[Guide] Intel NUC7/NUC8 using Clover UEFI (NUC7i7Bxx,NUC8i7Bxx,etc)

[Leesureone]

@buffaloduets and @RehabMan it looks like you both have, or previously had a NUC7i7DNKE. I am looking at one, as my first NUC and second hackintosh (apart from a family of HP 8300s which are well supported on this forum).

It seems to be reasonably powered, fast SSD AND native wifi/bluetooth is possible with replacement card (for airdrop, continuity etc) alongside 2x HDMI for dual 4K monitors.

Would you recommend that NUC as a full time hackintosh machine now in 2020 (running Catalina and hopefully whatever follows) or are there alternatives that I should consider? Thanks in advance.

Just aheads up Rehabman checked out last year in March and hasn't been seen since. I'm also interested in what @buffaloduets says about his experiences and how he set it up. One user here was battling sleep/wake and as far as I know couldn't get that working. There was a language barrier to try and overcome and I think that played a part so maybe not a valid issue. Its also only a dual core processor and without an option for SATA hard drives, the later maybe not a big deal being you'd have to give up your M2 slot for wireless (which you can get native support with an adapter on all models)

 

[phrozenpenguin]

Just aheads up Rehabman checked out last year in March and hasn't been seen since. I'm also interested in what @buffaloduets says about his experiences and how he set it up. One user here was battling sleep/wake and as far as I know couldn't get that working. There was a language barrier to try and overcome and I think that played a part so maybe not a valid issue. Its also only a dual core processor and without an option for SATA hard drives, the later maybe not a big deal being you'd have to give up your M2 slot for wireless (which you can get native support with an adapter on all models)

Thanks for the info re Rehabman. Is this *the* thread for NUCs, or should I be posting elsewhere?

I was specifically asking about the NUC7i7DNKE which is a rarely talked about model - from the commercial NUC range - but offers a 4 core/8 thread i7 chip (i7-8650U) alongside M2 for SSD (PCIe x4: M.2 22x80 (key M) slot) AND an M2 for wifi, user replaceable (PCIe x1: M.2 22x30 (key E) slot). Unless I am mistaken - I have not used one and see you have many!

 

[Leesureone]

Thanks for the info re Rehabman. Is this *the* thread for NUCs, or should I be posting elsewhere?

I was specifically asking about the NUC7i7DNKE which is a rarely talked about model - from the commercial NUC range - but offers a 4 core/8 thread i7 chip (i7-8650U) alongside M2 for SSD (PCIe x4: M.2 22x80 (key M) slot) AND an M2 for wifi, user replaceable (PCIe x1: M.2 22x30 (key E) slot). Unless I am mistaken - I have not used one and see you have many!

Gothca, my bad on the CPU info.

 

[buffaloduets]

Just aheads up Rehabman checked out last year in March and hasn't been seen since. I'm also interested in what @buffaloduets says about his experiences and how he set it up. One user here was battling sleep/wake and as far as I know couldn't get that working. There was a language barrier to try and overcome and I think that played a part so maybe not a valid issue. Its also only a dual core processor and without an option for SATA hard drives, the later maybe not a big deal being you'd have to give up your M2 slot for wireless (which you can get native support with an adapter on all models)

If you want to use your computer for dual monitors, I would not suggest buying the NUC7 based on my experience. Trying to get them to work properly (and consistently) has been a major thorn in my side. In fact, I'm actually thinking of switching to an ITX build with the NZXT H1 case that just came out so that I can use a real GPU for that very reason. Maybe it's just me, but for the life of me, I can't get them working without major hassle (plugging and unplugging, power cycling, rebooting the machine, etc etc).

Handoff, AirDrop and Continuity all work fine with a supported replacement Broadcom wifi card. I haven't tried Sidecar since my iPad is too old / unsupported so idk about that. I bought my NUC7 before we had come to the conclusion that we could use adapter cards in the NUC8 in order to get fully working handoff and AirDrop so the NUC8 could also be an option if you really want Handoff and Continuity. But if you were to do that, you'd be sacrificing a faster port to run your wifi card then running your system disk (afaik) at a slower speed. To be fair that was the gist of what I read, and I'm by no means the expert on the NUC8.

The only other gripe that I have is that the fan is significantly louder than the Haswell NUC that it replaced. I have tweaked the NUC7 fan profile in the BIOS with settings found in this thread so it's a little better than Intel's native settings, but even after tweaking, when the fan ramps up it gets louder than I'd like. The big draw for me to the NUC line has been a powerful machine in a tiny case that is pretty quiet. I would not call the NUC7 a quiet machine, at least not the i7 variant that I have. If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them for you.

 

[Leesureone]

If you want to use your computer for dual monitors, I would not suggest buying the NUC7 based on my experience. Trying to get them to work properly (and consistently) has been a major thorn in my side. In fact, I'm actually thinking of switching to an ITX build with the NZXT H1 case that just came out so that I can use a real GPU for that very reason. Maybe it's just me, but for the life of me, I can't get them working without major hassle (plugging and unplugging, power cycling, rebooting the machine, etc etc).

Handoff, AirDrop and Continuity all work fine with a supported replacement Broadcom wifi card. I haven't tried Sidecar since my iPad is too old / unsupported so idk about that. I bought my NUC7 before we had come to the conclusion that we could use adapter cards in the NUC8 in order to get fully working handoff and AirDrop so the NUC8 could also be an option if you really want Handoff and Continuity. But if you were to do that, you'd be sacrificing a faster port to run your wifi card then running your system disk (afaik) at a slower speed. To be fair that was the gist of what I read, and I'm by no means the expert on the NUC8.

