Can We Build a Better Mac Mini? #Helpful Post

hey guys this is Austin and today my

good buddy Matt is here to try to make a

little bit of a different style of video

so this right here is an Intel nook now

you may have caught a video we did

recently talking about a very unusual

nook but there's a little bit more of a

standard one and at $40 you're getting a

core i5 you're getting a Thunderbolt

port there's a lot to like anyway so the

plan is very simple this Nook is

actually pretty hackintosh about this is

a quad core Core i5 now with these

knucks they don't come completely like

and it ready to go out of the box so we

have everything we need except for the

RAM as well as the SSD that's already

installed that but we have 16 gigs of

DDR 4 RAM as well as we have a 500

gigabyte SSD so as far as putting that

stuff together it's really simple where

it's gonna be a little bit more

difficult most likely is they actually

have to hackintosh it so with this

particular model the Wi-Fi card and

bluetooth card are not compatible with

mac OS that's pretty common for

hackintosh it most of the time that

doesn't work yeah unfortunate with this

one it's actually soldered to the

motherboard that's the thing with

hackintosh is most of the time you can

get like 80% there but usually you're

going to need like dongles you're going

to need like like a USB DAC or usually

especially when it comes to Wi-Fi just

plug in like a USB Wi-Fi card that is

supported by Mac OS yeah but just to

give a little bit of a context here

right compared to a Mac Mini so if we

got the core i3 version which is quad

core so it's a roughly equivalent 16

gigs of ram which is what we have in

here and a 512 get guess SD the Mac Mini

would cost $1400 straight from Apple

this all in is what like $600 600 650

tops for our configuration depending on

the the spec of you know the brand of

RAM and SSD you went with the important

thing is we can actually hook up an

external GPU to this guy so in theory

we're getting like imac level

performance for a third the price and I

guess we don't have a monitor but yeah

yeah so one of the things you do need

and unless things have changed you do

need a Mac to do a lot of the setup

right yeah you uh so you have to have an

existing Mac which have here then you'll

prep it with something called you know

beast which will create a bootable USB

drives right here RTS we have out there

as well as some configuration things you

are definitely losing some things when

you're going with a hackintosh

but just considering that this is

smaller than a Mac Mini

it should be roughly equivalent and

we're talking about something that costs

less than half the price I think it

might be worth the gamble I do I'm just

really curious to see how well it works

first of all shout out to Quinn snazzy Q

he had a great video on it was was this

exact model the exact model of the nock

so yeah his head less memory though I

mean yes we had to be superior yeah

can't we can't do a lamer version of a

video that someone's already done we

have to do a better version

otherwise it's stealing so if I fire

this up it should start to boot right

yeah it will boot into the Nook splash

screen first and then it should go into

the clover boot screen which is how

we're tricking it yeah that's the thing

man like I love doing like hackintosh

stuff but like it's such a headache

right like there's just so many random

little issues that you run into that I

mean it's cool and I think it's one of

those things where it's maybe not like a

badge of honor furniture like all I

built a computer and oh I do made a

hackintosh but this is one of those

things where you have to have some

patience you have to kind of really sort

of learn how to do it and be ready to

tinker on things right because it will

break so it looks like we are into the

language setup yeah so this is a slow

process over USB - it literally took

like 20 minutes to boot

do-do-do-do-do-do no can touch feel it

it - how you like it oh here's a here's

a thing and select proper media boot so

I'm actually going through here

this is recommending that we actually

format it as Mac OS extended as opposed

to Apple file yeah so that's something

we want to do let's try that again all

right so we figured out what the problem

was it was less the formatting that was

the problem but more that we didn't have

the AP FS driver for the SSD so when we

tried to boot it just didn't see it

because we're doing Mojave it need this

additional driver which was literally we

just had to drop it onto the flash drive

it saw everything it booted up and now

we're actually properly installing

everything on to the SSD correct so in

theory in nine minutes we will have a

working copy of Mojave we'll have a copy

of Mojave with

both know working drivers okay it is day

two and I think matt has made progress

while I was not here what's up it's

mostly working okay so we should we see

the core i5 we see our 16 gigs of DDR 4

we also see the iris plus graphics so

the cool thing is this nook does share

the exact same processor from the mid

spec Core i5 13 Jack Book Pro mind you

no battery no screen and stuff willing

at $2,200 for this pretty much exact

same performance and yet we got it for

$600 and a couple of sleepless nights

for Matt so what is not working I see

we're hooked up to Ethernet is the Wi-Fi

not working we do have an external Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi adapter but it's currently not

working you can't actually restart the

computer in right now so you have to

turn it off and manually turn about yeah

if you try and restart it they actually

go in the menu and restart it just

freezes so you hit the hard restart it

currently do we have catfish installed

we do okay cool let's give that a try

for the most part we now have a Mac

that's up and running right now yeah you

could I mean if you're doing light test

right now you could totally be using

this system oh wow that's really fast

five thousand twenty on the single core

and seventeen eight three eight on

multi-core so that's actually faster

than the third change Mac Pro it's about

four points higher on the single thread

and over a thousand points higher on

multi thread which kind of makes sense

because the third change macbook email

that has that same processor it's you

know it's a thin small macbook so this

has more cooling richer this is a

gigabyte rx 580 the 580 is one of the

better supported cards under Mac OS this

is the exact same GPU that you'll find

in for example the 5k iMac and generally

speaking and we've used this with Mac's

before the works pretty well that's just

work natively the 580 works in Mohave it

shows iris plus graphics so let's switch

the HDMI over and see if when I tried

this before it did not show me that

until until I'd plug this in

GPU is spinning we have our LEDs Oh

immediately immediately immediately okay

same so let's make sure this is actually

showing up our X 580 so we have external

GPU we have 16 gigs of RAM 500 gig SSD

this tiny little box in the entire

package is less than I mean less than

the Mac Mini a lot right we're looking

at what the I want just is the 580 cos

right now it's like 400 bucks so I'm not

sure uptime ahead but it's a solid

little box and it's cheap this is

exactly $400 this is the higher-end 8

gig SKU so for almost exactly $1,000

yeah we have the Nook we have 16 gigs of

ram a 500 gig superfast PCIe SSD and we

have an Rx 580 dude so that my friends

is building the nook in Tosh now I

really think the next thing we have to

do is put this side-by-side with an

actual Mac Mini which cost much more I

mean we even have a GPU and we'll still

be cheaper than the Mac Mini good job

Matt thanks for doing all the hard work

and let me show up and what are you

doing Oh No