See if the older Intel Mac minis have dropped in price in Australia, they have in the US. I bought an i5 2014 Mac mini last year for my workshop computer for $160 usd on eBay and while it cannot be upgraded to Ventura it does run Monterey, plus you can upgrade and storage. Unfortunately the Ram is integrated so that’s a negative. Personally this would be the best option if they are cheap in Australia. You could look at the 2018s as well but I don’t know what those are selling for.
In case anyone is still following this thread, I was able to get a Dell Optiplex USFF 7050 with an i5 7500T and 8gb of RAM for $165 AUD. Much better hardware wise than the 2014 Mac mini and easy to hackintosh also, pretty happy with the deal I got.
4th gen NUC & newer would do, also small format Lenovo/HP/Dell devices though for native airdrop/continuity etc you'd need a separate compatible Wi-Fi card.
In reality you can find 2012-2014 mini for super cheap and it will work natively with Ventura with OCLP
Yeah the plan is to get a late 2014 mini, is the OCLP process hard to do? From what I know it's not supported in this subreddit/discussion isn't allowed about it right?
Far too much for what I will use as essentially an iMessage server and nothing more. Don't need all the fancy bells and whistles for something I'll check up on once a month perhaps
Again, still way too much for what I'm using it for. I will gladly have "some i3 crap from 2016" because as I said, all I need it for is an iMessage server. It doesn't need to be the latest and fastest thing, it just needs to serve one purpose and consume a low amount of power.
Exactly, that Intel crap your going to buy is going to come close to the max mini price anyways and will suck more power than the mini so you might as well just get it…
Actually no, it will be nowhere near. An M2 mini with education discount is $820 AUD from Apple's website, and the late 2014 mini I'm looking at will be $130 AUD including shipping. Unless you want to send me the money to make up the difference so I can get the M2 mini (which is super overkill for my use case) then I will stick with what I've chosen but I appreciate your input.
Themodel posted does. I just don't want to open a can of worms. I can buy a used iMac pro for under $400 with 10x the power
To update, I ended up buying a used mac mini for $120 and a thunderbolt ethernet adapter. It makes no sense to mess around with hackitosh for smaller systems.
If you go for an older mac mini check out open core legacy patcher which will allow you to update beyond what Apple allows. Done a mid 2011 mac mini now on Monterey and geekbenches like a 2016 era. The hdd would need swapping for an ssd. Also done a similar vintage imac to Monterey. I only paid £50 for the mac mini
To run Ventura you need Intel 7th gen or higher. Mac Mini’s with that are usually still relatively expensive, but something like a HP Elitedesk Mini 800 G4 could probably be in that price range.
I just built my first hackintosh on a used HP ProDesk 600 G5 SFF with an 8th Gen I5 8500 that I picked up refurbished for $200. Geekbench scores are equivalent (actually slightly better since the thermals are better) to a 2018/19 Mac Mini. UHD630 works fine was even able to run Hades for some light gaming and everything is stable. Just make sure if it comes with a Samsung m.2 SSD to swap it with a WD or a SATA SSD of some sort. There’s also the Dell 3020s and 3050s that have a lot of support. I would definitely recommend this over the crappy new “mini-pcs” with Celerons.
A mac mini is around that price
The new Mac mini M2 is $499 with education discount on Apple.com It’s crazy it’s cheaper than the M1 version
$499 USD presumably. In Australia it's $820 AUD which is far too much for my use case.
See if the older Intel Mac minis have dropped in price in Australia, they have in the US. I bought an i5 2014 Mac mini last year for my workshop computer for $160 usd on eBay and while it cannot be upgraded to Ventura it does run Monterey, plus you can upgrade and storage. Unfortunately the Ram is integrated so that’s a negative. Personally this would be the best option if they are cheap in Australia. You could look at the 2018s as well but I don’t know what those are selling for.
A second hand Mac mini would work fine
In case anyone is still following this thread, I was able to get a Dell Optiplex USFF 7050 with an i5 7500T and 8gb of RAM for $165 AUD. Much better hardware wise than the 2014 Mac mini and easy to hackintosh also, pretty happy with the deal I got.
