Best Supported Motherboards and Hardware..??

[SiliconVoid]

Please excuse my ignorance, maybe it is that I am simply not understanding what is meant by "native" support regarding the motherboards in this forum. I see throughout where Gigabyte is the most recommended due to its native support.
(Quote from the CustoMac buyers guide : Gigabyte Motherboards*
We recommend these specific Gigabyte motherboards because of native power management support, network, and audio. They are the most compatible with OS X and are the easiest motherboards to get up and running for first time builders.)

However when I read through the installation guides and users installation steps there are numerous kexts that have to be loaded, plist edits, DSDT files, and now SSDT files in order to get everything working including power management... So is the term (native) being used in reference to the Apple OSX distribution media, or (native) support from MultiBeast?? In this regard those would be two entirely different references.

How about a list of recommended motherboards based on what is supported 'natively' with nothing more than Chimera Boot Loader?? Showing users which boards have the most components seen by OSX directly. As in a list of what hardware is supported (natively) by Apple's own kext library after booting from UniBeast USB - installing OSX - and then running MultiBeast for nothing more than Chimera.

Once a person has selected what they believe to be the most 'natively' support motherboard, how about a list of what video cards have some kind of support to control idle fan speeds.

I see a lot of attention being paid to cpu power states and clock stepping, and important levels of support to many especially those building a system based on 1st/2nd gen i5k/i7k and overclocking. However for everyone else using newer chips and not overclocking what does it really matter whether the cpu drops down to a lower clock and power mode at the desktop - it only draws ~69w under load anyway.

One additional query: What happen to, or where is, the section of the site that describes - in gory detail - what each of the utilities contain and what they do (BridgeHelper, Chimera, iBoot, KextBeast, MultiBeast, etc) so users can better determine what exactly they need and help troubleshoot what they don't need.

 

[immapc]

You can goto the Legacy Forum to find some of the info on all the utilities, but just goto the Resources and Downloads to get a list of everything. But you can goto the Articles and find which Utilities are needed in most situations.

The graphics cards are always different so you are going to have to pick the one with the least amount of trouble vs performance you desire.

If Gigabyte is the closest resemblance to Apple hardware then that is why it is considered Native. This may not answer your question but it comes down to ease of use for beginners vs performance gains and/or personal preference using other boards. These boards would require a DSDT for proper usage, yet even Giga boards use DSDT but that is only to make them perform better vs Native install that they can still work with.

You always need Audio and Ethernet along with Graphics so you will have to install a few Kexts no matter what.

So my recommendation is the new Ivy Bridge as it was very simple/native to install on a GA-Z77-DS3H not the D3H as the audio is VIA not Realtek and the driver is the Current 887/888b kext. Select the User DSDT / No-DSDT method and you don't need a DSDT to download for this board it works... uhhh what is a good word here... oh Natively! Then the Atheros Network Kext and that is it! I am running on Mountain Lion with the USB installer where you have to be on Lion or last update of Snow Leopard to download from the App Store. Then you build the USB with UniBeast and boot from the USB to install. It really is that simple.

Hope this helps you out! Have Fun!