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galarneau · Feb 5, 2003, 11:34 PM

I was thinking of putting together a second G4 system, and always wanted a cube. What's the going rate for one of these things these days? Just a stock one would do... I have a big HD sitting around I could put in, and maybe even a PC video card I could flash.

Would $600-700 be reasonable? Too much? Too little?

OptimusG4 · Feb 5, 2003, 11:38 PM

Too little, even for the 450MHz one.

galarneau · Feb 6, 2003, 12:37 AM

er.... ok, so how much then?

Emotionally Fragile Luke · Feb 6, 2003, 01:41 AM

I have one and I would never sell it. It is worth much more then $600.

saru boy · Feb 6, 2003, 02:08 AM

Originally posted by galarneau:
I was thinking of putting together a second G4 system, and always wanted a cube. What's the going rate for one of these things these days? Just a stock one would do... I have a big HD sitting around I could put in, and maybe even a PC video card I could flash.

Would $600-700 be reasonable? Too much? Too little?

Look on eBay. There are cubes going for around $600 right now.

As for the PC video card, I doubt many of those will fit in the Cube since the video card on the Cube uses a faceplate unique to the Cube (it is not a standard PCI card faceplate). You can take the faceplate off the built-in video card, but then you have to consider that openings on the faceplate are designed to accept one ADC port and one VGA port (ie you can't slap the faceplate on any old video card).

joe · Feb 6, 2003, 08:05 AM

Originally posted by saru boy:
Look on eBay. There are cubes going for around $600 right now.

As for the PC video card, I doubt many of those will fit in the Cube since the video card on the Cube uses a faceplate unique to the Cube (it is not a standard PCI card faceplate). You can take the faceplate off the built-in video card, but then you have to consider that openings on the faceplate are designed to accept one ADC port and one VGA port (ie you can't slap the faceplate on any old video card).

There's a report of a flashed PC GeForce2MX in a Cube over at xlr8yourmac in the games database (Quake3 iirc). You may be better off taking a dremel tool to the PC face plate since the ports are not likely to line up with the Cube's graphics card faceplate. And those are a lot harder to come by.

Judging by the "completed items" for Cube auctions on eBay, recent prices range from about $650 to $1100 for items that actually sold. You have to look since some higher priced completed items had no bids and didn't sell. Generally speaking the higher prices were for Cube auctions that included monitors, though CDrw Cubes went for a bit more as did auctions that included other extras.

I consider my Cube to be worth more than $600 too - though it has been extensively upgraded (1GHz, 120gig HD, 1.1gig RAM, GeForce3, OSX, etc). I think Cube prices are starting to drop mainly due to Motorola FINALLY delivering some decent speed chips to Apple. The new 1Ghz iMac for example looks amazing for $1799 with internal 4x Superdrive, 17" wide screen monitor, 64MB graphics, etc. If I hadn't already committed to upgrading my Cube, I'd probably go for that new iMac - or the $1499 tower. With Apple's latest offerings it's a tough choice between upgrading and buying new......joe

Akarso · Feb 6, 2003, 10:56 AM

why bother doing vid card mods on the cube. just get an oem apple geforce 3 card off ebay and they'll install just fine without messing with the face plates or modding the cube in anyway. it's also more powerful than the geforce2mx so yeah, don't mess around.