Damn, using Intel-based Mac minis from 15 years ago, especially when one despises Intel CPUs, is intriguing. 
That's why I won't throw the metal case of the dead Mac-mini in the trash: to be re-used as case for a MIPS board!!!
Mips32R2/be-mini, running Haiku,
sweet dreams are made of this 
... unfortunately I have to use those things (which I personally hate) for a lot of different reasons.
Starting from, because I don't have the CAD/CAM skills (and I'm paid for it anyway) to re-design rack cases for mac-mini/Intel (>2010) or Apple Silicon (similar, from the mechanical point of view, rack kits are compatible), and I have to stock up to eighth of those Apple intel Mini 2009 in a kind of cluster in a rack-case, and I have use x86 (intel core2/Duo @ >=2GHz is enough for the specs) because there are commercial applications (including C compilers) with which they are supplied only the binaries, among other things in 32bit ... so I also have to instruct Catalyst to build a "multi library" stage4, hybrid 32 and 64bit, with a 64-bit kernel to be able to address all 8GB of RAM, which is required for two QEMU/x86 VM.
So, if it was for my personal stuff, I would buy an Ampera 128Core workstation and/or a POWER workstation, for sure not that x86 stuff.
(
then it must also be said: I have no authority to tell my boss or my clients to throw everything away
which would also make a lot of sense, but these are decisions that are not my responsibility
)
