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22 years !! And i've been with them for 30. But of course... WE are the problem. It's our fault for needing 4k video capable computing. This is what the apologists think. WE ( who supported Apple when they were literally a niche ) hate Apple ! And we hate new tech. And we hate change. Yeah, that's why we supported them exclusively for DECADES !!! In the past, when Apple changed something... it was ALWAYS for the better. Usually "make your head explode" level of better. Now every change is "head scratching" for the worse. We rejoiced then, we complain now.

You got one thing exactly right. Tim Cook ( and the apologists ) DO NOT WANT us as customers. They want us to go the ( bleep ) away so Ive can make pretty toys that look like computers for the masses.

Well, I've been with Apple 30 years to, but only 22 years professionally. Personally I don't mind change, I like change. But what I don't like is when Apple makes premature decisions to close product lines before there are new and better alternative that is fully functional. Whenever they do we, who operates small workgroups, have our production systems completely disrupted. We need to be able to phase the new in gradually while still having everything we already own fully functioning and able to work together with the new stuff. My studio nearly got bankrupt during the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, because we transitioned to early and our productivity went down the basement.
I'm completely for replacing MacBooks with iPad Pros but for some it cannot be done yet, even if we have done that already, but that is because we are desktop based, not laptop based.
 
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700$ for a barebone? And you guys are complaining about overpriced Mac Minis :D

$700 for a barebone NUC7i7BNH, their high-end model. A model which includes a 3.5 GHz dual-core i7 CPU, Iris Plus 650 GPU, and a Thunderbolt 3 port, along with the usual assortment of other goodies. I think that compares favorably to Apple's highest-end Mini.

And, of course, you can easily add / remove RAM & M2 SSD (and even a standard 2.5 inch drive in that particular model).

The lowest-end NUC is a bit less expensive ($500). Really, I don't think these things are at all overpriced for what they provide... :)
 
I bought a skull canyon , having given up waiting, and it's a great machine, even if apple releases a new mini, I don't see a point in going backwards in performance . I'm not even bothered that put macOS on the NUC, windows just works
 
windows just works
Careful! If you say this three times, Steve will rise from his grave and strike you with "Unknown Error #F80F: Unknown error occurred. Press OK to cancel".

Since I spent a week resolving a problem for a client whose Win 10 machine kept on switching on by itself every 24 hours, trying fix after fix that I could find, then of course having to wait 24 hours to see if the behaviour repeats... I'll stick with macOS. Which doesn't change the fact I am very tempted to see if any of those NUCs would behave as a Hac Mini (which is almost cert... oh)
 
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Careful! If you say this three times, Steve will rise from his grave and strike you with "Unknown Error #F80F: Unknown error occurred. Press OK to cancel".

Since I spent a week resolving a problem for a client whose Win 10 machine kept on switching on by itself every 24 hours, trying fix after fix that I could find, then of course having to wait 24 hours to see if the behaviour repeats... I'll stick with macOS. Which doesn't change the fact I am very tempted to see if any of those NUCs would behave as a Hac Mini (which is almost cert... oh)
You can set the computer to turn on at a specific time in the group policy editor.
 
The fate for the mini and mac pro is this year. If no updates it is pretty clear Apple will remove them
 
I'm casually looking for a mini ITX case that I really like (just in case).

I am always looking for that. No easy task, but there are a few bright spots out there.

I (and I think others) might be interested in what you've guys have found. I seem to end up building 2-4 machines per year anymore and I do just about everything with mini-itx. If you've seen something else cool, please bring it up.

These below are the ones that I've either gotten or been looking hard at. Volume in liters (L). (Note, for comparison, a typical mid-tower is around 60L, Mac Mini around 1.4L, NUC around 0.5L.)

NAS builds:
Lian Li PC-Q26 (32.4L): http://www.lian-li.com/en/dt_portfolio/pc-q26/
U-NAS NSC-800 (14.45L): http://www.u-nas.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17617
(Brian's blog for U-NAS: https://blog.brianmoses.net/2016/05/my-2016-diy-nas-upgrade.html )

Ultimate SFF with full sized video card and standard power supply support:
Dan Cases A4-SFX v1 (7.25L): https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php
NCASE M1 (12.6L): https://www.ncases.com

Full featured (and can be made to run practically silent):
Fractal Node 304 (19.6L): http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-304-black

