Mac mini alternatives (macOS in VM on Apple and non-Apple hardware)

[leo-tech]

Analyzing Z370 for Intel's 8th Generation Coffee Lake: A Quick Look at 50+ Motherboards

The launch of Intel’s new 8th Generation ‘Coffee Lake’ processors for desktops is going to be an interesting one. On one side it redefines Intel’s main product stack and its terminology (in a good way), but the motherboard side is going to get somewhat confusing. The new CPUs are using the LGA1151 socket, as found on the previous generation, but it uses the socket differently, making the motherboards and CPUs incompatible with each other. To get around this issue previously, Intel introduces a new name to help with the separation, but no such luck here. The new platform and socket will be supported by the 300-series chipset, with Z370 being the first member of that product family. In this overview, we perform a visual inspection and analysis on 50+ motherboards from the main motherboards manufacturers...

*Some new boards still to add to our overview over the next week, stay tuned...

Choosing the Right [Z370 Coffee Lake] Motherboard

 

[leo-tech]

The Mac mini isn’t dead yet, says Tim Cook

 

[philipma1957]

If only Apple would play fair with Mac minis and iMacs...we would probably see a single beefed-up reasonably flexible upgradeable Mac mini/iMac mini desktop unit like this HP Z2 Mini G3, connected/attached to any display of Mac users liking, including Apple Retinas, why not:

(yes, I know, it would undermine Apple profits from iMacs sales...or would it, really?)

Apple knows they only need 2 desk tops.
I say f the iMac and kill it off and just go mac mini and mac pro with the dell 32 inch screen as an option.

What they have done is drain the better gear for most people to feed the most useless desk top of the 3 the iMac.
I can't say more then this as I would be banned from the site. but I own 3 mac minis and 3 lenovo m700 tiny pc's along with a dozen to 2 dozen pc's for mining crypto coins.

my 3 lenovo's earn 75 cents a day mining coins in the background. my mac minis earn zero cent.

the power used to earn that money is 1.5 kwatts a day about 15 cents so I net 60 cents which is 200 a year without pushing the pc. apple has basically denied it users the option to mine coins. I know a lot of people think mining coins is hard on a pc well it can be if you push it hard but in my case I don't. So anyone with a mac mini pay extra for weak gear that can not mine safely. Mining coins are now up to 185 billion in value Apple will be surpassed . Check out the lenovo m700 tiny it will use an i7 6700t 32 gb ram and a 2 tb ssd along with a 1 tb pcie ssd card.

I reached to point of considering saying that when apple sells a 2014 mac mini they are simply committing government sanctioned legalized ?? you fill in the blank.

 

[leo-tech]

Best Laptops Winter 2017: Speed Spikes On Intel 8th Gen Quad Core

 

[leo-tech]

More than any previous coterie of corporations, the tech monopolies aspire to mold humanity into their desired image of it. They believe that they have the opportunity to complete the long merger between man and machine—to redirect the trajectory of human evolution. How do I know this? Such suggestions are fairly commonplace in Silicon Valley, even if much of the tech press is too obsessed with covering the latest product launch to take much notice of them. In annual addresses and townhall meetings, the founding fathers of these companies often make big, bold pronouncements about human nature—a view of human nature that they intend to impose on the rest of us...

https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Mind-Existential-Threat/dp/1101981113

 

[leo-tech]

Eurocom says Intel will have an 8C/16T 'enthusiast' consumer CPU by late 2018

A Eurocom company representative has posted on a thread in the NotebookReview forums saying that their Tornado F5 and upcoming Tornado F7 will feature 8C/16T CPUs in the second half of 2018. This could be a high-end revision of 14nm Coffee Lake, or it could be a CPU in the 9th generation 10nm+ Ice Lake family...

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Eurocom says Intel will have an 8C/16T 'enthusiast' consumer CPU by late 2018

A Eurocom company representative has posted on a thread in the NotebookReview forums saying that their Tornado F5 and upcoming Tornado F7 will feature 8C/16T CPUs in the second half of 2018. This could be a high-end revision of 14nm Coffee Lake, or it could be a CPU in the 9th generation 10nm+ Ice Lake family...

late 2018?? will that also come with more pci-e lanes?? pci-e 4.0? any ways AMD will have zen 2 out in 2018 and intel will be deep **** if that is the top of the range with no other changes.

