OS X compatible motherboard -> QUO

[bs0d]

Reboot loop

 

1. Powered up entered stock F2N and explored a few features
2. Ran a bootable stress test on CPU and memory for several hours
3. Flashed H3A.1307271205. First attempt failed. The previous version was automatically restored. Second attempt worked. I restored optimized defaults
4. Booted the 10.8 installer and installed without any issues
5. Experienced several KPs
6. Stripped down to barebones and still experienced KPs
7. Restarted and entered H3A. Experienced random freezes in the BIOS
8. Attempted to reflash F2N from a backup on USB. Bios froze during flash and did not recover
9. Reboot loop on startup. Case fan starts, CPU fan starts, system shuts down, repeat.
10. Removed power, battery, and jumped CMOS reset. Waiting 5 minutes
11. Still reboot loop.

 

Any suggestions.

 

Several things

 

First you can force the backup bios to kick in using the following method.

 

While PC is on, turn off power via AC main switch on PSU, wait 1minute .. now press and hold the ATX power switch then switch the PSU back on while still holding ATX power switch in.

 

Then powering up system normally the backup bios should kick in.

 

You may need to repeat this several times.

[Fruitboi]

@ Fruitboi

 

Can you provide DarwinDumper of QUO mobo?  You can get DarwinDumper from http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/282794-darwindumper/ .

Don't forget to select "Make Dumps Private."

 

Thank you for your time.

Sorry for the late reply.. been crazy crazy week!

 

Here's the dump

take 2.. should be here now!

 

The Disabler.kext in bios blocks IntelCpuPowerManagement.

 

The question is on purpose?

 

Yup.. on purpose!  I imagined this would be the case, but I have heard of no way to enable power management, much less how to configure the boot loader in EFI?

 

So again, how can we enable power management?

DarwinDumper_2.8.1_AMI_X64_00_000_00_000_Ozmosis_1.01.0739M___(2013-08-13_01_10_33__)_ML_FruitBoi.zip

[leesureone]

Reboot loop

 

1. Powered up entered stock F2N and explored a few features
2. Ran a bootable stress test on CPU and memory for several hours
3. Flashed H3A.1307271205. First attempt failed. The previous version was automatically restored. Second attempt worked. I restored optimized defaults
4. Booted the 10.8 installer and installed without any issues
5. Experienced several KPs
6. Stripped down to barebones and still experienced KPs
7. Restarted and entered H3A. Experienced random freezes in the BIOS
8. Attempted to reflash F2N from a backup on USB. Bios froze during flash and did not recover
9. Reboot loop on startup. Case fan starts, CPU fan starts, system shuts down, repeat.
10. Removed power, battery, and jumped CMOS reset. Waiting 5 minutes
11. Still reboot loop.

 

Any suggestions.

I has some issues with the Hermitcrab H3A.1307271205  bios as well, not as significant at what you are working through and I wish you luck. I had the same unexplained KPs and really unacceptable behavior within the bios settings itself.

 

The bios is bleeding edge and I am not belittling the efforts that went into creating it, I couldn't even begin to start work on something like it, but I am a lot happier with this motherboard using the original bios and a boot loader. Software updates are not usually that big a deal. Without a dependable bios and no clear way to modify settings like power management or whatever I am not seeing this board as that "special". 

 

If Hermitcrab's efforts are still ongoing then future bios versions could be more compelling.

[iLeopod]

AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement is loaded but:

WARNING: IOPlatformPluginUtil : getCPUIDInfo: this is an unknown CPU model 0x3a
  -- power management may be incomplete or unsupported

[Lanceomni]

Bs0d,

I did try that a few times and also spoke to Quo support. After abould six attempts, I reseated the memory and CPU as well as checking under the board to see if a screw may have slid under it. I took the battery out and tried to encourage the bios to recover and was successful.

 

Unfortunately before and after reflashing, I continued to get the same KP. I tried booting miniwindowsxp as well as Ubuntu. Both experienced panics.

 

I pulled the memory and CPU and placed into another z77 board and was able to install Ubuntu. I maxed out all of the cores and ran a few other stress tests for nearly 3 hours. I could not get it to panic.

 

Since I did not extensively test under the stock firmware(iT froze once), I may give it another shot. I'll leave the stock firmware and try to get it to freeze up.

 

Leesureone,

There have been numerous individuals who have flashed and not reported KPs.