Cheap, small with full sized video card and standard power supply support:
Silverstone Tek (12.5L): https://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-...&qid=1485038238&sr=8-3&keywords=mini-itx+case

Mini-STX (no video card support, limited to 65W cpus):
AsRock DeskMini 110 (1.92L): http://www.asrock.com/nettop/intel/Deskmini 110 Series/index.asp


For mini-itx, going smaller than the Dan Cases A4 really means that you sacrifice the video card slot and/or start getting into custom cooling and power solutions. That quickly becomes too many compromises for me. I've got 6 Silverstone Tek builds and it works well for a cheap case. One of them is going to be used for a cheap Skylake Hack that I'm going to try to get to next weekend. The Lian Li works reasonably well for a NAS case for me, but it can be a pain to work in.

My main Windows PC is using the Fractal Node 304 with a beQuiet! cpu fan that's practically silent when doing long encodes. It also looks awesome.... but is really huge compared to a Mini. I'm looking at the A4 or M4 for a next "main PC" build.

The DeskMini actually comes with the MB + PS. If you don't need the video card, then it's a great choice. However for Hacking, it's really easy to get a working system, but wifi/bt, headphone audio, and hdmi audio still aren't working (haven't had time to get to that / no idea yet how hard it will be)

(About the Hacks, I've just started that recently. I've got 4 Macs in my house, but Apple just really doesn't make what I'm looking for anymore)
 
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Ultimate SFF with full sized video card and standard power supply support:
Dan Cases A4-SFX v1 (7.25L): https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php
NCASE M1 (12.6L): https://www.ncases.com

These were my best finds. I do not need a video card so am looking for similar quality that can be made silent with proper fans/cooling. A little smaller would be fine with me. I would never put less than a SFX-L PSU, but would prefer a regular ATX so I could choose carefully.
 
My main Windows PC is using the Fractal Node 304 with a beQuiet! cpu fan that's practically silent when doing long decodes. It also looks awesome.... but really huge compared to a Mini. I'm looking at the A4 or M4 for a next "main PC" build.
My main Windows PC is using the Fractal Node 304 with a beQuiet! cpu fan that's practically silent when doing long decodes. It also looks awesome.... but really huge compared to a Mini. I'm looking at the A4 or M4 for a next "main PC" build.

I partial to the Fractal Design cases only because I have one and it completely quite with high quality silent fans.

It's a mid tower though.
 
I (and I think others) might be interested in what you've guys have found. I seem to end up building 2-4 machines per year anymore and I do just about everything with mini-itx. If you've seen something else cool, please bring it up.

These below are the ones that I've either gotten or been looking hard at. Volume in liters (L). (Note, for comparison, a typical mid-tower is around 60L, Mac Mini around 1.4L, NUC around 0.5L.)

NAS builds:
Lian Li PC-Q26 (32.4L): http://www.lian-li.com/en/dt_portfolio/pc-q26/
U-NAS NSC-800 (14.45L): http://www.u-nas.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17617
(Brian's blog for U-NAS: https://blog.brianmoses.net/2016/05/my-2016-diy-nas-upgrade.html )

Ultimate SFF with full sized video card and standard power supply support:
Dan Cases A4-SFX v1 (7.25L): https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php
NCASE M1 (12.6L): https://www.ncases.com

Full featured (and can be made to run practically silent):
Fractal Node 304 (19.6L): http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-304-black

Cheap, small with full sized video card and standard power supply support:
Silverstone Tek (12.5L): https://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-...&qid=1485038238&sr=8-3&keywords=mini-itx+case

Mini-STX (no video card support, limited to 65W cpus):
AsRock DeskMini 110 (1.92L): http://www.asrock.com/nettop/intel/Deskmini 110 Series/index.asp


For mini-itx, going smaller than the Dan Cases A4 really means that you sacrifice the video card slot and/or start getting into custom cooling and power solutions. That quickly becomes too many compromises for me. I've got 6 Silverstone Tek builds and it works well for a cheap case. One of them is going to be used for a cheap Skylake Hack that I'm going to try to get to next weekend. The Lian Li works reasonably well for a NAS case for me, but it can be a pain to work in.

My main Windows PC is using the Fractal Node 304 with a beQuiet! cpu fan that's practically silent when doing long encodes. It also looks awesome.... but is really huge compared to a Mini. I'm looking at the A4 or M4 for a next "main PC" build.

