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About to buy a CubeG4... need some help

toughboy

toughboy

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 2, 2003
802
30
Izmir, Turkey
Well.. a mac-genius acquaintance of mine is somewhat about to sell me a real cheap CubeG4 and I guess I'm buying.. it will be the 3rd computer at home, 1 desktop PeeCee, "the Cube" and my 12" PB... and I'm buying just for its great design and that I hope it will be quite cheap so it will not be a problem affording it.. but I'm not really sure about several things..

1) am I doing a right buying decision?

2) Are Cubes upgradable?? I'm just intrested on CPU actually, I guess it is a 450 or 500 mhz G4, and I want to make it 1.25 if possible.. anyone having an idea??? again, if possible I want to upgrade the HDD too.. you know, 20gb is not enough these days...

thanks all in advance..
 
I don't know the specifics, but I've read a few articles concerning people who've bought Cube's and upgrade them to High Heaven, ending up with a nice, top-notch Mac, even by today's standards.
 
i've heard of dual 1.25 cubes with radeon 9800's, 2gigs o' ram, and a 200GB HD...

it's much more upgradable than you probably think.. heat is the only issue...
some quick googling will find you some answers..

check out this first... for the 500MHz, a 1.2GHz upgrade for $350...

if you are serious about upgrading this thing, there are many things you can do, many people you can get help from, and lots of money you can spend :D

good luck,
reality
 
realityisterror said:
i've heard of dual 1.25 cubes with radeon 9800's, 2gigs o' ram, and a 200GB HD...

it's much more upgradable than you probably think.. heat is the only issue...
some quick googling will find you some answers..

check out this first... for the 500MHz, a 1.2GHz upgrade for $350...

if you are serious about upgrading this thing, there are many things you can do, many people you can get help from, and lots of money you can spend :D

good luck,
reality
Click to expand...

THanks for the replies..
well.. yes.. I did that search and really suprised about the prices I saw.. you know, a decent PC CPU (like P4 2.8) is like 200 USD or so, but these guys want 350 USD for a 1.2 mhz processor.. I'll do a domestic search in Turkey about upgrading a Cube, well if its logical, I'll go for it..

but there is something I'm curious about... with max ram, is Cube good enough to perform with Panther????
 
The cube will be more than good enough for Panther. My old high school is running Panther on some original tray loading iMacs just fine (a bit slow but usable). THey are 233Mhz G3. The Cube will run well I think.
 
from someone who actually bought a cube, upgraded it, and tried to use it as my main desktop, i say don't do it.

the logic board is really outdated on these things, you'll only run into problems considering you can't find new ones anymore, and it won't be nearly worth the money you'll put into it, i promise you. i regret the money i wasted on that thing.

i bought it on ebay for $700, put about $300 in upgrades into it, and sold it for $860, which was the most i could get for it anywhere.

so with that $860 i bought a rare Firewire 800 model PowerMac G4, and i haven't looked back. its far more upgradable, and a lot cooler. sure, its not as quiet, but if you put a 1 GHz CPU (like this has) in it, you're gonna need a fan in it anyways. but compare the contrast:

1 GHz G4, 256MB DDR, DVD/CD-RW Combo, FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, GeForce 4 64MB DDR Video, 4 64 Bit PCI Slots, an extra 5" drive space, internal bluetooth & airport extreme w/ internal antennaes, 24-bit audio input/output, keyboard, mouse, BRAND NEW, UNUSED - $860

compared to

stock cube: 450 MHz G4, 256MB SDRAM, DVD Drive only, no firewire 800, 10/100 ethernet (non upgradable), ATI 16MB SDRAM Video, no PCI slots, no extra drive space, no internal bluetooth, no airport extreme built in (airport only), USED and probably in piss poor condition, no audio input and crappy USB speakers, probably an old used keyboard and mouse - $600 - 700.

its not worth it. the cube is not all its cracked up to be, and its definitely not worth what it costs. you will regret it.
 
