MSI Z77MA-G45 vs GA-Z77-DS3H

[hypermiler]

MSI Z77MA-G45 vs GA-Z77-DS3H: Which is Better?

Just wondering what are pros-cons of these 2 boards. Asking due to slight price differences. MSI board is $65 after rebates @ amazon/newegg, GA board is $50 + tax bundled with 3570k @ microcenter. Not a big difference, but I am trying to build cheapest system possible (for someone else who is on a budget), but don't want to sacrifice in reliability for it and have to tech support for them down the road.

What I have gathered from brief search is that GA board has some quality control issues (3 stars @ newegg with 30 reviews) and limits overclocking, also BIOS interface/software seems to be less favored.

MSI board seems to get a bit more positive reviews with 4 stars @ newegg, 17 reviews) and is not as limited for overclocking. People also seem to like its BIOS interface/software.

Lastly, and I am making a big assumption as I have no first hand experience with either of these boards, is that you need to use a modded BIOS for the MSI board and not with the GA board.

Please share your experiences positive/negative with either of these boards.

 

[Mieze]

Lastly, and I am making a big assumption as I have no first hand experience with either of these boards, is that you need to use a modded BIOS for the MSI board and not with the GA board.

Yes, MSI, Asrock and Asus boards all need a patched BIOS or a patched version of AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext, but patching the BIOS is not a big deal. In case you are afraid of flashing your BIOS, MSI boards have the M-Flash utility which allows you to boot a different BIOS from an USB drive so that there will be no risk.

I can confirm that the BIOS of MSI boards is really good, also energy efficiency and fan control are additional pros. I'm running a homeserver with a MSI B75MA-P45 (with patched BIOS) 27/4 since april 18th (~3900 operating hours, I paid about 60€ for the board) and never had an issue. My server runs cool and quiet (although I installed Intel's boxed cooler) even during the summer. The board is somewhat minimalistic but it has been identified as the the most energy efficient by the german computer magazine c't. I measured 24W idle power consumption with 2 drives (Seagate ST2000DM001 and WD20EARS). According to many reviews I read MSI boards always get good marks when it comes to energy efficiency.

If you are on budget also consider to get a board with B75 chipset (only 1 SATA 6G port).

Mieze

 

[hypermiler]

Thanks for the recommendations. At $50-$65 I don't believe the B75 motherboards are any cheaper according to new egg prices. Also I don't know how compatible the other B75 motherboards are except for the one recommended by the custoMac tutorial. I am trying to go for minimal DSDT hacking as outlined by the post on z77 micro ATX motherboards by kduvernay. This is being built for the 12-year-old daughter of a coworker, and I am trying to minimize any future issues as much as possible.

I'd love to hear from any users with experience with the gigabyte z77 motherboards as I am surprised this particular one recommended by customac received somewhat negative reviews.

 

[Mieze]

Thanks for the recommendations. At $50-$65 I don't believe the B75 motherboards are any cheaper according to new egg prices. Also I don't know how compatible the other B75 motherboards are except for the one recommended by the custoMac tutorial. I am trying to go for minimal DSDT hacking as outlined by the post on z77 micro ATX motherboards by kduvernay. This is being built for the 12-year-old daughter of a coworker, and I am trying to minimize any future issues as much as possible.

Minimizing the number of DSDT edits is not the best way to avoid trouble in the future. As the DSDT is tightly coupled with the BIOS which you won't upgrade very often (if it works you won't upgrade at all) creating a DSDT is a task that you'll usually will do only once. It's the best place to fix things that might cause trouble because it's independent of the OS as long as you know what you are doing.

With regard to compatibility it's not the chipset that matters, B75, H77 and Z77 don't make a difference, but the BIOS version which might contain ugly bugs. Also keep in mind that every board can be configured incorrectly making it impossible to run OS X. There is an old saying among system administrators: 90% of all problems are located in front of the computer.

Mieze

 

[Going Bald]

Thanks for the recommendations. At $50-$65 I don't believe the B75 motherboards are any cheaper according to new egg prices. Also I don't know how compatible the other B75 motherboards are except for the one recommended by the custoMac tutorial. I am trying to go for minimal DSDT hacking as outlined by the post on z77 micro ATX motherboards by kduvernay. This is being built for the 12-year-old daughter of a coworker, and I am trying to minimize any future issues as much as possible.

I'd love to hear from any users with experience with the gigabyte z77 motherboards as I am surprised this particular one recommended by customac received somewhat negative reviews.

Neither board needs a DSDT at all. You can get full functionality without a DSDT on any of the boards kduvernay listed. The only time you would need a DSDT is if you want to get HDMI audio.

As for flashing the BIOS, it is recommended to flash the Gigabyte boards to the latest BIOS before attempting install due to some BIOS issues with the earlier z series released boards. So, flash the Gigabyte board to update the BIOS or flash the MSI, Asrock, Foxxcon or ASUS boards with a patched BIOS to unlock MSR. Six of one and half a dozen of the other IMHO.

I had problems with the GA Z77-DS3H when I first got it and not just with OS X - Win7 and PC-BSD had problems, too, mostly random BSOD and locking up in PC-BSD. BIOS update fixed the problems. Since then, no issues.
I had problems with the MSI Z77A-GD65 and had to use NullCPUPM kext until I flashed the BIOS to unlock MSR. Since then, no issues.

 

[hypermiler]

Thanks again guys for the information. The last two statements however seem to contradict each other a little in regards to modifying DSDT or not with respect to these 2 boards. I do get that there can be bios issues and having the right bios version/mod is important, but I have also heard about incompatible audio, sleep, etc with certain boards, just like kduvernay noted. I think I can manage flashing a modified bios OK if it is a one time deal.

