[Low Budget / MacMini] Are there painless mini-ITX Skylake setups yet?

[Stefan72]

Hi there,

I have been searching around for a while bit was not able to find the answer I was looking for. My situation is as follows: I do have a FractalDesign Node304 case that I want to use to build something like a MacMini on a Skylake platform.

I want to go cheap. From the "Buyers Guides" I read so far, I figured that the combination Gigabyte and a Zxx chipset seemed the most painless one could hope for if one would chose Haswell - which I don't.

Hence, I thought I might try the Gigabyte GA-Z1270N-WiFi in combination with an Intel i3-6100. Does anybody have this configuration? Do both HDMI Ports work at the same time?

I would love to be able to power two display (a 2560x1440 plus a 1920x1080). At least, I would like to be able to switch in the OS between those two (I barely need both at the same time, but don't want to physically switch cables all the time).

The rest of the setup would be standard stuff. 8GB of DDR4-2133 RAM, some cheap Samsung SSD, a PSU which floats around.

I would love to hear some feedback on this very combination but I am also open to suggestions which come close to this in terms of power and price. Mini-ITX is a must, as I want to use my existing case.

Thanks for reading and thank you very much in advance for your help!

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Hi there,

I have been searching around for a while bit was not able to find the answer I was looking for. My situation is as follows: I do have a FractalDesign Node304 case that I want to use to build something like a MacMini on a Skylake platform.

I want to go cheap. From the "Buyers Guides" I read so far, I figured that the combination Gigabyte and a Zxx chipset seemed the most painless one could hope for if one would chose Haswell - which I don't.

Hence, I thought I might try the Gigabyte GA-Z1270N-WiFi in combination with an Intel i3-6100. Does anybody have this configuration? Do both HDMI Ports work at the same time?

I would love to be able to power two display (a 2560x1440 plus a 1920x1080). At least, I would like to be able to switch in the OS between those two (I barely need both at the same time, but don't want to physically switch cables all the time).

The rest of the setup would be standard stuff. 8GB of DDR4-2133 RAM, some cheap Samsung SSD, a PSU which floats around.

I would love to hear some feedback on this very combination but I am also open to suggestions which come close to this in terms of power and price. Mini-ITX is a must, as I want to use my existing case.

Thanks for reading and thank you very much in advance for your help!

I would advise you to do a good search of the forum where you would probably answer your own question.

You want to keep it cheap, thats fine. I3-6100 is a cheap enough CPU as well. But then, why opt for a Z170 (Which overclocks of course) instead of a H170, since your CPU is not designed for overclocking. H170 is cheaper.

On that basis, and your choice of mobo, have a look for the same model but with that H170 chipset, which brings you out at the H170N-Wifi. That makes more sense given your CPU choice and wish to keep the prices in check.

A forum search reveals a Skylake build based on that very board; you can find the thread here, courtesy of one of the mods, ammulder.

He has the board largely up and running. The built-in HD530 graphics in 10.11.4 now work better than they did in 10.11.3.

Your ram seems reasonable, although keep it dual channel i.e 2 x 4Gb, or much better opt for 2 x 8Gb for a total of 16. Thats a good amount for a standard desktop system.

SSD's are cheap and cheerful enough these days, so you have plenty of choice that way, depending on your available budget.

I personally would spend a little more on a quality PSU and not go for a cheap no-name one.

So your revised parts list might look something along these lines :

• Gigabyte H170N-Wifi
• 2 x 8G Ram (2133)
• I3-6100 CPU
• Quality PSU (Seasonic and Corsair are both very good quality)
• M.2 SSD (If you can afford one of these)

Whilst the CPU is only dual core, it does have hyperthreading so 4 cores in total, and at 3.7 clock speed, should make your system quite snappy for everyday desktop work.

Before you commit your hard earned $$$ though, have a read through the thread linked above to see how the installation was done and any gotchas needed to accommodate Skylake. Remember that Skylake is not yet used in many Apple machines, although that will change. And the more Apple use the Skylake platform, the better support we can expect.

You can also post questions on that thread to get to the finer detail of the board and its setup.

As stated in the Buyers Guide, Skylake is not officially supported yet for the reasons stated above, but there are plenty of successful Skylake builds detailed in the forums for you to browse.

 

[Stefan72]

Wow, thanks a lot! This was exactly the advice I was looking for. I set for the Z170 because I assumed (dumbass, I am) that the support for the Z chipset series would be better than for other chipset. If I could go cheaper with similar support: great!

I am also not set on WiFi, it just happened to be an available mini-ITX board that happened to be a Z-series chipset (which I mistakenly assumed to be important). Neither am I set on Gigabyte, I just assumed that support for those boards is in general the best since most suggested Haswell boards are from Gigabyte.

Starting with 2x8GB seems very reasonable since the mini-ITX boards only have two RAM slots and dual channel is a must.

I am definitely going for a quality PSU, probably a modular Corsair or Thermaltake. But compatibility (in respect to OS X) is probably no issue at all.

Thank you very much!

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Wow, thanks a lot! This was exactly the advice I was looking for. I set for the Z170 because I assumed (dumbass, I am) that the support for the Z chipset series would be better than for other chipset. If I could go cheaper with similar support: great!

Thank you very much!

Well the only real difference between Z and H is the ability to overclock (On the Z boards) and usually a slightly more detailed bios where you can tweak the overclock settings.

The one thing to check on that board visually is the position of the internal USB3 header and whether your chassis USB3 cable can reach it comfortably.

The header is much more in the middle of the board rather than along the edge where you would normally expect to see them on desktop motherboards.

Other than that. I think you now have the basis for a decent no-nonsense desktop that is not technically overloaded and should be easy enough to master with a little help from the forums.

