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Dual 800, 1GHz and 1.2GHz Cube

Great news, but...

This is great news for cube owners. It makes sense they will offer the 1.2 to regular g4 mac owners, too. I've found that the overall speed of my machine these days is much more dependant on the bus speed, hard drives, and memory architecture, though. At home I have a 2 x 1 GHz QuickSilver, and at work I have an Upgraded Sawtooth 2 x 0.8 GHz. My Quicksilver is much faster. The upgrade card really made a big difference, but if you're a person who needs every last second, your better off saving your money for the next revision of Macs due in February.

Again, I ain't nockin' the upgrades-- they're great, but for the cost it can make sens to just save up your cash. On the upside, you don't have to re-install all your apps, backup your data, and haul out your old hardware. To some, that can be all the difference in the world.
 
Originally posted by syntax
um ... but aren't powerlogix processor upgrades notoriously unreliable?
Click to expand...

I've had 2 PowerLogix upgrade cards and consider them to be of the highest calibre. Unless some other people got a bad batch or had a particular type of card go bad, I would be shocked to learn otherwise. So, take this from the horse's mouth, I've never had a single problem.

One of my upgrades was a G3 220!! It was the slowest one available, and I put it in a Power Computing 603e 200 MHz Clone.... and I overclocked it to 255 Mhz. It's now almost 4 years old and still kicking! It's on it's 3rd owner. I just got a dual 800 G4 for a Sawtooth, and (so far) it's running totally transparently.
 
Originally posted by gotohamish


Can you feel it on the outside of the case? I have a G4 500 Graphite and it's always positively cold. The cubes used to get quite warm though, at the same speeds. Must the be the killer heatsink.

I need a newer mac - save on the heating bills here in northern england!
Click to expand...


Stick my hand behind the case and it feels like a hair dryer set on "low". It's now where near hot, but is is very warm air.


Lethal
 
These are new G4's

These G4 processors have to be a new generation. Probably manufactured on a smaller process. The original PowerLogix dual 800 was burning out DC to DC cards in the Cube. They were going to make a "heafteir" DC to DC card for the Cube, now we get this anouncement. It also states that they is NOT a need to replace the DC to DC board with these, so they HAVE to have a lower power requirement than the current batch of 800's that PowerLogix is able to get.
 
Re: Heh...

Originally posted by RandomMacGuy
When these come out, I would love to see pictures of the melted interior and possibly exterior of the cherished, modified cubes.

Seriously, I don't know if there is enough room in a cube for some of these upgrades. I mean, these fast dualies generate a lot of heat and you need a fan or a huge heatsink or at least a lot of room for the heat to dissipate and the cube doesn't have any of these things (IIRC).

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Yup, they work fine, people have done the dual 800's before the dc/dc board problems. Some odd reason, the fan in the bottom keeps these cool, while the towers sound like jets. this is possibly due to the volume of area in a tower case as opposed to a Cube.

As for room, if they are making it for a Cube, it stands to reason these and other upgrades for the Cube will fit.

After xmas, and I will add a dualie to my already modified Cube :]
 
Re: Re: Heh...

As a cube owner I love the idea of a dual 1.25, but seriously... its going to cost like $1500. (A current model, the dual 1GHz goes for $1200) If they could get prices of a dual upgrade at $500, I would buy it - but right now the single powerlogix cube-upgrade of 700mhz is like $400. I understand that this is new hardware and that they can't give it away, so my complaint is much more valid as a criticism. If you're going to offer these, you have to do it where the decision between upgrading or buying an entirely NEW powermac, is to upgrade the cube. right now, its not even a question for me... you can get a refurbished PM1GHz with superdrive from apple for $2100!
 
PowerLogix sucks!

Before you buy from PowerLogix, check out this report from Macintouch on problems people have had with PowerLogix and there PowerBook Bluechip upgrades.

http://www.macintouch.com/powerlogixblue.html

My own experience with them is very similar:
I bought one in July 2001. It was dead on arival. I sent it back (and I had to pay for the shipping). They said it would be about 2 weeks. It took them 6 months to replace it. Then the replacement was bad and it took another month to get another replacement. They said they would send me a 500 G3 instead of the 466 that I bought. Well after waiting 7 months I still ended up with the 466. It works now, but PL's customer support is very bad. My calls and e-mails were usually unanswered. I finally found out that the problem with the boards is the manufacturer that they hired to build them was screwing up... yes that's right -- PL may design the boards (and I'm not even sure of that) but they don't make them. As you can tell, my opinion of them is very low and I will NEVER buy from PowerLogix again.

End result for me was that I ended up buying a new TiBook a few weeks ago.
 
Originally posted by beatle888



OOHHHH, well congratulations! :)
do you like it? is it fast enough for you AND
can you run jaguar on it?
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Yep on both accounts.

No speed demon, but plenty fast for my needs.

May end up selling it and get a new combo drive in the future, but it all depends on how little money I have.
 
Originally posted by DarkNovaMatter
Nice- so they got the new dc/dc cards coming? now all I need is a video card............
Click to expand...

Read the article. Powerlogix says they've found a way around the problem and can use the standard dc-to-dc converter.:)
 
Unsubstantiated Cube Rumor

OK, an aquantance, who is a corporate saleman for Apple, claims that there is a warehouse full of Cube parts out on the west coast and that there is gonna be an limited edition Cube in the next few years with updated materials. I am not sure if this guy is lying or not. I think he "thinks" he is right and is just trying to pass off his speculation as fact. Any opinions on this? Or can anyone confirm this?
 
Re: Heh...

Originally posted by RandomMacGuy
When these come out, I would love to see pictures of the melted interior and possibly exterior of the cherished, modified cubes.
Click to expand...

Prepare to be disappointed.

Seriously, I don't know if there is enough room in a cube for some of these upgrades. I mean, these fast dualies generate a lot of heat and you need a fan or a huge heatsink or at least a lot of room for the heat to dissipate and the cube doesn't have any of these things (IIRC).
Click to expand...

There is room (the CPU itself is quite small).

There is provision for a fan in the base of the Cube, and that is included in the upgrade kits.

It has already been done by some hobbiests, and heat rejection turns out to be quite easily handled.

Upgrading the graphics card at the same time brings things closer to the edge, but still workable.
 
I'm still baffled as to why graphics card manufacturers (namely ATI and nVidia) insist on producing FULL-SIZED cards, and in some cases, BIGGER than full-sized, when the future should be miniaturisation. There would be a significantly larger client base for them to produce these cards on a 7" board, much like the OEM Radeon Cube, Rage 128, GeForce 2MX and GeForce 3 cards.

Just look at eBay - when these cards DO come on the auction lists, they are bombarded by bidders - and inevitably, they go for outrageous prices. That means these cards are highly sought-after, and therefore it stands to reason there is a huge demand for them.

As it is, us Cube owners have to make do with a GeForce 3 card (when we can get our hands on them) if we want to upgrade our computers to their maximum video capacity, and use our ADC monitors, without resorting to "doctoring" the chassis...

;)
 
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