 

[Miat]

I say f the iMac and kill it off and just go mac mini and mac pro with the dell 32 inch screen as an option.

What they have done is drain the better gear for most people to feed the most useless desk top of the 3 the iMac.

Couldn't agree more.

If there is one line to kill off in the desktop range it is the iMac, not the Mini and Pro. I think Apple have got themselves into a terrible mess with the All-In-One desktop concept. They failed to let it go and move on when the novelty had worn off and the real limits of it became clear to the market.

In particular I don't buy the 'convenience' argument for an AIO. If you can't manage to plug in a screen to a headless computer then you are unlikely to be able to manage plugging in the power cord for an AIO either.

 

[jpietrzak8]

If there is one line to kill off in the desktop range it is the iMac, not the Mini and Pro. I think Apple have got themselves into a terrible mess with the All-In-One desktop concept. They failed to let it go and move on when the novelty had worn off and the real limits of it became clear to the market.

While I'm no fan of the AIO computer, I have to say I disagree with your argument here. After all, Apple's first AIO Mac was this one:

 

[Miat]

Point taken. But their time has come and gone, IMHO.

 

[leo-tech]

Coffee Lake, Cannon Lake and beyond: Intel's next chips
Intel has delivered a "once-in-a-decade" performance upgrade to its line of mobile processors. Here's what it means for your next laptop—and what's on deck for the future.

This summer, Intel delivered what it says is a "once-in-a-decade" performance upgrade to its line of mobile processors that power Apple's MacBook Air and iMac, Microsoft's Surface Pro, and hundreds of other popular devices. The new chips, the first wave of 8th-gen Core CPUs, and collectively known as the Kaby Lake R series, are just the latest in a series of updates Intel has planned for the next 18 months.

The new chips also marks a new approach for Intel, at least from a branding perspective. This gets a little dense, so adjust your tolerance for codenames and component generations accordingly...

 

[alembic]

High-end Mac mini-2014 compared to HP Z2 Mini G3
http://minireplacement.com/replacements/hp-z2-mini-g3

HP Z2 Mini G3 mini PC workstation comes very close to my idea of Mac mini alternative

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/42129-hp-unveils-z2-mini-workstation-class-mini-pc

Is this machine a Hackintosh candidate? If so, I'd order one yesterday.

 

[leo-tech]

Is this machine a Hackintosh candidate? If so, I'd order one yesterday.

I'm pretty sure that HP Z2 Mini G3 be made into Hackintosh (however, I have no solid confirmation at this point). Earlier I was thinking about buying it, and the only thing that stopped me was absence of Thunderbolt interface.

Other thing is that in order to achieve the best possible stability, I would rather install on this machine Linux (Host OS), then VMware Workstation, then macOS in VM (Guest OS).

 

[leo-tech]

Intel’s first 10nm chips coming in 2017 (in small quantities)

Intel is finally getting ready to launch its first chips manufactured on a 10nm process. The company had planned to move to 10nm in 2016, but a series of setbacks have prevented that from happening.

That led to Intel basically blowing up its usual “tick tock” release schedule and sticking with 14nm for the past four chip generations, although each new model has had some enhancements and optimizations...

 

[leo-tech]

Intel's Cannonlake processor is still scheduled to fire off by the end of 2017

During Intel’s third-quarter earnings call with the press and analysts, company CEO Brian Krzanich reaffirmed Intel’s promise of delivering a processor based on 10-nanometer process technology by the end of 2017. The new family of chips, codenamed “Cannonlake,” will complement Intel’s current eighth-generation “Coffee Lake” processor rollout based on 14nm process technology.

“We’re on track to ship our first low-volume 10-nanometer part by the end of the year,” he said. “That will be followed by the initial ramp in the first half of 2018, with both high volume and system availability in the second half of 2018.”

