Third Party Selling Upgraded G4 Cubes

cybercyph writes "A 3rd party is selling upgraded G4 cubes. The upgraded cubes have a 1.2 GHz G4 processor, GeForce 3 card with 64 MB RAM, 1 GB RAM (upgradable to 1.5) and a 120 GB hard drive! I can't imagine this making Apple too happy..." They are asking $1879, which is comparable to a similarly equipped new G4 from Apple.

Comments

Two Thoughts

[burns210]

"The upgraded cubes have a 1.2 GHz G4 processor, GeForce 3 card with 64 MB RAM, 1 GB RAM (upgradable to 1.5) and a 120 GB hard drive!"

This is cool and all, but why can't they have 256meg ram and a 20-40gig harddrive and shave several hundred dollars of the price?

On a slightly offtopic rant:
Many have said Apple needs to compete in the (more) lowend market... I would think a headless g3 would be the way to go... $500-$800, 128meg ram, 20gig hdd, etc. in a cube-like case without a monitor would be HUGE for apple, in my opinion. Even to the point shaving off the Apple markup and selling these things at a near no-profit, just to get lots of units sold.

Re:10.3 INcompatable?

[JMZorko]

I don't think this is the case at all -- a lot of people would be tres miffed at Apple if they did this. I would think, due to the open-source nature of Darwin, that any incompatabilities would be worked out for new processor upgrade cards -- witness Sonnet and others being able to make 10.2.x run on them.

Regards,

John

Great Form, So-So Function

[borkus]

The cube is one of the most original looking systems. However, the design always struck me as a little impractical. The optical power switch on top was prone to sending the system to sleep unexpectedly. The USB ports, ethernet port and modem connection were on the bottom, keeping the cables in order. However it also meant that you either had to turn the system over or grope around under system to connect peripherals.

You can just as easily get a stylish iMac for the same price.

Best of luck to 'em

[inkswamp]

The problem with the cube at the time of its release is the same problem it has now: it's neither-nor. I don't think upgraded cubes will interest anyone, but I wish the folks doing it the best of luck. The cube's problem was that it stradled the gray area between consumer and pro machine. It's not a consumer machine because it's pricey and doesn't come with a monitor. It's not a pro machine because, while it used top-of-the-line components when it came out, it wasn't expandable enough to make pros happy. So it's a niche product within a niche market. I remember seeing an article about how Oprah Winfrey had bought a cube and loved it, and thinking "that's who they will be selling to--wealthy people who like the looks of the machine and don't care if they have to buy a monitor along with it." There are only so many people out there fitting that profile to sell these things to.

BTW, I'm a Mac user and I thought the cube was a great looking machine so no flames for this, thankyouverymuch.

G4 Cube

[iJed]

The G4 Cube was in my opinion the best Apple system ever introduced. It was nearly totally silent since it used convection cooling, reduced cable clutter since connections were all on the bottom, near full PowerMac performance and had upgradable CPU and graphics cards. Hopefully one day Apple will introduce a new version of the Cube with a G5 (assuming the can get the thing to run cool enough!)

Re:Dumbasses

[SN74S181]

Remember, Apple was the company who tried to sue anybody who made a competing GUI product.

If Apple had won that particular suit, you'd be paying Apple a royalty every time you installed another copy of XFree86. Luckily, Microsoft blew them away in court.

They're litigious folk. Like the MPAA and the RIAA, much of their revenue comes from 'image' and they have to protect that image.

Re:10.3 INcompatable?

[TheRaven64]

While it may be possible to plug a G5 into a G5 motherboard, the FSB speed would cripple it, possibly to below G4 speeds.

Apple can't do jack about it

[HyperMac]

All these guys are doing is taking an existing Cube, upgrading it with Sonnet and/or PowerLogix upgrades, which can be purchased by anyone already, and selling the pre-upgraded unit to anyone who wants to save themselves the effort of upgrading it themselves.

I own a few Cubes, all of which are upgraded with CPUs from PowerLogix and Sonnet, ranging from 800Mhz to 1.2Ghz. One has an internal SuperDrive from MCE. One has a Combo Drive from MCE. The other is a stock DVD-ROM. They all have upgraded video cards (GeForce 2MX, GeForce 3 and ATI Radeon 7500 for dual display). They all have 120GB Seagate HDDs.

Point is, I could sell any one of them at any time (and have sold quite a few in the past), with all these upgrades already installed, much like Kemplar is doing. They're selling existing parts and labor, that's all.

All that aside, taking a look at cubeowner.com, I'd say those aluminum after-market 10x10 Cube replacement enclosures are a much hotter ticket. Looks like it will enable me to put a Dual 1.2 (or better!) in there without a fan! Now that's the Cube I've been waiting for! There's no mention of who is making them, but the pictures of the alleged prototype look pretty cool. I'm not a huge fan of the dark metal shown in the picture, but a clear plastic one or a snow-white one (ala iMac G4) would rock my world, for sure.

What are "Spekaers"?

[beetle496]

Seriously though, the cube (with ADC monitor) has exactly ONE less cable than the new iMac. Claiming that the iMac eliminates cable clutter is a lie. I hope that Apple releases a G5 cube. IMHO the only thing bad about the cube was how the USB speakers slowed the processor. The only thing that prevented it from being a roaring success was the a price point that was a mere $200 too much.

Home media center?

[Zhe Mappel]

Forget the 1990s speed - it's a home media center candidate. Existing choices in this market segment are ugly, noisy PCs. A silent beautiful Cube on the other hand...

Re:10.3 INcompatable?

[mkldev]

I assume you meant "into a G4 motherboard". I'm not sure about being below G4 speeds, but it would definitely cripple it.

A more interesting upgrade card design would be similar to the Sonnet G3 upgrade for the PowerMac 7200. It's basically a single-board computer with its own RAM, etc. on the card, but using the MLB for peripherals via the PCI bus. An upgrade card design like that could easily bring reasonable single-processor G5 performance to a G4 or G3 machine, albeit probably at a much higher price than a G4 upgrade card (and possibly at a higher price than a G5 machine itself).

The real question becomes the line between possible and practical, and I'm not really sure where that line might be.