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Best Budget Gigabyte Motherboard for El Capitan Hackintosh

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TylerPlayz

TylerPlayz

Joined
Jan 18, 2016
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10
Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z170 HD3
CPU
Intel Core i5 6600k
Graphics
Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 960 OC
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
Hi, would anybody like to help me choose which motherboard would be the best "bang for the buck", and that would work with El Capitan.
I would prefer it to be a Gigabyte motherboard. I have been looking at this one, and I don't know if it would work well. If anyone would care to help me, that would be great! Here is the Gigabyte motherboard that I am currently looking at.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013TAU4IU/?tag=tonymacx86com-20


My build would consist of the following... (Windows 7 is already installed on one Hard Drive)

Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-01
(x2) Western Digital Hard Drives- One for Windows 7 Ultimate and one for El Capitan
Intel Core i5 4690
Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3 ATX Motherboard
(x2 8GB) Kingston DDR3 RAM
Corsair CX600 Power Supply
 
TylerPlayz said:
Hi, would anybody like to help me choose which motherboard would be the best "bang for the buck", and that would work with El Capitan.
I would prefer it to be a Gigabyte motherboard. I have been looking at this one, and I don't know if it would work well. If anyone would care to help me, that would be great! Here is the Gigabyte motherboard that I am currently looking at.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013TAU4IU/?tag=tonymacx86com-20


My build would consist of the following... (Windows 7 is already installed on one Hard Drive)

Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-01
(x2) Western Digital Hard Drives- One for Windows 7 Ultimate and one for El Capitan
Intel Core i5 4690
Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3 ATX Motherboard
(x2 8GB) Kingston DDR3 RAM
Corsair CX600 Power Supply
Click to expand...

I think that an H170 board will more than meet your needs, and help keep the cost down (vs. Z170). Here are a couple of options that come in at a $20 or more discount over your choice; the GA-H170-Gaming 3 is on the list of boards in the Buyer's Guide, so is known to work with OS X:

Gigabyte GA-H170-Gaming 3 $99.99: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015CQ8D46/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Gigabyte GA-H170-D3HP $104.99: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014R8NNZY/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
 
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nobodynose said:
I think that an H170 board will more than meet your needs, and help keep the cost down (vs. Z170). Here are a couple of options that come in at a $20 or more discount over your choice; the GA-H170-Gaming 3 is on the list of boards in the Buyer's Guide, so is known to work with OS X:

Gigabyte GA-H170-Gaming 3 $99.99: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015CQ8D46/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Gigabyte GA-H170-D3HP $104.99: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014R8NNZY/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Click to expand...
Thanks, I will definitely have a look at these.
 
TylerPlayz said:
Hi, would anybody like to help me choose which motherboard would be the best "bang for the buck", and that would work with El Capitan.
I would prefer it to be a Gigabyte motherboard. I have been looking at this one, and I don't know if it would work well. If anyone would care to help me, that would be great! Here is the Gigabyte motherboard that I am currently looking at.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013TAU4IU/?tag=tonymacx86com-20


My build would consist of the following... (Windows 7 is already installed on one Hard Drive)

Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-01
(x2) Western Digital Hard Drives- One for Windows 7 Ultimate and one for El Capitan
Intel Core i5 4690
Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3 ATX Motherboard
(x2 8GB) Kingston DDR3 RAM
Corsair CX600 Power Supply
Click to expand...

The Haswell i5-4690 does not go with the Z170 motherboard... should be a Skylake CPU. I own the GA Z170-HD3 with DDR4 memory, with a i5-6500 CPU which runs El Capitan well although I am not a fan of the HD 530 graphics.



Good modding.
neil
 
TylerPlayz said:
Hi, would anybody like to help me choose which motherboard would be the best "bang for the buck", and that would work with El Capitan.
Click to expand...

That is relative. If by "best bang for the buck" you mean price, there are Gigabyte mobos on Newegg for around $50.

Since you are only going to install 16GB of memory, a two RAM slot mobo may be up your alley. [I would never touch one, but, then again I have to install the max memory the 4 RAM slot board can take right from the start.]

For me, "best bang for the buck" has to have an Intel NIC. For others they have to have DP, Thunderbolt, WiFi, BT, m2.SATA slots, 2, 3, or 4 PCI-E X16 slots, etc.

If all you are going to do is to install a single video card then even a micro ATX board could work. And all you may need is one X16 and X4 slot, along with one or two X1 slots. (Me, personally, I see no reason to have old tech PCI slots in a new build. I wouldn't need to connect a floppy drive, a parallel port printer, COM ports, either. I'll stick with a nice BD burner, though.)

Something like the GA-H170M-DS3H would interest me. But if you wanted on-board DP then that board wouldn't do.

The itx GA-H110N looks cute, too.

LGA1150 micro ATX boards are getting more expensive now that their inventory is shrinking. LGA1151 are probably the better way to go.

To me, "best bang for the buck" has to include the price of memory. If the Skylake chipset allows 64GB of ram but I can only install 16GB, then it isn't a "best bang for the buck". If the only ram on their QVL is twice as expensive as having twice as much RAM on another mobo, then that isn't a "best bang for the buck".

When contemplating a mobo you have to consider the price of RAM. When comparing many mobos there will usually be one or two where the price of RAM is the lowest. Those are the "best bang for the buck," provided that they have the features that you're looking for.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5485#memory support list
 
Last edited:
neilhart said:
The Haswell i5-4690 does not go with the Z170 motherboard... should be a Skylake CPU. I own the GA Z170-HD3 with DDR4 memory, with a i5-6500 CPU which runs El Capitan well although I am not a fan of the HD 530 graphics.



Good modding.
neil
Click to expand...
Ok, I wasn't sure if the 6th generation i5's were comparable with El Capitan.
 
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