https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856102179
Got it for $100 off on a Newegg sale.
Paired it with a m.2 SATA3 SSD (525GB Crucial MX300) and 2 x 8GB PC-2133 DIMMs (Crucial again) -- total came to $650 w/ tax.
Initial installation had several hiccups -- first was the installer didn't see the raw m.2 SSD so I couldn't install. I moved my NVMe m.2 SSD that had 10.13.1 on it from my Skylake i7 hack and that booted fine so it seemed like a problem with the Crucial m.2, but googling I saw that there's some sort of installer bug with this -- either having another SSD in the system or going into the terminal and formatting the m.2 that way will allow the installer to see the m.2 SSD.
So I pulled the 10.13.1 m.2, put back in the blank Crucial m.2, and was able to format the m.2 from the terminal and the installer saw it.
Another issue was when running 10.13.1 from the Skylake m.2 there was no functioning ethernet en0.
To make sure that port actually worked I installed a new Windows 10 image (on a spare SATA SSD) and it indeed worked.
Encouraged, I went and got the IntelMausi kext from rehabman's github, maybe my old ethernet kext was broken or bad, and ethernet was working when I reinstalled 10.13.1 from scratch on the new Crucial m.2
[in general I guess it's good practice to first install Windows 10 on any new hack build, just to make sure all the parts are good]
For config on the USB installer I used rehabman's kaby lake NUC High Sierra guide:
I used his config.plist: https://pastebin.com/UfJiby6v
tho I changed the system from iMac 14,2 to iMac 18,1 cuz this hack is nearly identical to the current 21.5" iMac w/ i5-7360U (except I'm running with it connected to a 24" 4K monitor : )
One gotcha there was I had to use OsxAptioFix2 as OsxAptioFix errorred out immediately.
UEFI drivers:
apfs.efi
FSInject-64.efi
HFSPlus.efi
OsxAptioFix2Drv-64.efi
OsxFatBinaryDrv-64.efi
Kexts:
FakeSMC.kext
IntelMausiEthernet.kext
USBInjectAll.kext
XHCI-200-series-injector.kext
(not sure the USB stuff is necessary, and rehabman says to run his DSDT tuning tools to get the ports set up right so I should do that . . .)
Sleep/wake appears fully functional like a real Mac.
Geekbench: 4335/8959 (within 2% of real iMac 18,1)
(my i5-4690K's results: 4380/10573)
m.2 SSD Speed tests:
Blackmagic Write 463 MB/s, Read 430 MB/s
(vs. 785/2245 on my i5-4690K w/ RD400 NVMe m.2)
General impression is very favorable, with rehabman's config.plist settings the graphics are pixel-perfect (booting still has the momentary apple logo smear which maybe intelgfxfixup.kext would take care of)
Bluetooth is working OOB, yeay. System Report says Thunderbolt drivers are not installed, so I guess the USB-C / TB3 port isn't working. . .
Main negative is the blower noise, this little box is psycho-acoustically about 10X louder than my whisper-silent ATX Z-97 hack (which I took pains to quiet, with a be quiet! HSF, internal low-RPM be quiet! fans, and a pretty quiet Seasonic P/S and MSI's 1060 graphics card). Gonna have to mount this under the desk, or crack open the box, pull the board out and re-do the CPU cooling completely (Intel probaby had some idiot assembly line in China use toothpaste as TIM or something).
Main regret is not getting the i7 for $100 more as it has more Iris Pro oomph to drive my 4K monitor (not that the i5's is at all bad, it's fine). Or maybe I shoulda waited for next year's NUCs which will have better iGFX I bet.
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