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Gutted Apple Tower Powered By Athlon XP 2400+
Ill Mitch writes "You have to see what the guys at the [H]ardOCP have done this time. Not only is it incredible to look it, it is a powerhouse as well. This is sure to upset the Mac-addicts. 2.25GHz of AMD Athlon XP power tucked very neatly inside a customized Apple G4 case. They call it the
'Rotten Apple'."
retrosystem has a few cool PC cases from other computers.
Also here is my attempt at it with an Atari ST.
I'm gonna try the Apple II next.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Ah..... no.
Hate to be the one to break it to you, but as upsetting events in my life go, this one ranks just below Sandy Duncan replacing Valerie Harper on The Hogan Family.
Which is to say, not at all.
I took one look at the color scheme and immediately thought flamenco dancer (and not the male half of the traditional duo). It doesn't look bad but really, what's with the sexual insecurity bit? After all, traditional beige isn't really a very manly color while silver or other metallics are not normally considered feminine. It strikes me as pretty desperate.
The only thing these guys want is an easy to open case with integrated handles and small interior lights that go on when you open it up. And with all the case manufacturers out there making cases to the ATX standard the closest they could find was a non-ATX case. What a damning indictment for the whole sector.
Finally a quicksilver that will run apache at a reasonable rate....
"This is sure to upset the Mac-addicts."
Yes, I am so terribly upset, that I probably won't be able to sleep tonight. Upset that these people will probably breed some day.
Seems like it would have been a lot less work, and a lot less money, to find a clever handle and bolt it on to a nice ATX case from Alienware or Lian Li. Then you would not have had to have your masculinity threatened, either. I know I personally chose my Quicksilver G4 because it goes so nicely with my silver stiletto pumps. But now your completely safe, and everyone will think you are the perfect dude.
At your LAN party.
IT sounded like they got an empty case to put this motherboard in, right? They didn't buy a G4 and then downgrade it with that really slow processor, did they?
Well, if you have a slow processor and a spare empty case, why not put them together. I really don't see what the big deal is.
If you can't afford the whole computer, sure, why not cobble something together from parts. There's not reason to feel "rotten" just cause you don't have G4 running inside-- hell if you didn't go and tell the whole world, only the people who saw your machine running would know its slow.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
sick but cool ;=)
It's hard to believe his aim of making a manly computer when he has a matching potpourri candle next to the computer.
Yo, Pudge: Keep an eye out for us for ANY benchmark numbers for serious PhotoShop, BLAST, Maya rendering jobs or the like on the gameboys' Rotten Apple. The Rotten paint job doesn't QUITE have me itching to pop an Alpha Screamer into my old Packard Bell TV console for a clock-speed shredding showdown....
("Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, at Irwindale Raceway, a Nitro-snorting funny box showdown between....)
(Wonder what I can put those old ZX-81s in? Gotta dune buggy shell out back with a flamin' paint job)
Oh, I got it: Strip 8 TiBooks and mount the boards in an ATX case, paint it Blue and....
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
So, someone gutted a nice ole' tower, and put an intel-like system inside...And this is news?
Aside from the fact that its been seen here before, I (a "mac fanatic" am much more likely to get upset by folks making their beautiful old Mac Pluses into aquariums.
Can't worry about all the idiots let lose in the world...and anyway, this just means that Apple designed a very functional and beautiful case. As if we didn't know already.
So... like why is this important news? I don't think this would upset any mac user... it might make them laugh a bit that someone would throw away the expensive Mac innards for cheap PC stuff.
:) :).
:)
Of course most newer PC's will outrun a Mac easily but I really dig the Mac experience... especially with OS X
I don't even turn my dual MP 1600 system on anymore... it went two weeks before I decided to buy another mouse for it so I could run windows. UT2003 is out though so I may turn it on again today
L
Does anyone know if they utilized the built-in airport antennas in the G4's handles?
I always thought of the Quicksilver case as the first case to become a peripheral device as well - until it was released, a case was (speaking of Macs anyway), just a good looking dust cover to me.
Read some C.S. Lewis. You'll thank yourself for it.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
This just reinforces my opinion that that case is the best case on earth. I cant understand why everyone's shouting for apple to change it, in my opinion if it aint broke dont fix it.
--aiee
Looks like Apple Red to me. Red like the fruit, not like any computer Apple ever put out.
Still, anyone who'd disembowel a G4 tower for Windows gaming ought to save themselves some time and money and get a console instead, since that's where the 'latest, greatest' games seem to be going to nowadays. If they have some patience, keep it as a Mac.
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
red is the new pink, fellows. what a gay looking case.h
Sign me up! I feel gayer already!!!
the only person cool enough to have a box like that is the guy that won quake con. he could own it just to piss people off... "i kicked yer ass on a girlie box, now what about that !!!! "
Pablo Piccaso was never called an asshole. Not like you.
The P4 2.8GHz and the Xeon 2.4GHz are the ONLY 2 chips on CPU Scorecard which are ranked above the G4 1.25GHz.
Heeyyy...Imagine that! Now imagine if Motorola got off their ass and upped the G4's clock speed to 2.8GHz. You'd be blown away. Man I can't wait until the mythical^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H G5 comes out and wipes that smug little x86 grin off your faces.
If a G4 at less than half the clock speed of a P4 can still keep that close in the grand scheme of things, then you, sir, are talking out your ass with a megaphone.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Why should we be upset? This is just another example of Windoze users being "Mac Wannabes." They never get the point - the good looks of Mac products are just icing on the cake. It's the OS that counts. No matter how good looking a PC may be, even if it's stuffed into a Mac case, it will still suck because it runs Windoze.
That's the difference: PC-Users are desperate for some class, mac-users just have it.
