, deal with either VoodooHDA or no power management.
• Move up to ATX with a small ATX case.

If you come up with anything else, let me know.

We'll I thought about Z68 (no native USB3 > more problems) or mini ITX (can't have a wifi card, unless it's one of the ones with wifi bla bla). Whatever, I just found a solution, thank's to that single comment. Deleting that line allows me to wake in under 5s, hooray!

So if anyone is interested, I think this board (ASRock Z77 Pro4-M) is about as good as it gets! It's 100% functional now, ok, it may need an edited DSDT and BIOS, but with these two, it works like a charm (heck, even the scheduler in energy saver works...), and it's one of the cheapest boards out there (pretty good quality as well). I'll write up a guide at some point, just not right now since work has me running all around the place.

 

[Asus-Freak]

OP my understanding is that you are correct. The GA-B75M-D3P and GA-Q77M-D2H are the only 2 "perfect" IB mATX boards for hackintoshing, but both are essentially not overclockable. The Z77 Gigabyte mATX boards available at the moment have VIA audio.

A few options I've come up with over the last few months while waiting for my case to be released:

• Use a Z68M board, for instance GA-Z68MX-UD2H-B3. You will miss out on a PCI3.0 x16 slot (they only support PCI2.0), but it supports OC ram (2133), has 4 USB3 ports, DP, eSATA and 4x SATA3 ports (+3x SATA2), which is better than most Z77 mATX boards. I've not been convinced there is a massive downside for using an IB cpu on a SB board with a hackintosh, but then again I've not seen it in the wild either.
• Use the Z77N ITX board instead. Obviously I don't know your requirements so maybe the 2 ram slots and 1 PCI-E slot is too much of a restriction for you. But it is a "smaller than ATX" board that supports overclocking.
• Don't overclock, instead going with the GA-Q77M-D2H, saving $$$ to use on a better processor, or to upgrade sooner than planned.
• As you said, deal with either VoodooHDA or no power management.
• Move up to ATX with a small ATX case.

If you come up with anything else, let me know.

I believe you are mistaken... There is no better mATX board at a decent price point to hack, as well as OC, than the Asus P8Z77-M Pro. Once you flash the bios, the install is stupidly easy and done in 20 minutes with one reboot. If you choose to OC it will compete with any full size board and do it quite well.