I recently built a computer; my first. It’s a Hackintosh mini, though it’s not quite as small as the Mac mini. I’ve written about it at Macworld, but I left the details about the specific parts out of that article. Here’s a list of the parts I used for my computer, and the cost at the time I purchased them.
- Motherboard: I chose a Gigabyte H170N-WI-FI Motherboard, which cost $150 or £110. It offers USB 3 and USB-C, and has DVI and HDMI connecters. (Amazon.com, Amazon UK)
- RAM: 8 GB of Crucial 8 GB DDR4 2133 MT/s (PC4-17000) cost $60 or £50. (Amazon.com, Amazon UK)
- Processor: The Intel Intel Core i3 6100 Skylake Dual-Core 3.7 GHz Processor isn’t a high-powered choice, but for a simple computer, it’s more than enough. It cost $112 or £108. (Amazon.com, Amazon UK)
- Startup drive: I chose a 120 GB SSD, since I didn’t need a lot of storage on the startup drive. But I also added a 4 TB drive that I already had. For the SSD, I bought the SanDisk SSD PLUS 120 GB, which cost $55 or £49. (Amazon.com, Amazon UK)
- Power supply: My second choice of power supply – I returned the first, because the cables got in the way – is a semi-modular power supply. The Corsair Builder Series 550W CS550M ATX/EPS Semi-Modular 80 Plus Gold Power Supply Unit cost $80 or £66. (The UK model is slightly different from the US version.) (Amazon.com, Amazon UK)
- Case: Finally, the case is the CoolMaster Elite 110, a nice, small case with enough room for two drives and a PCI card. It cost $40 or £37. (Amazon.com, Amazon UK)
You can choose different parts, and most of them don’t make much difference. All RAM will work the same; you could get a better processor; and the case you choose is up to you. However, the motherboard is one that is known to work in a Hackintosh.