Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Unhappy w/ Mac Mini Update? Thinking Hackintosh?

Wild-Bill

Wild-Bill

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 10, 2007
2,539
617
bleep
I've been waiting for the updated Mini so I could buy one and use it for HTPC duties, much like many others out there I suppose.

Given the delusional pricing & mediocre feature set, I've decided to build a Hackintosh HTPC. I already own an early 08 Mac Pro, an iPod Touch, and a 12" Powerbook G4 (best notebook they ever made, period), so I feel I've given them enough of my money.

There is a great little board out by Gigabyte that seems to work very well with OSX86. The Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H

13-128-363-S02


This baby has HDMI, VGA, and DVI out, nVidia Geforce 9400 on-board, and supports Core2Duo and Core2 Quad on a 1333 FSB with a maximum of 16 gigs of RAM.............all in a nice micro-ATX format.

I'm thinking of wrapping it up in a nice HTPC case and have it do what the Mini could have done, had it been priced and configured correctly.

Anyone else?
 
hey tnx 4 the link but what makes you think this board runs osx86 better than other boards :rolleyes:
 
Yes....

MINI is now 100€urs higher than previous model was in Europe (579 vs 479)!!!!
Mr Jobs is crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Still happy with my hack compaq presario c700!!!! for a htpc think even on a intel mb with atom processor included (mb+proc=65 €urs in Spain)!!!! and it runs 10.5.4 fluently!!!!!

Jobs is getting crazy!!!!! 599$ is 479€urs, not 579!!!!! stupid white collar people on apple, stupid marketing crowd!!!!
 
wow, we have very similar equipment :)

i'm probably going to stick with the new mini instead of a hackintosh

to be honest, i hate ALL the cases that are available for HTPCs, none have the elegance and tiny form factor of the mini

so i'm willing to use that

i think the new mini will be capable for everything i want it to do, although the dedicated HDMI would be nice

i wish you luck, and keep us up to speed with your final machine's specs, cost, and performance!
 
No troll here, you said there is a great board by Gigabyte that seems to work very well with OSX86. Was curious about what makes you say that, used the board ? (the specs look good)
 
rfruth said:
No troll here, you said there is a great board by Gigabyte that seems to work very well with OSX86. Was curious about what makes you say that, used the board ? (the specs look good)
Click to expand...

Oops, my bad.

I forgot to add the most important link: a link from quite a few folks who have been using it with good results...

Link
 
Wild-Bill said:
I've been waiting for the updated Mini so I could buy one and use it for HTPC duties, much like many others out there I suppose.

Given the delusional pricing & mediocre feature set, I've decided to build a Hackintosh HTPC. I already own an early 08 Mac Pro, an iPod Touch, and a 12" Powerbook G4 (best notebook they ever made, period), so I feel I've given them enough of my money.

There is a great little board out by Gigabyte that seems to work very well with OSX86. The Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H
Click to expand...

We were all excited when this board was announced, but it has been problematic for hackintosh installs, unless these issues have been resolved in the last couple of weeks. In particular, it will produce substantially more heat than the new Minis because it takes 775 processors and desktop RAM. In addition, the video is handicapped compared to the current Mini because it will only deliver 1920x1200 and one of its two video ports is VGA. It is unlikely that HDMI will be fully-functional because OS X does not support it, so the HDMI port might only be useful for video. There also seems to be an issue with RAM in that you can only install 2 gb, even though the board supports up to 8 gb.

I'd take the new Mini over a hackintosh built on this board.
 
I don't get what's so wrong with the Mac Mini. From what I saw on the MacBook intro, the new gpu is a very good update, and you now have a crapload of USB ports and the ability to push video to two displays. No, it's not the fastest CPU on the block, but as Apple is advertising it doesn't use as much power as most computers. I have a slightly faster CPU on my MacBook, and it still does very well considering it's nearly 2 years old.

If you want a screamer, get one of the iMacs or MacBooks. Yes, Apple needs to jump into the mid-tower market, but I think they're more focused on what they have and probably some touchscreen tablet that's bigger than the iPhone.

My only complaint is it would be nice to see a $499 model. Shoot, for their RAM prices, they could probably get it at $399 without any RAM and you could hit Crucial for 2GB for about $30.
 
Michael CM1 said:
I don't get what's so wrong with the Mac Mini. From what I saw on the MacBook intro, the new gpu is a very good update, and you now have a crapload of USB ports and the ability to push video to two displays. No, it's not the fastest CPU on the block, but as Apple is advertising it doesn't use as much power as most computers. I have a slightly faster CPU on my MacBook, and it still does very well considering it's nearly 2 years old.
Click to expand...

What I'd like to do is get a home server using minimal energy because it has to be on all the time. The Mini is attractive, except it is hard to add a bunch of drives. Ideally, I would have something with the power consumption of a Mini with the ability to add about six SATA drives like a small tower.

My current computer, a 2.4GHz Quadcore with 2 HDD's, is consuming about 100 watts (160 at 100% load). It would be nice to get below 50 watts with two or three HDD's. I don't know if this motherboard can get me there. The graphics card is probably a little overpowered, but some of the reviews on the web seem to indicate that it might get close.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back