My first OSX build - Please check for compatibility! (BOBW)

[ElminsterTCOM]

There can be a difference between sustained throughput (MB/s) and I/O operations/second ("IOPS"). Even though a SATA2 port is restricted to 300 MB/s, if the workload is lots of transactions the same SSD can perform similarly on a SATA2 and a SATA3 port. Anyway, this all comes down to you having the flexibility to possibly move the Windows drive to a SATA2 port if you need another SATA3 device accessible within OS X without having to put in the 640L card. I wouldn't be surprised if the Samsung 840 Pro on a SATA2 port would still be blindingly fast for your Windows application.

However, if you're going to buy the 640L anyway it doesn't really matter.

I was actually thinking of swapping the 480GB SanDisk to the 640L and getting a second one to bump up to 1 TBish in a JBOD setup. I'm a bit worried that 480 may not be enough drive space for video capturing in uncompressed mode. Thats the other reason for the 640L, since I can dynamically expand if I wish.

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[DBP]

One other detail: if you've read that post in my build thread you'll notice that on this motherboard there are only 16 PCIe lanes to share across the x16/x8/x4 slots, and all three x1 slots are multiplexed into one lane. Bottom line for you is that with the x8 or x4 slots occupied the GPU will be operating in a PCIe v3.0 x8 slot. Mind you, that's still at least 6-7 GB/s between the GPU and the host, which is not to be sneezed at.
But worthwhile knowing at the outset.

 

[StickyS]

hehehehehe!! No worries, I actually have a windows 7 license for this build to fall back on. I figured I'd give Windows 8 a shot since I was able to get a copy through work for $10.

Alright, its NOT a good time trying to game through Windows8(yes, firsthand experience, this is why I am only Win7/ML now)!

 

[ElminsterTCOM]

One other detail: if you've read that post in my build thread you'll notice that on this motherboard there are only 16 PCIe lanes to share across the x16/x8/x4 slots, and all three x1 slots are multiplexed into one lane. Bottom line for you is that with the x8 or x4 slots occupied the GPU will be operating in a PCIe v3.0 x8 slot. Mind you, that's still at least 6-7 GB/s between the GPU and the host, which is not to be sneezed at.
But worthwhile knowing at the outset.

That is something I had noticed when reading the board specifications, but don't quite have a feel for what the impact is. I have a feeling that this might cause a problem if I were to add a second GTX680 for SLI operation?

I will have to read more about this and maybe adjust the motherboard choice? The issue is that I really wanted thunderbolt capability, but I guess I could dump that and either get an add-on board when they come out or hold out till I upgrade again. Any suggestions?

 

[ElminsterTCOM]

Based on my conversation with StickyS, I am changing the videocard from the ASUS 4GB board to the MSI 4GB board. I am also considering purchasing a second one for SLI operation which would be inserted into the PCIEX8 slot. Everything I have read suggests that SLI does not work in OSX, instead the cards will show up as just two cards. This is fine since most of my gaming will take place in windows. I just hope they correct this in 10.9! Is there anything else that I am missing concerning the addition of a second card?

Thank you!

Also, I will update the first post to reflect the changes.

 

[ElminsterTCOM]

Based on DBP's comments I went back and read more on PCIE and how the lane splitting works and discovered that this board may not be suitable for what I am trying to accomplish. I would very much like to have thunderbolt and at least 6 SATA III ports for this system. I would also like to maximize SLI performance for gaming, so I would like to have 2x16 @ 16. I do not plan on using video through the thunderbolt ports, only for drives and such. So with this board , I will get the following performance:

GTX680 1 @ x8
GTX680 2 @ x4
640L @ x4

This makes me believe there is no point in having SLI if the second card will run at 4x. Please let me know if I am wrong about this?

The only board that I have found that has a thunderbolt port and meets the above requirements is the ASUS P8Z77-V PREMIUM. It has 6 SATA III Ports so I wouldn't need the Highpoint card, and it supports SLI at x16 for both cards. Plus I will still have access to a x1 slot for the capture board. I just don't know about OSX compatibility?

Can anyone comment on the compatibility of the ASUS P8Z77-V PREMIUM?

Thank you!!

 

[Going Bald]

Can anyone comment on the compatibility of the ASUS P8Z77-V PREMIUM?

Thank you!!

Considering there is an unlocked BIOS at http://biosrepo.wordpress.com/asus/z77/ I would say it is as compatible as any other ASUS board. Some ports might not work properly (USB3.0 mainly) if driven from a 3rd party chip. Do your research carefully.

 

[ElminsterTCOM]

Considering there is an unlocked BIOS at http://biosrepo.wordpress.com/asus/z77/ I would say it is as compatible as any other ASUS board. Some ports might not work properly (USB3.0 mainly) if driven from a 3rd party chip. Do your research carefully.

