Originally posted by: mshan
Does having two separate hard drives, and using one for Windows XP Home boot and the other for Mac OS X (assume additional data parttions on each) simple this dual booting thing?
It can simplify dual booting, yes. Some boards have a built in boot menu where you hold down a key at startup (F12 on Gigabyte boards) and then choose the boot device, and if multiple hard drives, which hard drive. Therefore, if Windows is on one, and OSX another, you can choose like that.
It's not elegant, but it gets the job done. The Intel board doesn't have that option though. No idea if the Asus board does or not.
I find I use one or the other and don't switch back and forth much, so however I get from one OS to another isn't something I do that often. More and more, I'm just using OSX. No matter what you use, I highly recommend a shared partition that's DOS formatted. OSX can't write to NTFS, and Windows can't read/write MacOS (unless you you software like MacDrive), so if you easily want to move files between the OS's, it's good to have.
And is digital output something you have to check off in the software control panel, or does it make you choose between digital output and analog output (even though analog output still
works)?
You just select (highlight) which device for sound output. My choices on the Intel board are Line Out, Headphones and Digital Out, all built-in. When I switch to Headphones, the case front headphone port is active, (the internal audio port on the motherboard) and of course the Line Out is no longer is active. When I select Digital Out, then Line Out/Headphones still works. By the way, I confirmed the same behavior today on the MacPro I use at work- but also, it has just analog speakers hooked up, nothing digital. So the sound behavior of my Intel build is the same as an actual Apple.
EDIT: the
Asus P5W DH Deluxe showed up as in stock at Newegg a while ago. I put it in my cart, but I checked again and it said deactivated item like it usually does. It was in my cart ($169 + $9 shipping), so I went ahead and checked out successfully. It's at step 3, so hopefully I won't get a notice that they no longer have stock.
If you notice on the newegg user reviews, the latest review of that board is someone using it for a Hackintosh. It's among the boards that are as Mac-compatible as it gets, so it's a great choice. I've bought several items from newegg that were deactivated just after I bought them (and I received the item), so I'd wager you just got the last one.
In terms of cpu for that Asus P5W DH Deluxe, would you recommend an e6600, or the e4600 you linked above? And what about 2 x1 GB memory?
All depends on what you'll use the system for, and if you're thinking long term or short. Long term, I'd bite the bullet and go with a quad core Q6600. It's so cheap for a quad C2D, and will probably be able to handle the latest OSes for years to come. On the other hand, I chose the e4600 for no other reason than it was the cheapest C2D on newegg, and at $100 less than the Q6600 it's got a great bang-for-buck ratio.
I've been putting the e4600 system through its paces with Final Cut, Photoshop and everything else, and honestly, I can't tell a whit of real-world difference at most tasks between it and a Gigabyte system I have with an e6600. (My main Hackintosh). That's one reason I like this Intel system so much and wanted to share the stats- it's solid, fast and cheap. I think for most everyday tasks, and basic graphic tasks, the even cheaper option dual core Pentium would be fine. I'm eventually going to build an ultra-budget system around the dual core Pentium and see how it performs.
And of course security updates in general. One big thing would be more/better support for raw formats (Sigma's DP1 for example, but unlikely ever to get native support).
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