The DeskMini actually comes with the MB + PS. If you don't need the video card, then it's a great choice. However for Hacking, it's really easy to get a working system, but wifi/bt, headphone audio, and hdmi audio still aren't working (haven't had time to get to that / no idea yet how hard it will be)

(About the Hacks, I've just started that recently. I've got 4 Macs in my house, but Apple just really doesn't make what I'm looking for anymore)

Thanks for the list. I really haven't done a lot of looking yet, but here's one I kind of like from EVGA:
http://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=110-MW-1002-K1
[doublepost=1485044101][/doublepost]
Ultimate SFF with full sized video card and standard power supply support:
Dan Cases A4-SFX v1 (7.25L): https://www.dan-cases.com/dana4.php
NCASE M1 (12.6L): https://www.ncases.com
https://www.ncases.com
These were my best finds. I do not need a video card so am looking for similar quality that can be made silent with proper fans/cooling. A little smaller would be fine with me. I would never put less than a SFX-L PSU, but would prefer a regular ATX so I could choose carefully.

I'm thinking along similar lines (that I may not need a separate graphics card). Now that I have a 2012 mini, which is dead silent with the SSD, I would like something as silent in a hack.
 
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Thanks for the list. I really haven't done a lot of looking yet, but here's one I kind of like from EVGA:
http://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=110-MW-1002-K1
[doublepost=1485044101][/doublepost]

I'm thinking along similar lines (that I may not need a separate graphics card). Now that I have a 2012 mini, which is dead silent with the SSD, I would like something as silent in a hack.
I am very likely to test out a new Intel NUC i7 with Samsung 950 or 960 SSD M.2 to see if it is acceptably silent. Not mini-itx I know, but small, fast and hopefully silent. A good start.
 
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Careful! If you say this three times, Steve will rise from his grave and strike you with "Unknown Error #F80F: Unknown error occurred. Press OK to cancel".

Since I spent a week resolving a problem for a client whose Win 10 machine kept on switching on by itself every 24 hours, trying fix after fix that I could find, then of course having to wait 24 hours to see if the behaviour repeats... I'll stick with macOS. Which doesn't change the fact I am very tempted to see if any of those NUCs would behave as a Hac Mini (which is almost cert... oh)

Dunno, I spent 18 months with a 2012 rMBP that had the worse wifi of any product I have ever owned.....apple finaly decicded to fix it and works great to this day. Give me a win PC I can find and resolve the problem myself anytime over 18month wait. With a 12 month release cycle, macOS no longer just works , bugs bugs :( these days for me win tends to be more stable, sad eh.

Though to be fair they are both about the same, hence I got no issues using either, before hand it all used to be OSX
 
Dunno, I spent 18 months with a 2012 rMBP that had the worse wifi of any product I have ever owned.....apple finaly decicded to fix it and works great to this day. Give me a win PC I can find and resolve the problem myself anytime over 18month wait. With a 12 month release cycle, macOS no longer just works , bugs bugs :( these days for me win tends to be more stable, sad eh.

Though to be fair they are both about the same, hence I got no issues using either, before hand it all used to be OSX


Actually, El Capitan is now pretty stable IMO.
Because I only have an iPhone 4S (and hence no iOS 10) and because the Mini doesn't have a camera or microphone, I've not yet upgraded to Sierra. And of course, the reports about its bugginess have sort of spoiled my appetite for it.
You just have to resist the urge to click on every "upgrade" button the moment it comes into sight - it's an almost Pavlovian conditioning IMO ;-)
 
You just have to resist the urge to click on every "upgrade" button the moment it comes into sight - it's an almost Pavlovian conditioning IMO ;-)
This.

I am still on Mavericks, and am only now looking at moving to El Capitan. Sierra isn't even on the horizon yet for me.

Not for everybody, of course. But my rule of thumb for the average non-geek user is that if you have no serious reason to upgrade to the latest version of the system, then stick with an earlier version that is well-tested and stable (and still supported).
 
I am avoiding Sierra too. El Cap at .6 is finally stable. The yearly release cycle is both unnecessary and dangerous. I used to upgrade on day one but I've been cured from my early adopter problem by now. If the "Optimize Storage" thing doesn't go away or at least stay disabled when I disabled it, I might stay on El Cap as long as it continues receiving security updates. And not be able to buy any new Mac because it won't be possible to install pre-Sierra OS on it.

If only they could update hardware on yearly basis and OS every two years... like, maybe test it first for a few days or something... naah. Way too much work.
 
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