[leesureone]

Yep, it could have had something to do with the various drives and operating systems I was running that freaked the bios out. Its tough to try and establish what exactly the board in that state didn't like Lanceomni. Good posts and I am following what you find out and how happy you are with how it works out. 

 

Unrelated but in my system I pulled the Patriot Pyro SE 240 GB drive out and replaced it with a Samsung 840 Pro 256 Gb and the system is much happier, might just be a firmware issue with that particular drive. It had windows installed on it but it made a difference. 

 

Keeping the system configuration as simple as possible with a couple of hard drives max, one for boot and one for storage, would probably enhance stability of the flashed boot loader but I want to be able throw at it everything at it. I can with with the stock bios pretty much...I can with three three other motherboards I have using a boot loader. 

 

With the alternate bios it's not as stable, not as configurable, not update proof....  in comparison to almost every other set up I can put together there is still plenty of room for improvement. Good start but I don't think it stands up to the hype at the moment.

[Fruitboi]

AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement is loaded but:

WARNING: IOPlatformPluginUtil : getCPUIDInfo: this is an unknown CPU model 0x3a
  -- power management may be incomplete or unsupported

Same thing on my main Hack with an 3750K  and power management works fine

[6displays]

1 video card = 6 displays!  BS?  

 

Nope...reality...

 

 

http://www.mediafire.com/?jjzyaok60fqquf1

 

Basically shows the QUO board running 6 displays in OSX.from 1 video card (Nvidia 660).

 

Amazing what this board can do.

 

Take a look.  Discuss.

[bradl001]

6 Displays? Very nice. For now, I'd be happy to just get my single display working with an EVGA GT 640. :-)

 

 

I flashed the H3A BIOS, installed 10.8 from a USB (created via Disk Utility restore) and the machine works great with Intel's HD4000. I didn't add any more .kext files.The CPU is an i7-3770 and no PCI-Express cards are installed.

 

Nothing shows up when I install the GT 640 but the system profiler knows it's there.

 

I've set the IGPU settings as recommended from the H3A BIOS web site.

 

For what it's worth, I cannot get an LSI 8888ELP card to work either. I don't see the "hit CTRL-G to setup card" banner or nothing. As if it's not there.

 

Am I misunderstanding some BIOS settings? Perhaps the UEFI/Legacy ROM options? Something else? Card needs extra software to support it?

 

Thanks!

[bs0d]

Bs0d,

I did try that a few times and also spoke to Quo support. After abould six attempts, I reseated the memory and CPU as well as checking under the board to see if a screw may have slid under it. I took the battery out and tried to encourage the bios to recover and was successful.

 

Unfortunately before and after reflashing, I continued to get the same KP. I tried booting miniwindowsxp as well as Ubuntu. Both experienced panics.

 

I pulled the memory and CPU and placed into another z77 board and was able to install Ubuntu. I maxed out all of the cores and ran a few other stress tests for nearly 3 hours. I could not get it to panic.

 

Since I did not extensively test under the stock firmware(iT froze once), I may give it another shot. I'll leave the stock firmware and try to get it to freeze up.

 

Leesureone,

There have been numerous individuals who have flashed and not reported KPs.

 

Just checking you are not using a saved bios settings profile from F2N on H3A .... they're not compatible.

[leesureone]

1 video card = 6 displays!  BS?  

 

Nope...reality...

 

 

Basically shows the QUO board running 6 displays in OSX.from 1 video card (Nvidia 660).

 

Amazing what this board can do.

 

Take a look.  Discuss.

Yes, welcome to Quo computers! The six functioning displays is more a function of the video card than the board. All I have to do now is buy three more monitors (not).

[^Andy^]

Been watching this thread for a while and am a bit of a loss - Initially I thought it was a brilliant idea but after reading the feedback on this thread I'm left wondering what the benefits are. It seems it's no easier to get this board up and running than most other hack builds, has a price premium, limited choice of processor and no real benefits that I can see.

I thought the initial idea was a mobo that made it simple to install osx and was as close to genuine mac hardware as possible but it seems that's not the case from the comments on this thread with most users having to use chameleon and install the same way as most hackintoshers by adding kexts etc.

 

What am I missing?

 

[leesureone]

Been watching this thread for a while and am a bit of a loss - Initially I thought it was a brilliant idea but after reading the feedback on this thread I'm left wondering what the benefits are. It seems it's no easier to get this board up and running than most other hack builds, has a price premium, limited choice of processor and no real benefits that I can see.