Make sure to do your homework though and read some of the Skylake threads to give yourself a good understanding of the processes involved.

Fail to rush instead of rush to fail.



Edit : You will see a lot of Gigabyte because they have been favoured for their ease of use in hackintoshing for a long time, but they are certainly not the only choice. Asus are quite popular too and are good quality, sometimes slightly higher priced, but you get what you pay for like most things in life.

If you are a first time hackintosher though, its probably better to go with a build that someone else has already done successfully.

 

[Stefan72]

Thanks again for your recommendations and your feedback. I already read a lot and audio over HDMI probably seems to be the only issue that I care about which can be fixed using a dedicated GPU which I may try at some point if I really want audio over HDMI.

Here is the setup I will go with (partly ordered yesterday, partly pre-owned):

FractalDesign node 304 (pre-owned)
Gigabyte GA-H170N-Wifi
Intel Core i3-6100 (boxed)
G.Skill DIMM 16GB DDR4-2133 (Kit, 2x8GB)
be quiet! PURE POWER 9 400W CM
Crucial 128GB SSD (pre-owned)

I chose the PSU because it got good reviews, 400W is enough and it is said to be quit and has cable management (which seems nice, since the case is rather small).

Thanks for all your help so far. I will definitely give some feedback once I try installing OS X and run into problems (or, maybe, even succeed).

 

[Stefan72]

Hi again,

today I got my new hardware and installed my first hackintosh. Everything went fine without any glitches or annoyances. However, as I already knew from the guide, audio over HDMI using the integrated graphics is not working.

Now I am searching for a low-budget, possibly (but not necessarily) fanless GPU that works "hassle free" just as the rest of the system.

Requirements:
- supported on El Capitan without any hassle
- supports two displays (1x 1920x1080, 1x 2560x1440)
- supports at least one with audio over HDMI (at 1920x1080)
- supports another one at 2560x1440 using HDMI, DP, or DVI
- as cheap as (reasonably) possible

The GPU should be able to be used with Netflix and other Silverlight-based video streaming at 1920x1080. So I think, starting with something like GT 610 should be sufficient?

I read a bit in the forums but I am not sure if graphics cards lower than the GT 740 are supported well on El Capitan? What would you recommend?

 

[SpitUK]

Congrats, I am just about to start the journey with a Skylake Mini ITX. How long did it take you to get El Capitan installed and working? Is it fast?

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Hi again,

today I got my new hardware and installed my first hackintosh. Everything went fine without any glitches or annoyances. However, as I already knew from the guide, audio over HDMI using the integrated graphics is not working.

Now I am searching for a low-budget, possibly (but not necessarily) fanless GPU that works "hassle free" just as the rest of the system.

Requirements:
- supported on El Capitan without any hassle
- supports two displays (1x 1920x1080, 1x 2560x1440)
- supports at least one with audio over HDMI (at 1920x1080)
- supports another one at 2560x1440 using HDMI, DP, or DVI
- as cheap as (reasonably) possible

The GPU should be able to be used with Netflix and other Silverlight-based video streaming at 1920x1080. So I think, starting with something like GT 610 should be sufficient?

I read a bit in the forums but I am not sure if graphics cards lower than the GT 740 are supported well on El Capitan? What would you recommend?

I believe audio over HDMI is being worked on at the moment for the HD530 series.

I won't personally recommend a graphics card since it is not my strong area. The 740 and 750 series are in the Buyers Guide though and are reasonably priced. They offer DVI and HDMI, so you should probably be able to do 1080p via HDMI, and 1440p via DVI. You should get audio over the HDMI connection just fine.

I'd suggest searching for some user builds that use them though, so you can get confirmation. User Slim.Jim is very knowledgable on graphics too, so have a look at some of his very informative posts to help you along.

 

[Stefan72]

Installing the OS did not take significantly longer than on a modern Mac with PCIe-SSD. The post-installation process took me about 20 minutes, including the time I spent on reading and modifying the EFI from my USB device I was installing from instead the EFI from my actual installation.

I followed the guide WonkeyDonkey linked in the second post of this thread. The descriptions there are just perfect. However, I would recommend ejecting your USB drive before modifying the EFI so you don't accidentally run into the same problem I did. Even iCloud, iMessage and so on works like a charm when you follow the instructions.

The speed of operation is amazing. I have a 2015 13" retina MacBook Pro with 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM and 2.6GHz dual core i5. It feels like my new machine (described above) is at least as fast even with an old school 128Gb SSD. On CPU intensive tasks it clearly outperforms the MacBook Pro which is also reflected by the Geekbench scores.

I am not sure I really want a GT 740, seems a bit over the top. Maybe I just wait for the patch to enable audio over HDMI. Any vague idea how long things like this usually take? I also have trouble using the second HDMI port. Maybe some more digging in he forums is in order. Anyhow, thank you so much for your help and the time you spend here helping guys like me.

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Well the 740 does not seem overly expensive but it is your choice of course. A 1440p and 1080p screen both hanging off integrated graphics might not give you quite the performance you expect.

The HDMI audio is in progress but I can't give any timescale. I'm not involved with it myself since I dont have any Skylake hardware.

There are some totally passive 710 GPU's but I can't speak for their performance.

Maybe you could try out the 2 monitors on the HD530 builtin graphics for a little while, to see if you are happy with that performance. If so then wait for the HDMI audio update.

If you are not happy with that performance, then check out the 710 for which HDMI audio should be working already.

You've done a good job to get this far so easily without any major issues, so holding off a little bit for the sake of HDMI audio while you test out graphics performance wouldn't be such a bad idea would it ?