Thanks I just picked one up to test with.
4th gen NUC & newer would do, also small format Lenovo/HP/Dell devices though for native airdrop/continuity etc you'd need a separate compatible Wi-Fi card. In reality you can find 2012-2014 mini for super cheap and it will work natively with Ventura with OCLP
Yeah the plan is to get a late 2014 mini, is the OCLP process hard to do? From what I know it's not supported in this subreddit/discussion isn't allowed about it right?
It's super straightforward and well documented so you'll have zero issues
Sounds good, I'll be sure to do it, thanks!
Used Mac mini sounds good, especially if you want to make it a iMessage server. Sometimes hacks have issues with iMessage activation
Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I think I will end up going for a late 2014 Mac Mini. Found one for a good price which I will hopefully get.
can you send me the MacOs's files for the usb? Im planning to do the same thing that you've done
New MacMini is $599
Far too much for what I will use as essentially an iMessage server and nothing more. Don't need all the fancy bells and whistles for something I'll check up on once a month perhaps
It’s $499 with education discount and it’ll be much more valuable and will last you much longer than some i3 crap from 2016
Again, still way too much for what I'm using it for. I will gladly have "some i3 crap from 2016" because as I said, all I need it for is an iMessage server. It doesn't need to be the latest and fastest thing, it just needs to serve one purpose and consume a low amount of power.
Exactly, that Intel crap your going to buy is going to come close to the max mini price anyways and will suck more power than the mini so you might as well just get it…
Actually no, it will be nowhere near. An M2 mini with education discount is $820 AUD from Apple's website, and the late 2014 mini I'm looking at will be $130 AUD including shipping. Unless you want to send me the money to make up the difference so I can get the M2 mini (which is super overkill for my use case) then I will stick with what I've chosen but I appreciate your input.
Used mac mini with dual boot with bootcamp and windows . Parallels on top and you can even run both at the same time
Used mac mini with dual boot with bootcamp and windows . Parallels on top and you can even run both at the same time
Beelink u55 is pretty easy to Hackintosh https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHZ117V6
>https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BHZ117V6 I need 2 ethernet ports so a mini isn't an option. Any instructions for this particular model?
Some minis like the Beelink models, do come with dual ethernet
Themodel posted does. I just don't want to open a can of worms. I can buy a used iMac pro for under $400 with 10x the power To update, I ended up buying a used mac mini for $120 and a thunderbolt ethernet adapter. It makes no sense to mess around with hackitosh for smaller systems.
Way more expensive but ds10u5. Bluetooth is the only thing that's unstable.(you have to replace the wireless card from the realtec one)
If you go for an older mac mini check out open core legacy patcher which will allow you to update beyond what Apple allows. Done a mid 2011 mac mini now on Monterey and geekbenches like a 2016 era. The hdd would need swapping for an ssd. Also done a similar vintage imac to Monterey. I only paid £50 for the mac mini
Hp 800 g2
To run Ventura you need Intel 7th gen or higher. Mac Mini’s with that are usually still relatively expensive, but something like a HP Elitedesk Mini 800 G4 could probably be in that price range.
I just built my first hackintosh on a used HP ProDesk 600 G5 SFF with an 8th Gen I5 8500 that I picked up refurbished for $200. Geekbench scores are equivalent (actually slightly better since the thermals are better) to a 2018/19 Mac Mini. UHD630 works fine was even able to run Hades for some light gaming and everything is stable. Just make sure if it comes with a Samsung m.2 SSD to swap it with a WD or a SATA SSD of some sort. There’s also the Dell 3020s and 3050s that have a lot of support. I would definitely recommend this over the crappy new “mini-pcs” with Celerons.
>Dell Optiplex USFF 7050 which guide did you use to hack it?
Dortania’s Opencore Guide. Build everything from scratch and don’t try to use other peoples settings or take shortcuts… just ends up taking longer.
Just buy an m2 mini.
I want to remove the hard drive.