 

I thought the initial idea was a mobo that made it simple to install osx and was as close to genuine mac hardware as possible but it seems that's not the case from the comments on this thread with most users having to use chameleon and install the same way as most hackintoshers by adding kexts etc.

 

What am I missing?

 

 

 

Love to hear other opinions but I think you are spot on

[Badeendje]

Unfortunately it looks exactly like I said before and mentioned a few times by now; apart from the form factor it doesn't have that plus factor.
My opinion is still you don't need firewire + thunderbolt at the same time, and if you do need firewire you'd better (cheaper for sure) off with something else or even a 2nd hand mac pro 3,1 for example.

However what could make the board special and in which I'm very interested is thunderbolt.
Like I've written before hotplugging on hackintoshes is still like non existent and patching the video signal through as well.

Right now thunderbolt is on a hackintosh is a sort of novelty item bur far from real useful in real world situations.
Surely external hard disks work but but without the hotplug functionality you're better of with USB3.

At least for now anyways, hard disks have limited speed anyways and if you need anything faster for any professional reason you're better of with a real mac again.

I also had a friend coming in with a thunderbolt enabled video camera and since hotplug is absent it was pretty nasty to get to work.

However I do like the EFI part and if you could get that to work properly that would be, for some, a big plus.

Still I think it takes the fun-factor away from the hackintosh equation.

Besides that it's really not hard to get chameleon + fakesmc + voodoohda up running, especially with all the supported chipsets from this board.
This is exactly how I run my setup (be it with an universal intel kext plus I lack the thunderbolt but else I got exactly the same).

But I trully think it's an exceptional board, indeed for "other os", just not that exceptional for OSX.

Without going any further this way I'd still very much like to hear about thunderbolt experiences, if only comparing them to my own experiences.

[leesureone]

Unfortunately it looks exactly like I said before and mentioned a few times by now; apart from the form factor it doesn't have that plus factor.

My opinion is still you don't need firewire + thunderbolt at the same time, and if you do need firewire you'd better (cheaper for sure) off with something else or even a 2nd hand mac pro 3,1 for example.

 

However what could make the board special and in which I'm very interested is thunderbolt.

Like I've written before hotplugging on hackintoshes is still like non existent and patching the video signal through as well.

Right now thunderbolt is on a hackintosh is a sort of novelty item bur far from real useful in real world situations.

Surely external hard disks work but but without the hotplug functionality you're better of with USB3.

At least for now anyways, hard disks have limited speed anyways and if you need anything faster for any professional reason you're better of with a real mac again.

I also had a friend coming in with a thunderbolt enabled video camera and since hotplug is absent it was pretty nasty to get to work.

 

However I do like the EFI part and if you could get that to work properly that would be, for some, a big plus.

Still I think it takes the fun-factor away from the hackintosh equation.

Besides that it's really not hard to get chameleon + fakesmc + voodoohda up running, especially with all the supported chipsets from this board.

This is exactly how I run my setup (be it with an universal intel kext plus I lack the thunderbolt but else I got exactly the same).

But I trully think it's an exceptional board, indeed for "other os", just not that exceptional for OSX.

Without going any further this way I'd still very much like to hear about thunderbolt experiences, if only comparing them to my own experiences.

With this board using either available bios thunderbolt acts the same as it does on any hack, the device needs to be plugged in at boot up to be recognized. Hot plug does not work for me. I have a couple of external thunderbolt drives I can chain, I had one attached at boot up and then once at the desktop I plugged in the other. I could see the drive lights flashing but the system eventually dropped both and neither were accessible. Restarting the system took care of it.

 

Not a deal breaker for me but better thunderbolt functionality would be a plus.

[iztech]

Please contact Intel regarding thunderbolt.

USB3 over Thunderbolt - give me a break!

What is the issue with video signal daisy chain? 

[Badeendje]

With this board using either available bios thunderbolt acts the same as it does on any hack, the device needs to be plugged in at boot up to be recognized. Hot plug does not work for me. I have a couple of external thunderbolt drives I can chain, I had one attached at boot up and then once at the desktop I plugged in the other. I could see the drive lights flashing but the system eventually dropped both and neither were accessible. Restarting the system took care of it.

 

Not a deal breaker for me but better thunderbolt functionality would be a plus.

Thanks. That's a real shame, so we probably need to wait till the chipset has support instead of a dedicated chip (for hotswap).

