A Geek Goes Flying

My “mid-2010” iMac is getting flaky, and with its HD 4760 GPU, wasn’t a great contender for a Big Sur update, even with OpenCore Patcher. The 2012 Mac Mini occupies a sweet spot on eBay, selling for around $100-150 (depending on configuration), and can run Big Sur quite well, patched. The GPU in the iMac can be upgraded, but it’s still an old, underpowered machine witth splotches on the screen, etc. Newer iMacs aren’t that expensive by themselves, but once you factor in shipping, they’re spendy. Still, for dragging out onto the balcony to enjoy our reliably nice SoCal weather, you can’t beat the form factor. I decided to hack together a machine that met my specifications (including relatively low cost). I started with the highest spec inexpensive Mac Mini I could find, a late-2012 Core i7 2.3 GHz with 16GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive ($150). I swapped the hard drive for a Crucial MX500 1TB SSD ($90). I got a VESA mount ($15) so I could bolt it to the back of a monitor; for that I we...

  2012 2014 2018 Architecture Ivy Bridge, 2 or 4 cores Haswell, 2 cores Coffee Lake, 4 or 6 cores GPU Intel HD Graphics 4000 Intel HD Graphics 5000 Intel Iris 5100 Intel UHD Graphics 630 RAM Socketed, 16GB max Soldered, 16GB max Socketed, 64GB max Storage 2x SATAIII 2.5" 6 Gb/s 1x SATAIII 2.5" 6 Gb/s 1x Proprietary PCIe Soldered, 128GB or 256GB WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n 802.11ac 802.11ac USB 4x 3.0 Haswell 2x 3.1; 3x USB-C Bluetooth 4.0 4.0 5.0 Firewire 1x 800 — — Thunderbolt 1x 1.0 2x 2.0 4x 3.0 HDMI 1.3 1.4 2.0 Designation 6,1; 6,2 7,1 8,1   The 2012, which, patched , runs Big Sur acceptably well, seems to be the best bang for the buck. A 16GB Core i7 machine can be sourced for under $200 as of this writing. The 2014 and 2018 models are officially supported under at least macOS 11 (Big Sur), and a 64GB 2018 is tempting, but they’re still selling for $500...