I had some components lying around from a machine I built a couple of months ago for using Ubuntu. The computer was housed in a 1U server case, but having this case on the desktop was horribly noisy. So, I looked around and tried to find another solution.

I found this Inter-Tech case on Amazon for 60 EUR. Apparently its not available anymore. You might find it somewhere else. It already comes with a 60W power supply.

Here are all the other components I used:

• ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming-ITX/ac retailing for 161 EUR
• Akasa K25 AK-CC7118HP01 Topblow for 15 EUR
• 2x Crucial CT8G4DFS824A 8GB for 45 EUR each.
• Intel Core i5 7400 4x 3.00GHz for 165 EUR at the time.
• 500GB Samsung 960 Evo M.2 for 160 EUR.

In total this built cost me 591 EUR. You might be able to use even cheaper components then me, however according to my last check, all components went up in price a little bit. You can't really compare it to the new Mac mini, since the Mac mini uses Intel 8th generation processors and I used a 7th gen processor. However if you spec out the Mac mini with 16GB RAM and 512 GB SSD, you end up at 1619 EUR, 1000 bucks more than my machine.

I installed MacOS High Sierra on it and managed to even configure a dual boot setup with Ubuntu 18, which is not that easy, because the Ubuntu installer always overwrites your EFI config. I managed to get everything but WiFi working, because the WiFi hardware on the motherboard apparently is not compatible with MacOS. You can however switch the M.2 WiFi module to a Dell DW1830, which should work. The whole install took me about 3 hours, but it was not the first hackintosh I built and I already had a working High Sierra installer USB thumb drive. If you are interested, you can accelerate your install by using my EFI configuration.

By the way, if you're wondering if the CPU cooler is not too small, I measured the thermals on Ubuntu using the s-tui tool and it's fine.