Still I wonder why apple can graphics patch through work and windows with Lucid VirtuMVP, so it might be we just need some sort of patching there.

 

USB3 over Thunderbolt - give me a break!

I never said anything about that, just USB3 is fast enough for external hard disks for now as hard disks and even SSD's are the limiting factor.

Must admit, not for a very long time anymore but still.

USB3 is on some macs now, and also works perfectly for hackintosh so for external hard disks you're better of with just USB3, for now, plus you get a working hotswap option (safe unplugging if you will).

Why I basically wanted thunderbolt for myself is just so I can use any possible upcoming new screens as they're probably thunderbolt (might be TB2 but we don't know again for sure, and more companies may use it as well this time around). Plus if I wanted to use thunderbolt for example a hard disk I would just have to turn to the back of the screen to daisy link instead of pulling my desk towards me to reach the back side of the case.

The cpu and memory is fast enough for me so this board was a candidate as a drop in replacement.

So here you go why USB3 still has the upper hand for most people, and if you need any faster you'd probably want a real mac for stability reasons as well.

[genzai]

Please contact Intel regarding thunderbolt.

USB3 over Thunderbolt - give me a break!

What is the issue with video signal daisy chain? 

Well thats a real bummer. The main reason i was interested in this board was the prospect of properly working thunderbolt ports (in other words hot-plug). Early on i had emailed QUO and asked if the thunderbolt ports would be fully working and was told they were working on it. Guess they couldn't crack it. 

 

Obviously intel isn't going to help, i am sure that comment is meant to assign blame, but if its working on real apple hardware then it should be a matter of getting the right DSDT, firmware, driver hooks and UEFI bits working together like any other hardware component. If TB worked i would try and grab a bunch of these for personal and pro associates' use but without that its not very interesting. Just wish one of these master hackers would put all the pieces together to make this work.

 

Cheers,

g\

[genzai]

I wouldn't get too hung up over thunderbolt - it's looking more and more of an 'almost ran' as time drags by and nobody else adopts it. http://9to5mac.com/2013/08/01/thunderbolts-future-looks-even-more-precarious-as-10gbps-superspeed-usb-announced/

Hmm, might be a bit early for that. in our industry (film and post production) its caught on quite well already. And if the new mac pro doesn't flop that will push it even harder into some markets. Granted it seems likely to stay a pro / high-end interface for the near to mid term but once intel integrates it directly onto the CPU it may still become more ubiquitous. USB 3.0 is great for as an external drive connector. But for attaching SAS RAIDS, 10GbE, and other hardware that used to require PCIe cards TB is quite useful. I think this tech has legs but time will tell. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what thunderbolt is for right now. Apple gets it (maybe TOO much) but intel is in a very good position to keep it alive and pushing it along since it makes the chips and chipsets we all use and it has pretty clear plans to make thunderbolt the external PCI bus of the future. Don't forget optical cable versions are coming at some point too.

 

 

Anyway, tech prophecy- or any prophecy for that matter- is a tough industry i would like to stay out of. But it sure would be great if master hackintoshers could figure out how to make the TB ports work like they do on apple gear!

 

g\

[^Andy^]

Hmm, might be a bit early for that. in our industry (film and post production) its caught on quite well already. And if the new mac pro doesn't flop that will push it even harder into some markets. Granted it seems likely to stay a pro / high-end interface for the near to mid term but once intel integrates it directly onto the CPU it may still become more ubiquitous. USB 3.0 is great for as an external drive connector. But for attaching SAS RAIDS, 10GbE, and other hardware that used to require PCIe cards TB is quite useful. I think this tech has legs but time will tell. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what thunderbolt is for right now. Apple gets it (maybe TOO much) but intel is in a very good position to keep it alive and pushing it along since it makes the chips and chipsets we all use and it has pretty clear plans to make thunderbolt the external PCI bus of the future. Don't forget optical cable versions are coming at some point too.

 

 

Anyway, tech prophecy- or any prophecy for that matter- is a tough industry i would like to stay out of. But it sure would be great if master hackintoshers could figure out how to make the TB ports work like they do on apple gear!

 

g\

Thunderbolt certainly does have serious tech potential but everything I have read indicates that outside of the apple/intel agreement it's not cost effective for other vendors to implement due to intels licensing costs being way too high. This is based on my own limited reading so I may be wrong and happy to admit to it if that is the case.

