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Rebirth of the Cube?

i think horrible is an understatement for that one... heh!


verbose please put a pic up of something SMOOTH before my eyes fall out! help!
 
Originally posted by krossfyter
verbose please put a pic up of something SMOOTH before my eyes fall out! help!
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Is this smooth and curvy enough for ya? :D
Slightly easier on the eyes ;)
 

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Originally posted by verbose101
Any one seen this before? PC rip off of the cube. Yuck!
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I saw one of those at Fry's. It was horrible... The thing had a fan louder than any other pee-cee I've ever seen. It was also sitting next to an all-in-one LCD pee-cee, kinda like the iMac design that Steve Jobs shot down when he introduced the iMac. It figures. pee-cee companies are so desperate, they are taking designs that Apple turned down...

Anyways, the cube is more aesthetic than that piece of sh*t... The cube was certainly ahead of its time...

Maybe the cube will be reborn, and it will run BeOS! The rebirth of a computer, and an OS!!! And it can have a CRT, since Apple has claimed to have killed them too...
 
Originally posted by vjv
anybody willing to sell a cube? email me (vjv@mac.com)
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i've got another case of Cube fever too. i miss mine. anyway, there's a few good ones on ebay right here in NY. there's one that has a 15" Studio Display and the 32mb Radeon upgrade. it has a Buy it Now of $1200 which is an awesome deal. good luck.
 
I never thought I'd see the day where other users would lust after my beloved Cube!!!!! As a Cube owner and a HUGE fan of the machine, I'll answer a few questions...

First, 800 MHz and 1 GHz upgrade cards specificly for the Cube are currently under production by PowerLogix, and can be ordered from OWC for $599 and $799 respectively. They should SCREAM, as they use the 7455 chip and include their own fan and heatsink. Very nice work indeed!

As for Cube related sites, I HIGHLY recommend CubeOwner.com. It's got a fantastic FAQ, a large community of users, and an exceptional list serve for Cube related issues. Really a top notch site. In fact, the site's owner, Laurie Duncan, recently spearheaded a move to have a Cube specific combo drive put into production, and it should be available soon. List serve members are also recieving a modest discount on the PowerLogix upgrades.

For those worried about the extra heat, you'll be glad to know that Apple actually built an 80mm x 15mm fan bracket into the Cube's frame, and was kind enough to include a power lead right off of the logic board. It's all set up to take a stock Panaflo fan. Mine isn't even noticeable, and it keeps my 450 and the GeForce3 very cool indeed.

With upgrades like these available, as well as the compatibility of the GeForce3 with the Cubeand all of its potential for QE, it seems to me that the Cube has some life left in it yet. Vive le Cube! :D
 
Re: GeForce3

Originally posted by skunk
I have a Radeon in my soon-to-be 1GHz Cube. Is the GeForce3 a worthwhile improvement?
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hrmm.. if you do a lot of gaming thats fairly intense (like War3) maybe youd wanna go for the GeForce3, but even the most intense games cant really take full advantage of it, so it probably isnt worth it to you..

however, i would recommend at least a GeForce2 when jaguar is released since it will, without a doubt, increase your cubes performance greatly because of the new Quartz implementation.

i recently upgraded my cube to a GeForce2, and even in 10.1.5, i see minor speed increases..
 
I thought the Radeon outperformed the GeForce2 in all comparative tests. That's why I chose it for my Cube despite the fan. And Apple say the Radeon is fully capable of handling QE. I've got a GeForce2 in my 800 iMac and I really can't see any difference in performance.
 
I thought the Radeon outperformed the GeForce2 in all comparative tests. That's why I chose it for my Cube despite the fan. And Apple say the Radeon is fully capable of handling QE. I've got a GeForce2 in my 800 iMac and I really can't see any difference in performance.
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i dont know what yer talking about?? the radeon in the cube is only like 8 or 4 mbs while the smallest GeForce2's are 32mb.. there is clearly a performance difference here.. also, Jaguar requires a video card with more than 16mb of ram.
 
Originally posted by firewire2001


i dont know what yer talking about?? the radeon in the cube is only like 8 or 4 mbs while the smallest GeForce2's are 32mb.. there is clearly a performance difference here.. also, Jaguar requires a video card with more than 16mb of ram.
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i think he's referring to the 32mb Radeon Upgrade that was available for the Cube. there is one of these on ebay right now as well.
 
Ok, the OEM Radeon for the Cube (complete with ADC and a fan) is a 32 MB DDR card. It is neck and neck with the GeForce2 MX in terms of 3D gameplay, but offers better DVD playback. As for the impeding Quartz Extreme...GET A GEFORCE3!!!!!

Logic would dictate that your performance will improve with a better processor, right? Well look at it this way. The GeForce3 is twice as powerful as the GeFroce2 or the Radeon, and it offers twice the memory. Drawing layer operations will, as a result, run much smoother. This is ESPECIALLY true with the processor upgrades on the way, as there will be NO processor bottleneck to deal with.

