when it says it is based on a 1.33GHz g4 7457 it means the ordered say 1,000 7457 1.33GHz g4's from motorola and tested them to see how fast they can go while remaining stable some go up to 1.5GHz some go up to 1.4GHz it's pure chance to do with how cleanly they came off the fabrication line
what you should do if you have a stock cube is to get ogles of ram in there and find yourself a quartz extreme graphics card and a 7200RPM 120GB HD then you will have a mac that is faster than any new mac but the g5
the only tricky bit is the graphics card there are currently three options that fit with no modification or flashing or anything dodgy
1) oem radeon the one built specifically for the cube very hard to find and expensive not that good
2) geforce 2 easier to find but still expensive don't pay more than $180
3) geforce 3 the best of the best for the cards that fit with no modification but it has a fan i have never heard it so i dont know how noisy it is but other cube users are not fond of it
now for the good cards that require a bit of work
radeon 7500: for this card you need to cut the face plate and remove one of the vga screws otherwise this is a great card some add extra cooling some don't (I have one in my cube with a small blower fan next to the heatsink and i put some ramsinks on it)
radeon 8500/9000: both the same card really but the 8500 has a fan and runs a tiny bit faster in some areas these cards require a clear cube which you can get from
www.powerlogix.com it too like the 7500 requires a face plate mod but you have to cut the cube to get clearance for the adc port
geforce 4mx: same type of deal as the 9000 and 8500
flashed pc cards (readon 7000's 9800's and geforce2's) you can get these from ebay or make one yourself (look here to find out how (
www.xlr8yourmac.com and
www.cubeowner.com)
for the 7000 get a 32MB version the 64MB ones have wake from sleep issues and the proformence hit is non existant
for a geforce 2 they run a little hot because when you convert it from a mac to a pc card it overclocks it a little the 7000 is a better choice
the 9800 the mother of all cards for this you need a clear cube and an old pc power supply you would have to get the card from a guy called amacapart over from
www.cubeowner.com he sell via ebay just search for "9800 cube" this is the best card that you can get i'll be getting one when i have the funds.
as for the prosessor i would go for the 1.4GHz one as that comes with a nice blue led fan that is wisper quiet compared to the noisey fan that comes with the 1.5GHz one
alfter you have done all that you will have a mac faster than anything apple offers at the moment bar the g5
Enjoy the upgrading ride it's a fun one