the cube ruled man, you know there is almost no increase in speed from a 1GHz upgraded cube and a 1GHz mdd (there are various benchmarks that show this, the cube's other main advantage is silence, unless you do a cpu upgrade, and the fans are almost silent, for HD's you can upgrade to a 120GB HD without software mods and fans, if you dont have an adc display you can get flashed geforce 3's from ebay (make sure they are sold to work in the cube) they are about $60 and far faster than the stock rage, for cpu's you can get up to a 1.35GHz upgrade with a warranty (and 1.5GHz when giga designs get's there act together), if you are into modding you can stuff a dual upgrade if you stuff in a couple of copper blocks and have an external atx power supply (and you can put a radeon 9800 if the guy that sells flashed pc ones that fit in the cube if you do a vrm relocation, search cubeowner o see what i mean) you can get a combo drive for $200 and a superdrive for a fair bit more, while being neat and i'd i'd save thew cash and get an external if you wanted one.

to the dude that says dont buy it what problems did you have with your cube? you can upgrade the HD, and i have never had a motherboard problem with any of my cubes.
 
realityisterror said:
i've heard of dual 1.25 cubes with radeon 9800's, 2gigs o' ram, and a 200GB HD...

it's much more upgradable than you probably think.. heat is the only issue...
some quick googling will find you some answers..
Click to expand...

As a cube owner, I find this immensely amusing.

There is no such thing (as far as I am aware, and I think I'm fairly well informed) as a dual 1.25Ghz cube. A Radeon 9800 would not fit in a cube - though might be accommodated with the kind of really tricky modding that no one but really serious modders should try. And due to its chipset, the Cube will not use any more than 128GBs on any hard drive - trust me on that one, I've tried ;)

More realistically, some people have upgraded to dual 500MHz Cubes (difficult enough as is) and certain CPU upgrades to 1.2 or 1.4GHz. Certainly these make them awesome machines, especially when RAM'ed up. The tricky graphics card upgrade is a good one to try, and I would love to find a way (and a card!) to do this cheaply and easily. Cube upgrade costs can really mount up - you have to be prepared to spend a lot on it and not expect too much of them. But if you're prepared to do so, they are a very nice little collector's item.

But as for upgrade machines... check out the thread on eMac upgrades. Now THERE's a challenge - overclocking eMacs to 1.6 and 2.0GHz using nothing but an Xacto knife!
 
whenpaulsparks said:
the logic board is really outdated on these things, you'll only run into problems considering you can't find new ones anymore, and it won't be nearly worth the money you'll put into it, i promise you. i regret the money i wasted on that thing.
Click to expand...


PC100 is really great isn't it? :rolleyes:
 
My two cents - although the Cubes are a limited model in terms of upgradability, they are unlimited in their coolness factor... :D

That being said, a couple of comments:

1. You sound like you are buying this spur of the moment and you really don't need it. Figure that if you buy it, you're going to have to spend at least $400-$500 on it if you really want to upgrade the processor and hard drive, and that doesn't include a monitor for it (unless you already have one or your friend is including one in the price). That means you're going to spend an additional $750, which is probably more than your friend is asking for the cube. That's a lot for something that you aren't really all that in need of.

2. If you do buy it, and your friend is indeed selling it for "real cheap" (or with a monitor included), you may just try running it as-is for while to see what you want to do with it in its current state. Even at 500MHz, it would do a lot of functions reasonably well, such as be an iTunes server, or an FTP server, or something to that effect. Hmmm. Throw the Cube by your stereo, drop a VNC client on it so you can run it from your PowerBook, and use it as a music server through your stereo... That would look nice.
 
toughboy said:
THanks for the replies..
well.. yes.. I did that search and really suprised about the prices I saw.. you know, a decent PC CPU (like P4 2.8) is like 200 USD or so, but these guys want 350 USD for a 1.2 mhz processor..
Click to expand...

If you really think a 2.8 GHz P4 is more than twice as fast 1.2 GHz G4 then you are stuck in the land of the Megahertz Myth
 
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