The only other gripe that I have is that the fan is significantly louder than the Haswell NUC that it replaced. I have tweaked the NUC7 fan profile in the BIOS with settings found in this thread so it's a little better than Intel's native settings, but even after tweaking, when the fan ramps up it gets louder than I'd like. The big draw for me to the NUC line has been a powerful machine in a tiny case that is pretty quiet. I would not call the NUC7 a quiet machine, at least not the i7 variant that I have. If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them for you.

Nice summary. @phrozenpenguin I think all NUCs require a compromise of some kind if you want to run OSx. Stay with Windows or Linux and you have less limitations. @buffaloduets I really like that case, a little expensive, but I use an H701 in white for my main machine which sits on the floor. so you know where I am coming from. I agree if you want it all there are better choices and not necessarily for a whole lot more money. If its all about the size then the NUCs are nice.

 

[phrozenpenguin]

If you want to use your computer for dual monitors, I would not suggest buying the NUC7 based on my experience. Trying to get them to work properly (and consistently) has been a major thorn in my side. In fact, I'm actually thinking of switching to an ITX build with the NZXT H1 case that just came out so that I can use a real GPU for that very reason. Maybe it's just me, but for the life of me, I can't get them working without major hassle (plugging and unplugging, power cycling, rebooting the machine, etc etc).

Handoff, AirDrop and Continuity all work fine with a supported replacement Broadcom wifi card. I haven't tried Sidecar since my iPad is too old / unsupported so idk about that. I bought my NUC7 before we had come to the conclusion that we could use adapter cards in the NUC8 in order to get fully working handoff and AirDrop so the NUC8 could also be an option if you really want Handoff and Continuity. But if you were to do that, you'd be sacrificing a faster port to run your wifi card then running your system disk (afaik) at a slower speed. To be fair that was the gist of what I read, and I'm by no means the expert on the NUC8.

The only other gripe that I have is that the fan is significantly louder than the Haswell NUC that it replaced. I have tweaked the NUC7 fan profile in the BIOS with settings found in this thread so it's a little better than Intel's native settings, but even after tweaking, when the fan ramps up it gets louder than I'd like. The big draw for me to the NUC line has been a powerful machine in a tiny case that is pretty quiet. I would not call the NUC7 a quiet machine, at least not the i7 variant that I have. If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to answer them for you.

Thanks, this is super helpful.

I don't want dual monitors to be a major hassle, so I will likely hold off unless I get an awesome deal on a NUC7, or decide to drop down to single monitor.

As I understand it you can only use an adaptor for wifi/bluetooth in a NUC8 if you then use a slower SATA SSD, as opposed to a fast M2 SSD. Which is a tradeoff I did not want to make.

Interesting commentary on the noise as well - I like my machines to be as silent as possible, so it sounds like this may not be the best choice. Out of interest what ITX build are you considering?

 

[phrozenpenguin]

Nice summary. @phrozenpenguin I think all NUCs require a compromise of some kind if you want to run OSx. Stay with Windows or Linux and you have less limitations. @buffaloduets I really like that case, a little expensive, but I use an H701 in white for my main machine which sits on the floor. so you know where I am coming from. I agree if you want it all there are better choices and not necessarily for a whole lot more money. If its all about the size then the NUCs are nice.

I wouldn't be here if I wanted Windows or Linux

 

[buffaloduets]

Out of interest what ITX build are you considering?

Still very early stages of that. I typically like to choose the hardware that seems to be the most popular/supported. Reason being, I could spend tons of time tinkering and tweaking on my own or just hit the easy button and take advantage of the brilliance of the community.

 

[Leesureone]

Thanks, this is super helpful.

I don't want dual monitors to be a major hassle, so I will likely hold off unless I get an awesome deal on a NUC7, or decide to drop down to single monitor.

As I understand it you can only use an adaptor for wifi/bluetooth in a NUC8 if you then use a slower SATA SSD, as opposed to a fast M2 SSD. Which is a tradeoff I did not want to make.

Interesting commentary on the noise as well - I like my machines to be as silent as possible, so it sounds like this may not be the best choice. Out of interest what ITX build are you considering?

I had this Motherboard and it worked great with either DGPU or iGPU and swapping out the wireless card. The one thing I didn't like was you couldn't control the leds on the board except though windows which it would promptly forget about booting into OSx.

The everything works Asus Z390-I Gaming * i7-8700K * SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX Vega 64 Build

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I also picked up one of these and have everything working with opencore and help from another site I can't mention here. GIGABYTE B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 HDMI Mini ITX AMD Motherboard. I use a AMD dedicated graphics card natively recognized and am waiting for a very small ITX case that supports use of both.
Lots of good choices out there now for both intel and AMD

 

[hwschroeder]

Hello Guys and Masters of Hackintoshing,

three days reading here and now trying my first own NUC8 - I call him MasterNuc

I choose the NUC8I5BEH with added 32GB of RAM and a 1TB Samsung 970 EVO NWme drive.
I followed the steps, also Post #894 and I stuck here with

and Ethernet build in Problems.

I already tried IntelMausi 2.2 to 2.4.1d1, copied from the provided EFI Master folder, from MultiBeast 11.3.0, as standalone installer and also CloverConfigurator ACPI/FixLAN and FixRegions.

Any USB LAN (AX8817) is working fine.

"Green lights" are on (also renamed as en0), but I don't get connection.

I'll copy my complete EFI folder over here and'll be very happy to get some hints (or solutions).

Thanks in advance.