Intel’s initial batch of Cannonlake chips could very well appear toward the end of December just before the holidays, and the CES 2018 technology convention in Las Vegas right after New Year’s. The architecture will be based on Intel’s latest Coffee Lake design, but reside on a smaller form factor using 10nm process technology. That simply means Intel can use smaller parts than what is crammed in the current Coffee Lake processors to create a high-performance chip that could easily reside in a super-ultra-thin device...

____
A quick note to Apple: no need to create anything "super-ultra-thin", I am pretty sure Mac mini users would be perfectly happy with Mac mini 2017/2018 2-3 or even 4 times larger in size, as long as it's properly updated inside.

 

[ActionableMango]

I am pretty sure Mac mini users would be perfectly happy with Mac mini 2017/2018 2-3 or even 4 times larger in size

Not me.

That might be a nice midrange Mac in a lineup that is missing such a thing, but it wouldn't be a Mac Mini. Mine runs inside a safe and there is no room for it to be 2-4 times bigger.

 

[Miat]

Mine runs inside a safe

There must be a back story to this.

 

[ActionableMango]

There must be a back story to this.

It's not very exciting.

The Mini is a file server so it is a host for backups. One day I decided "hey, the backups might as well be in a fireproof enclosure."

It also runs iMessage so I can remote to it from my PC and thus do Apple-device-messaging in Windows. I guess this is sort of relevant to the thread since OP wants to run MacOS apps on a Windows PC.

 

[leo-tech]

Tim Cook accepts Newseum 2017 Free Expression Award, says companies should have values

Behold the Free-Speech Hypocrisy of the Corporate Left
Apple claims to be a defender of First Amendment rights, but it just joined other business heavyweights in trying to deny them to Masterpiece Cakeshop
...
Apple and its allies have failed their test. They’ve decided to try to monopolize the marketplace of ideas with the same vigor that they seek to monopolize their own industries. They don’t want to compete; they want to dominate. They are using their immense economic and political power to try to grant the government greater authority over the mouths of men. You can call this authoritarianism. You can even call it corporate progressivism. But you must not, ever, call it a defense of free expression.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

Couldn't agree more.

If there is one line to kill off in the desktop range it is the iMac, not the Mini and Pro. I think Apple have got themselves into a terrible mess with the All-In-One desktop concept. They failed to let it go and move on when the novelty had worn off and the real limits of it became clear to the market.

In particular I don't buy the 'convenience' argument for an AIO. If you can't manage to plug in a screen to a headless computer then you are unlikely to be able to manage plugging in the power cord for an AIO either.

and now do it being thin no easy way to swap ram / storage or cpu so pay big markup on them.

 

[leo-tech]

Intel Kaby Lake G Series Core i7 Processors With Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics Benchmarks Leaked

...For an on-chip GPU, it looks as though Intel and AMD have a real winner here. If Intel’s OEM partners can deliver on the promises of thin and light designs, this could help reshape what we’ve come to expect with regards to computing and graphics performance in ultraportables. The only thing we want to know at this point is what NVIDIA must be thinking now that its most fierce graphics rival has teamed up with the dominant player in the processor market.

 

[Haswell]

I secretly replaced my parent's 2012 Mac Mini with this Mac Mini like case last weekend, and they haven't said anything. Part of me wants to tell them and another part of me wants to see how long it will before they notice.

 

[leo-tech]

I secretly replaced my parent's 2012 Mac Mini with this Mac Mini like case last weekend, and they haven't said anything. Part of me wants to tell them and another part of me wants to see how long it will before they notice.

Well, this definitely one of most interesting stories I've read on this forum lately ... please tell me more, how it went, at which point your parents noticed that Mac mini was replaced (assuming they did), and also how stable is this Hackintosh build?

 

[Haswell]

Well, this definitely one of most interesting stories I've read on this forum lately ... please tell me more, how it went, at which point your parents noticed that Mac mini was replaced (assuming they did), and also how stable is this Hackintosh build?

They still haven't noticed yet. They haven't even said anything about the speed increase. No issues with stability. It's been running perfectly.

 

[alembic]

No issues with stability. It's been running perfectly.

Could I trouble you for a basic parts list? e.g. motherboard, video subsystem, memory, storage, case/PSU?