 

The problem I foresee is that the hackintosh world will never get to grips with thunderbolt because it's just not likely to crop up on pc motherboards - it's not really the target market. PC's can be upgraded internally for graphics, usb cards, raid cards etc so that's really not what thunderbolt is aimed at - its aimed at closed systems with external only upgrades such as the new mac pro (which came first chicken or egg?).

Sorry for going off topic btw

[maleorderbride]

Hmm, might be a bit early for that. in our industry (film and post production) its caught on quite well already. And if the new mac pro doesn't flop that will push it even harder into some markets. Granted it seems likely to stay a pro / high-end interface for the near to mid term but once intel integrates it directly onto the CPU it may still become more ubiquitous. USB 3.0 is great for as an external drive connector. But for attaching SAS RAIDS, 10GbE, and other hardware that used to require PCIe cards TB is quite useful. I think this tech has legs but time will tell. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about what thunderbolt is for right now. Apple gets it (maybe TOO much) but intel is in a very good position to keep it alive and pushing it along since it makes the chips and chipsets we all use and it has pretty clear plans to make thunderbolt the external PCI bus of the future. Don't forget optical cable versions are coming at some point too.

 

 

Anyway, tech prophecy- or any prophecy for that matter- is a tough industry i would like to stay out of. But it sure would be great if master hackintoshers could figure out how to make the TB ports work like they do on apple gear!

 

g\

I have built quite a few hackintoshes for film and post product, but this is not the motherboard to use.  This motherboard is essentially 1.5 year old tech that is an "enthusiast

level product.  It is not a professional or workstation class motherboard.

 

If you are a professional who does film or post, you want a socket 2011 1P or 2P motherboard.  Anything else is a glorified iMac--like this motherboard here.  

 

I think Andy is dead-on, this is a product that differs very little from any other modern motherboard as far as hackintoshing, yet has several hardware limitations.  Plus, even if you want an "iMac" level computer instead of a workstation then this is an obsolete socket that does not support Haswell.  It is simply underwhelming.

 

The positives that I can see is that future products that might stem from and learn from this attempt.  A more hackintosh friendly 2011 motherboard with what seems to be essentially a custom BIOS (that does not cause KPs) and custom version of Clover built-in to allow UEFI booting would be nice if reasonably priced.

 

Despite TB being essentially unnecessary for a workstation, having one would go along way to quiet the people that need it for some reason or don't understand why it is unnecessary.  Plus, you can never control what kind of drive a client drops off.

[Geesu]

Just received mine in the mail! Haven't built a hackintosh since like the 10.6 days.

 

Was just curious, is there a guide available for how to properly dual boot OS X and windows with this motherboard?

 

Should I just follow a generic guide?  Wasn't sure if flashing the bios is necessary, should i use chameleon, etc...

 

Thanks!!

[vegasloki]

Despite TB being essentially unnecessary for a workstation, having one would go along way to quiet the people that need it for some reason or don't understand why it is unnecessary.  Plus, you can never control what kind of drive a client drops off.

 

 

For our applications Thunderbolt has become essential in that it saves time (money in labor) for the transfer of some content and for our large scale apps there aren't enough slots for I/O without an expansion chassis which in and of itself can be a nightmare.   Once the content is on the network it's not an issue but for getting content on and off the network and having flexibility in device interface it's an excellent tool.  I'd agree that large scale apps aren't using 37xx series processors but in my experience upgrading systems yearly isn't usually done so having a computer that is a a year or two out in technology is fairly common in large scale production.  In fact it's the standard.    We're judged on the quality of the work product, not how new the technology might be.

So here you go why USB3 still has the upper hand for most people, and if you need any faster you'd probably want a real mac for stability reasons as well.

There is more USB 3 because more devices are available and devices and technology implementation for Thunderbolt is pretty expensive at the point.  There are applications where Thunderbolt is a better solution but those are typically things that would have been utilizing the PCIe bus and not a serial bus.  I would agree that at this point, particularly given the cost structure, it's just not feasible for everyone to switch when for the typical user USB 3 is more than adequate.  However, that same sort of argument was made when the floppy went away, then RS232 ports and now optical media though in recent times the pushback when those technologies are deprecated is less and less.

 

No hot swap on the hacks is a bummer but my understanding is that it has to do with how the hardware, BIOS and OS communicate to make the resources (PCIe lanes) available at the swap.  I don't know what would be required to make it happen in a hack.