Dirk
if some mental f*ker did that to my performa 588 with its 33mhz LC040 and 40mb of S-L-O-W ram, i would cry. my eyes are watering already :(
Man, if you absolutely must trash a perfectly good Mac, at least make something useful out of it.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Quote/
Apple has some great things going for them. No doubt they have a killer OS and they put those OS's in nice boxes. Once you get past all of the interior decorator color schemes and lackluster hardware that Apple tries to pass off for PC competition, we find something that is a true gem.
End Quote/
Hold on sec let me get this straight. The only thing they don't like about Apple is the hardware. I thought the point of switching to apple was to use thier OS.
I have a hard time comprehending what's lackluster about apple's hardware.
You FIND a PC with a better system bus &... well you can't. I'll give the PC's thier day in the sun: better memory acces w/ DDR 1billon & 3 or whatever thier up to - I'm talking about all around system access . Apple's new system bus is just stupid fast.
http://www.apple.com/powermac/architecture.html
And those of you who complain about the G4 processor. Read this first then argue.
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/index.html
I have to admit I did it - i switched to a PC - I have a 1.2 GHZ T-bird. 512MB PC 2100 Ram - Radeon 7200 64MB DDR - 2 40 Gig hard drives @ 7200 rpm - Epox main board - top of the line at the time.
Ran Red Hat & Windows XP pro - dual boot.
I recently got one of the new dual 867's w/ a Radeon 9000 Pro. I now can develope in PHP or use the GIMP without having to re-boot. Hell I don't have to reboot to use office either. i've spent the last two weeks wondering why the hell i wasted my money on a PC.
No it doesn't, it leads to fucking carpentry. ... Denis Leary
___________________________
I'm not a geek, but I play one on TV.
Yeah, he stripped out the shit hardware and replaced it fast parts. I would still be embarassed as hell to lug that thing into a LAN party.
Call me again when they power it with a Tesla coil.
fucking article i have ever read. aRRGGHGHH
You'd wreck a Mac, too, if your adolescence consisted of stuffing computer cases with neon lights, writing earnest odes to each passing mhz bump from Intel, and listing the names of who manufactured your case fans and hard drive in your sig. Eventually, they'll discover real sex.
(... the top-secret
x86 version of OS X)...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
You mean the one that will NEVER EVER RUN on a regualr PC? Yeah, that would be completely useless to them.
How can I make you monkeys understand this? Apple will never release an OS that you can load on a machine they didn't make. Not without emulation, anyway. If Apple goes to Intel, they will sell Intel Macs, and you will need an Intel Mac with Apple boot ROM to run any version of OS X. Get it? Now DROP IT.
Blasphemy!
If I compare my quicksilver G4 with this x86-casemod, the latter looks to me like a transvestite with a goatee and a low voice.
Sorry guys, it just ain't "the real thing"
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
I can't help but think what a frickin' waste of money... First by a mac that is expensive in the first place. Then throw most of it away, and buy relatively expensive PC crap for it. If you add that up and buy a faster PC (if that is what you want) with the money, I think your insanely fast system will be worth the crappier case.
These guys need one of those awesome dual 1.25 Ghz G4's. Now that is speed. Why ruin a good Mac?
But it would be cool if Apple would do some other colors. I like my silver Mac and I used to tote a clamshell iBook around but imagine how many boxes Apple could sell if they could come up with a means of allowing users to easily customize the case color. I'd love a black Mac with a bright red (or even neon-backlit) Apple logo on it. Or silver and navy blue, or black and green.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I've seen a similar mod before, and it was posted on /.
Some kid decided that the handles on the G4 case would make a great LAN party box, easy to carry and such. Basically the G4 is just a funky ATX bx, as seen both in modding the G4 and building your own from shelf parts.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
"Now if it just did not look like a chick's box..."
Man, it's one thing to associate your car with your masculinity, but your computer? It's dorky no matter which color your paint it. No chick is ever going to be impressed. She may make a comment like, "Wow, it's red! That's so cool!" but really she's thinking "Wow. Lots of time on his hands AND a strong sense of asthetics. Conclusion: gay dork." Why did they change it from grey to red? More color = more swishy, I say.
Is how does one get one of these cases cheaply? Its not really feasible to buy a mac just to gut it for the cute case..
Honey, junior is out of paper for his art class project, can you yank our signed monet off the wall and take off the frame, I'm sure the canvas will work fine for his project.
...they would replace the case with one that actually looked good, I might just buy one of these.
And you confuse reality with advertising. The only advantage the G4 has over the Athlon is the Altivec unit. But if you take a Pentium 4, for example, you have SSE2, which is similar to the Altivec (and runs faster). And very few programs actually make good use of the Altivec. AMD will add SSE2 support to the Opteron, BTW.
If you compare the MHz, the G4 is indeed much faster than a Pentium 4, and perhaps even slightly faster than an Athlon (5-10%). But the problem is, the G4 is still stuck at 1 GHz. Athlons now run at 2 GHz and P4s at 3 GHz. And, for each MHz, the G4 is definitely not 3 times faster than a P4. Memory and bus bandwidth are also much bigger in PCs, especially if you use RDRAM or dual-channel DDR333 / DDR400.
Digital Video Editing magazine ran some tests on After Effects some time ago. I submitted the link to Slashdot but apparently it wasn't considered relevant, so they never posted it. Lots of other sites did. You can find it here. You can also see plenty of Lightwave benchmarks here.
Apple is simply no loger competitive in markets that require top processing power (ex., rendering, video, scientific research). That doesn't mean Macs can't be good home computers (especially for non-techies), but there's no point in making such obviously false statements as "Macs are faster than PCs". It only makes Mac users sound like a bunch of fanatics.
Macs are not faster than PCs. But in most cases they don't need to be.