I did some reading here in the forums and this is what I have found so far: http://www.tonymacx86.com/mountain-...-p8z77-v-premium-build-experience-issues.html

cwestpha states the following work:
* All the basic fun stuff. Booting, restarting, gaming, clicking, double clicking, dragging, ya know the fun stuff.
* Speedstep seems to work fine. good power usage. Overclocking functions corectly but may not always be reflected in system profiler & About This Mac.
*Trim function /w patch
*Ethernet, both ports, work fine after intel patched kext. HOWEVER if you are like me then disable the 2nd port and keep your ethernet attached to the lower (1st) port. If you leave one of the ports vacant durring boot OS X seems to act unusually. I think this is related to a NIC firmware bug.
*OpenGL, 2D UI acceleration, multi-monitor, etc
*All SATA & eSATA ports after the patched kext.
*Z77’s USB 3.0 & USB 2.0 ports.
*ALC898 audio and the ports (though they are mislabeled because I don't have a proper DSDT for this mobo)

What he says doesn't work:
All of the other USB 3.0 ports since the patched third-party support kexts cause the computer to not boot. [conflict between AppleUSB & third-party USB kexts]
Thunderbolt port (NooooOooooOooo!) though it works fine as a mini display port for the onboard GPU.
Chimera & co doesn't have UEFI support or passthrough so no booting (UEFI) Linux or (UEFI) Windows from the bootloader. *sadface*
onboard Wifi & BT

If thunderbolt is not working for data on this board, then what is the point? Can anyone confirm whether the ASUS P8Z77-V PREMIUM has a working thunderbolt port for data?

If the answer is no, can anyone comment on the GA-Z77X-UP7? This board has 6 SATA III ports and can run SLI in 2x16 mode! And it's Gigabyte so I would assume it is supported?

 

[DBP]

can anyone comment on the GA-Z77X-UP7? This board has 6 SATA III ports and can run SLI in 2x16 mode!

Well, no.
Download the manual from Gigabyte and look at page 8. All those x16 slots are switched down to only 16 lanes to the CPU. And it doesn't have Thunderbolt.

Bottom line: the technology you want doesn't exist yet.
All Z77 boards are restricted in the number of PCIe lanes available. There seem to be 16 v2 lanes available from the Z77 itself, and 16 v3 lanes from the CPU. If you want more you need to go up to the Socket 2011 X79 systems, but none of them have Thunderbolt.
Ethernet controllers, SATA controllers, USB3 controllers: each of these tends to chew up another PCIe lane. So a motherboard with lots of SATA ports will be chewing up some of the available lanes internally with these controllers.

If you didn't have that 640L in the system you'd be able to run two GPUs each in x8 mode. General consensus seems to be that this is plenty for today's video cards (especially as PCIe v3.0 doubled the lane bandwidth from PCIe v2). Or with the 640L and just one GPU (which should be plenty for some time to come: I'm not convinced that SLI is worth much more than gamers' wet dreams). SLI (where it's used, which obviously it's not in OS X at the moment) provides a high-speed back-channel between the cards, but even when you're talking about a single GPU, a x8 bus does not slow down the internal processing of the GPU. This is a complicated subject though: with some top-end cards actually have two GPUs linked by an on-card PCIe switch to share the lanes.

If I was you I'd be looking for a board where you can have one fast GPU in x8 or x16 mode, with enough SATA ports (and Thunderbolt, which chews up another four PCIe lanes in the system). If you can avoid having SATA controllers in the slots fed to the CPU you can run two GPUs in x8 mode. It'll be a question of which cards have the right combination of controllers and PCIe slots fed by the Z77.

The GA-Z77X-UP5 TH is not optimal in this regard but maybe you can get a compromise solution:

The x16/x8/x4 slots go to the CPU, and the other three x1 slots are switched down to a single lane going to the Z77, which is also running all the other devices. With two SATAIII ports on the Z77 itself, two on the Marvell controller (which takes up one of the Z77's lanes), and a x1 ASM1061 card providing two more SATAIII ports, you'd have a total of six SATAIII ports plus four SATAII ports. Leave the x4 slot empty, and have the x16 and x8 slots for GPUs.

However, the BlackMagic card also needs a x1 slot, so it would have to share bandwidth with that ASM1061 card. Are there devices (Windows drive? OS X boot drive?) which you could put on that card and know that they're not going to be heavily accessed while the BlackMagic card is streaming video? Systems design is often about balance and compromise.
A relevant question is "How much bandwidth is the BM card actually going to use?" It's presumably not going to saturate the 500 MB/s it has available.
Also as mentioned it may be worth booting off drives on a SATAII port and leaving the SATAIII ports for data drives. Balance and compromise...​

Incidentally, I just bought another ASM1061 card from China on eBay and it cost the princely sum of $12 (including shipping).

 

[DBP]

Ok, so there can apparently be some advantages of using a board with a x16 switch adding another x16 slot. Rather than statically giving each card 8 lanes, the switch can dynamically allocate lane bandwidth to each based on load.
This AnandTech article talks about it a bit.