[maleorderbride]

For our applications Thunderbolt has become essential in that it saves time (money in labor) for the transfer of some content and for our large scale apps there aren't enough slots for I/O without an expansion chassis which in and of itself can be a nightmare.   Once the content is on the network it's not an issue but for getting content on and off the network and having flexibility in device interface it's an excellent tool.  I'd agree that large scale apps aren't using 37xx series processors but in my experience upgrading systems yearly isn't usually done so having a computer that is a a year or two out in technology is fairly common in large scale production.  In fact it's the standard.    We're judged on the quality of the work product, not how new the technology might be.

 

This is one of the misconceptions that I had in mind.  With a socket 2011 motherboard, which has largely been out concurrently with socket 1155 (the motherboard discussed in this thread), you can have up to 6 PCI-e x16 lanes on a 1P build or up to 7 PCI-e lanes on a 2P build.

 

Even if you do color grading, which is the most PCI-e intensive application one can do, you can do it with 6 PCI-e x16 lanes.  Because you have all of those built into your $360 motherboard you do not need to spend an extra $750 on a TB to PCI-e chassis or TB to X adapters.  Every single PCI-e card you might stick in that TB chassis can go internal.  It saves you time and it saves you money to just use a workstation motherboard.  That is my point.

 

I do understand that you receive data on TB drives sometimes.  If you need TB purely to transfer files to the network then have a Mac Mini do it.  Hopefully there will be PCI-e TB cards out for hacks eventually, but even if they are not hot swappable it really makes little difference.  TB is not as useful or as efficient of an option as a motherboard with PCI-e lanes available.

 

 

 

Secondly, you do not need to buy a new computer every year--you just need to buy the correct computer when you buy one (not necessarily the last socket to be released).  socket 2011 and socket 1155 both came out in 2011, granted there was a 6 month spread between them with 1155 being first.  Buying a socket 1155 now, in Q3 2013, after it is EOL is a decidedly questionable decision. 

 

Especially so, because if you are in a professional industry that needs more than 32GBs RAM, more CPU power than an i7-Quad Core, or lots of PCI-e slots (or might need these in the next 3-4 years) then you are shooting yourself in the foot with this motherboard or even with a Haswell socket 1150.  Those are iMac's in disguise.  

 

You should have bought a socket 1366 in 2009-mid 2011, then bought a socket 2011 if purchasing in 2011 Q3 until Q4 2014.

[^Andy^]

This is one of the misconceptions that I had in mind.  With a socket 2011 motherboard, which has largely been out concurrently with socket 1155 (the motherboard discussed in this thread), you can have up to 6 PCI-e x16 lanes on a 1P build or up to 7 PCI-e lanes on a 2P build.

 

Even if you do color grading, which is the most PCI-e intensive application one can do, you can do it with 6 PCI-e x16 lanes.  Because you have all of those built into your $360 motherboard you do not need to spend an extra $750 on a TB to PCI-e chassis or TB to X adapters.  Every single PCI-e card you might stick in that TB chassis can go internal.  It saves you time and it saves you money to just use a workstation motherboard.  That is my point.

 

I do understand that you receive data on TB drives sometimes.  If you need TB purely to transfer files to the network then have a Mac Mini do it.  Hopefully there will be PCI-e TB cards out for hacks eventually, but even if they are not hot swappable it really makes little difference.  TB is not as useful or as efficient of an option as a motherboard with PCI-e lanes available.

 

 

 

Secondly, you do not need to buy a new computer every year--you just need to buy the correct computer when you buy one (not necessarily the last socket to be released).  socket 2011 and socket 1155 both came out in 2011, granted there was a 6 month spread between them with 1155 being first.  Buying a socket 1155 now, in Q3 2013, after it is EOL is a decidedly questionable decision. 

 

Especially so, because if you are in a professional industry that needs more than 32GBs RAM, more CPU power than an i7-Quad Core, or lots of PCI-e slots (or might need these in the next 3-4 years) then you are shooting yourself in the foot with this motherboard or even with a Haswell socket 1150.  Those are iMac's in disguise.  

 

You should have bought a socket 1366 in 2009-mid 2011, then bought a socket 2011 if purchasing in 2011 Q3 until Q4 2014.

Absolutely everything you have said here confirms my confusion over the new mac pro and it's absurd new design. I always wanted a mac pro until they announced the new pedal bin shaped one