I am trying to avoid DSDT editing because frankly I don't know what I'm doing, and would have to rely on the knowledge base of other people (Basically begging for other people's DSDT). Same thing goes for writing my own kexts. That would be fine if I was building the system for myself as I feel comfortable to navigate these forums. However, I am making this for someone else who knows even less about computers than I do.

I don't know if I am assuming incorrectly, but am I right to believe that if I'm working with a modified DSDT I would have to re-modify/reapply them with every operating system update? My hope is that if I can install OS X without modifying DSDT, future operating system updates would also be fairly straightforward and I could potentially help my coworker get through them over the phone to navigate multibeast. I am obviously talking out of my ass so please feel free to correct or redirect me as needed.

Lastly what about issues with overclocking and the gigabyte board? Were they fixed with updating to the latest bios version? I am currently leaning more towards the MSI motherboard given that it seems a little less temperamental (only need to apply modded bios) and only costs $10 more than the gigabyte.

 

[Asus-Freak]

Thanks again guys for the information. The last two statements however seem to contradict each other a little. I do get that there can be bios issues and having the right bios version/mod is important, but I have also heard about incompatible audio, sleep, etc with certain boards, just like kduvernay noted. I think I can manage flashing a modified bios OK if it is a one time deal.

I am trying to avoid DSDT editing because frankly I don't know what I'm doing, and would have to rely on the knowledge base of other people (Basically begging for other people's DSDT). Same thing goes for writing my own kexts. That would be fine if I was building the system for myself as I feel comfortable to navigate these forums. However, I am making this for someone else who knows even less about computers than I do.

I don't know if I am assuming incorrectly, but am I right to believe that if I'm working with a modified DSDT I would have to re-modify/reapply them with every operating system update? My hope is that if I can install OS X without modifying DSDT, future operating system updates would also be fairly straightforward and I could potentially help my coworker get through them over the phone to navigate multibeast. I am obviously talking out of my ass so please feel free to correct or redirect me as needed.

The DSDT needs updated if you upgrade the bios, not the OS. As Going Bald stated, you won't need a DSTD unless you require additional support such as HDMI audio. FYI, I have been running the MSI (no DSDT) in a backup box and it's found a permanent home. It seems to be all the Asus is with $40.00 still in your pocket.

 

[Mieze]

I am trying to avoid DSDT editing because frankly I don't know what I'm doing, and would have to rely on the knowledge base of other people (Basically begging for other people's DSDT). Same thing goes for writing my own kexts. That would be fine if I was building the system for myself as I feel comfortable to navigate these forums. However, I am making this for someone else who knows even less about computers than I do.

I don't know if I am assuming incorrectly, but am I right to believe that if I'm working with a modified DSDT I would have to re-modify/reapply them with every operating system update? My hope is that if I can install OS X without modifying DSDT, future operating system updates would also be fairly straightforward and I could potentially help my coworker get through them over the phone to navigate multibeast. I am obviously talking out of my ass so please feel free to correct or redirect me as needed.

As stated once before you only have to change the DSDT when you upgrade the BIOS. When upgrading the OS the DSDT isn't touched anyway! The DSDT mediates between the OS on the one hand and the hardware/BIOS on the other hand. None of these boards has been designed to run OS X, therefore it's always better to create a DSDT optimized for OS X as it eliminates a lot of problems you would have to deal with each time you upgrade the OS. To make it clear: with a patched DSDT (even if the board doesn't require any DSDT edits in order to function properly) you will have less trouble when upgrading the OS!

Mieze

 

[hypermiler]

So going forward with either of these motherboards do you predict any issues with future OS X updates? Granted I can get full functionality out of these motherboards currently without creating a custom DSDT and just modified bios for the MSI motherboard, you are saying I should still create a custom DSDT anyways to prevent future issues with updates? Does anyone have a custom DSDT for the MSI motherboard?

In regards to the MSI motherboard is it best to flash to the modified version 1.4 bios and not the 1.5 bios? Reading through samisnake's thread lead me to this conclusion but I just want to confirm with you guys. Thanks.

Lastly still would like to hear from anyone who had or not had issues overclocking the gigabyte motherboard.

 

[Going Bald]

So going forward with either of these motherboards do you predict any issues with future OS X updates? Granted I can get full functionality out of these motherboards currently without creating a custom DSDT and just modified bios for the MSI motherboard, you are saying I should still create a custom DSDT anyways to prevent future issues with updates? Does anyone have a custom DSDT for the MSI motherboard?

In regards to the MSI motherboard is it best to flash to the modified version 1.4 bios and not the 1.5 bios? Reading through samisnake's thread lead me to this conclusion but I just want to confirm with you guys. Thanks.

Lastly still would like to hear from anyone who had or not had issues overclocking the gigabyte motherboard.

Unless you want HDMI audio, custom DSDT is NOT needed. Forget about it.

Updates do not care whether you have a DSDT or not. I have installed 10.8.0 and updated to 10.8.1 and again to 10.8.2 with no trouble and do not anticipate any trouble with future updates on the MSI Z77A-GD65.
Only thing you have to remember is that ALL hackintoshes, regardless of board model, that use a patched AppleHDA or non-Apple supported network plugin need these re-installed after an update that installs the pure vanilla kext.
Flash the BIOS once and forget about it.

As for the MSI BIOS, if MSI has released a newer BIOS update than the patched one, post a request and samisnake will get the patched BIOS updated.