My Cube is a 450 model, soon to be 1 GHz (unless we somehow get Dual 800s) with a 60 GB Seagate Barracuda HD, 1.5 GB of RAM, and a GeForce3. I love this set up. I'm upgrading to a 17" Apple Studio LCD, so that'll be nice too. Something really sparkley to show off Jaguar and my upgrades.

P.S.- If you install the processor upgrade and/or a GeForce3, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND INSTALLING A FAN IN YOUR CUBE!!!!! Heat can kill these little things, and the fan upgrade is just as easy as a processor upgrade.
 
http://www.cube-zone.com/

This site also shows quite a few of the cube upgrades & hacks (video/cpu), looks like every cube owner is waiting for the cpu upgrades to come out.

They do list quite a few of the video cards that have been tested for fit in the cube.
 
Originally posted by Sun Baked
http://www.cube-zone.com/

This site also shows quite a few of the cube upgrades & hacks (video/cpu), looks like every cube owner is waiting for the cpu upgrades to come out.

They do list quite a few of the video cards that have been tested for fit in the cube.
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Yeah, it's a good site. I prefer CubeOwner.com for Cube related info. The FAQ is GREAT, and the boards are quite helpful. The aforementioned list serve is also terribly handy. Enjoy!
 
cubeowner does have a great FAQ that bring all the upgrade links to a easy to navigate space.

cubezone has some of the part numbers and prices at a glance at the top of the site.

Cube was a great idea, too bad SJ killed would rather sell new computers than upgradeable ones.
 
It wasn't dead in the first place...

I adore my Cube. And now that Powerlogix has developed the 1Ghz upgrade with fan, and nVidia (unwittingly) developed the GeForce 3 with the ability to kick the little fella up a few extra notches, I think that it's got more going for it than a lot of towers out there.

Who honestly wants to lose all that real estate, when you can get a souped-up Cube with a nice daisy-chain of FireWire drives that not only does the job, but looks great in the process? (Look at the new d2 LaCie drives - they'd suit the Cube down to the ground...) After all - I bet every Cube owner loves to show off their machine to anyone who's around ("...no, I'm sorry - I don't want to buy any encyclopaedias. But come on inside - check out my Apple Cube. Isn't it the best looking computer you've ever seen?")

Recently, there have been a spate of rumours of a new slot-loading SuperDrive. From what I've been reading lately, an Apple hardware supplier in the US has been researching the feasibility of using the current range of combo drives from TiBooks, and transplanting them into the Cube (which apparently work quite nicely), as long as the demand is there for them (see www.cube-zone.com for more info, or sign the petition on www.cubeowner.com if you want the company to continue to research the possibility.). IF the slot-loading SuperDrive comes out, I can definitely see a market for the Cube's spirit to be rekindled - a nice small package that kicks around the big boys.

Now all we need to do is to convince the graphics card companies that Cube users would like graphics cards to fit into their machines without modifications. In this day-and-age of miniaturization, wouldn't it be logical to think that these new cards would actually get SMALLER rather than LARGER?

I ask you...;)
 
question...

i'm really missing my (ex)Cube lately and seeing the low prices on eBay is tempting me to get another one. these processor upgrades are very exciting but i'm a bit confused...is it just the processor or is it the whole mobo? is there any way to up the system bus speed? it would be great to have a Cube again, especially running at 1ghz but the 100mhz bus is sounding really old right now, compared to what we will (may, who knows?) see at MWNY. if only we could get DDR and all those goodies into the Cube...
 
Re: question...

Originally posted by tjwett
i'm really missing my (ex)Cube lately and seeing the low prices on eBay is tempting me to get another one. these processor upgrades are very exciting but i'm a bit confused...is it just the processor or is it the whole mobo? is there any way to up the system bus speed? it would be great to have a Cube again, especially running at 1ghz but the 100mhz bus is sounding really old right now, compared to what we will (may, who knows?) see at MWNY. if only we could get DDR and all those goodies into the Cube...
Click to expand...

Ok, here's the deal. The processor in the Cube (as well as the whole of the G4 series) is on a processor daughtercard. The upgrade replaces the current 450 or 500 MHz daughtercard with a new 800 MHz or 1 GHz daughtercard, complete with onboard cooling (a really sweet looking fan). As for the system bus, there's no way that I know of to increase the bus speed safely. We're locked into a 100 MHz FSB and the requisite PC 100 RAM. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Still, it's pretty impressive to get even that into an 8 inch cube. I for one won't be giving mine up any time soon. Hell, by the time I can afford the upgrade (around Christmas) who's to say that dual 800s won't be an option. Now THAT would be a monster of a Cube! :D
 
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