PowerMac G4 Cube Upgrade?

Hi all,

I am thinking about purchasing an old Power Mac G4 Cube to hook up to my TV, instead of buying a Mac mini.

I really love the design - and want one regardless, but was wondering about a few things...

1. It runs a 450MHz processor, I have read about people managing to mod it to 1GHz by doing some upgrades - does anyone know of a good guide/parts required?

2. Memory - 340MB already installed, how much can this thing handle?

3. Hard Drive - I will probably be using my external FW400 drive for my iTunes media playback - but was wondering what the highest capacity drive for the Cube is. (I'm sure I read it was 40GB?)

4. Graphics card - Comes with a Rage 128 Pro - anyone know of anyone that's upgraded it, and what card did they use?

5. How much do you think the whole upgrade will cost?

Now before you say - "You're stupid - go buy a Mac mini in January", I really love the design, sure it's 8 years old, but it's a piece of history.

Anyway - anyone know of any info - please post some links, as it would be greatly appreciate it.

(also does anyone know of what the maximum screen resolution on the Cube is?)

Thanks for your quick reply - very helpful indeed.

With the graphics card - it's quite an old one in there - and I wouldn't want to spend big bucks (or £'s as it is in the UK).

Probably around $50 (Is there anything for the cube at that price thats better that the Rage 128 included?)

Secondly, no matter what browser I use - Cubeowner.com seems to be down. Safari & Firefox keep on coming back with "Can't find the server", so that's out. You know of anywhere else?

And, no way, I'm never shoving a mini in the Cube's casing.

Also - do you have a link of what processors will work etc/shop selling upgrade kits kind of thing?

It's just someone selling it (2nd hand).

So it only comes with the standard specs.

Anyway - I want to be able to play movies/tv shows purchased from the iTunes store - and movies ripped from handbrake in the iPod touch/iPhone preset. (I know it's not great quality - but it means I can watch them on the go!)

Also I download quite a few podcasts - most of them in 640x360 - will the graphics card handle it?

Also (Yes a lot of questions!), what's the cheapest graphics card and processor upgrade I can do, and finally - iTunes spec for screen res is 1024x768 - what's the Cubes highest screen res (In relation to the Rage card) - does anyone know?

How much do you think the whole upgrade will cost?

Click to expand...

Far more than a MacMini for a fraction of the performance. Even with a dual 1.5GHz G4 it won't be powerful enough to play HD video.

Click to expand...

I'll check out the Geforce 2MX (Mac version) on eBay. Is upgrading the graphics card an easy job to do on a Cube?

Also - none of the video is in HD.

And I'll probably upgrade the RAM too, probably to the max.

Had a look at eBay for the Geforce 2mx and here's what I found:
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38.l1313&_nkw=geforce+2mx&_sacat=See-All-Categories

(Note - links to UK eBay site)

I think all of these are flashed for the PC, anyone think otherwise?

OK - think I may have found one - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mac-Edition-n...hash=item260307585310&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177

Seller also says it works with Cube!

Thanks guys ever so much for you help - got all my questions answered within 30 minutes! Thanks!

I think I'll just get the graphics card I found on eBay. It's the Mac version, and ports seem to match. I don't really mind that it comes from hong kong - as the seller seems to have pretty good feedback!

Thanks again to you all.

Dylan

OK - so for this whole set-up to work, I'm going to need a USB to audio out adapter. Looking for something under $20, does anyone know of any product?

There's also a Griffin iMic on eBay for $14 (not BIN), so might just get that.

Have looked at various adapters on Amazon, but none of them say whether they work with Mac OSX.

Hey Brian,

Sadly I was outbid on the Cube on eBay, and I wasn't prepared to bid again. I have also decided that I will buy a mini, sometime next year.

I love the Cube for its design and looks - but you can only upgrade it so much. Processor upgrades were quite expensive.

Anyway - for the upgrade I was basically thinking about memory and graphics.

The Cube can handle 1.5GB or RAM - so I was going to max it out (I found new memory to be cheaper on eBay than Crucial).

I was also thinking about upgrading the graphics card (Thanks to IJ Reilly for the help) to the Geforce 2MX.

Hope this helps a little.