Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

AlanApple · Apr 9, 2003, 09:11 AM

How could you have ditched such a beautiful machine as a Cube. Why, oh, why did you let those hard business heads rule what your heart must have been shouting!

Just got my hands on a Cube with a G4 500, 30gb HD, 32 meg radeon card and 768 ram. Man it looks great.

I have a Powermac G4 800 but I have been lusting after a Cube for ages.

Apple billed them as being silent and I am looking for some feedback from you guys out there. When my Cube is on there is a slight whirring? And when the processor is operating there is a distinct sound, not quite sure how to describe it? The Cube is certainly less noisy than the Power Mac and seems to work great but are these noisy what you, my fellow Cube owners, experience?

Thanks
AlanApple

Cipher13 · Apr 9, 2003, 09:23 AM

Originally posted by AlanApple:
How could you have ditched such a beautiful machine as a Cube. Why, oh, why did you let those hard business heads rule what your heart must have been shouting!

Just got my hands on a Cube with a G4 500, 30gb HD, 32 meg radeon card and 768 ram. Man it looks great.

I have a Powermac G4 800 but I have been lusting after a Cube for ages.

Apple billed them as being silent and I am looking for some feedback from you guys out there. When my Cube is on there is a slight whirring? And when the processor is operating there is a distinct sound, not quite sure how to describe it? The Cube is certainly less noisy than the Power Mac and seems to work great but are these noisy what you, my fellow Cube owners, experience?

Thanks
AlanApple

Why oh why? It's called business... profit...

You can heard the hard drive, and possibly the fan on the video card, if it has one. You cannot hear the processor.

bradoesch · Apr 9, 2003, 10:48 AM

...but it's not good enough for your sig?

Maflynn · Apr 9, 2003, 11:04 AM

I'd have to agree, if people bought the cube (I did) then apple would not have put the kibosh on it. I'm sure they took a bath on it with the R&D, mfg, and startup costs related to releasing a new product. Unfortunitly they did not position it in the market too well and it suffered from that misstep.

I would love to see it return but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Regards
Mike

freakboy2 · Apr 9, 2003, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by Maflynn:
I'd have to agree, if people bought the cube (I did) then apple would not have put the kibosh on it. I'm sure they took a bath on it with the R&D, mfg, and startup costs related to releasing a new product. Unfortunitly they did not position it in the market too well and it suffered from that misstep.

I would love to see it return but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Regards
Mike

I think it's just about time they bring back the cube2. It's clear to me that a lot of people are going to start buying mini machines. Look at the shuttle xpc or iwill boxes. Even for a surfing/email box, you can get away with the mini-itx size. Those motherboards are 17 CM square. That's about 5 inches! (I should add that they include onboard lan, video, usb2,firewire, ide, etc. Also they proc is already there and the whole thing costs like 180$.) So to build a machine with this board all you need is some RAM and a HD (CD or DVD if you want it.)

The writing is on the wall. If this is the year of the laptop, next year is going to be the year of the mini-pc.

Fb2

BrunoBruin · Apr 9, 2003, 02:00 PM

AlanApple, the 32MB Radeon cards had a fan. The stock 16MB Rage cards in the Cubes did not, so those were (basically) silent.

But having the Radeon means your Cube supports Quartz Extreme in 10.2, which the Rage cards do not. I congratulate myself daily for having ordered my Cube with the Radeon.

cube-dude · Apr 9, 2003, 02:07 PM

Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
... having the Radeon means your Cube supports Quartz Extreme in 10.2, which the Rage cards do not. I congratulate myself daily for having ordered my Cube with the Radeon.

I have no regrets about ordering the Radeon either, but I was ticked to learn it does not support the new line of Apple flat panel displays. Rather than put out more money to upgrade the card AGAIN, I will be keeping my 17-inch Apple CRT a bit longer.

BrunoBruin · Apr 9, 2003, 02:10 PM

Originally posted by cube-dude:
I have no regrets about ordering the Radeon either, but I was ticked to learn it does not support the new line of Apple flat panel displays.

I know.

I was all excited about a new 20-inch. Instead I am thinking about getting a refurb 22 while there are still some available.

slider · Apr 9, 2003, 02:28 PM

I think they lost everyone on the pricing, I considered the cube before going with my Tower (decision was made for me when they killed it), but I had decided that bang for the buck I had to go with the Tower, upgradeability and price. I mean I loved the idea of the cube, and if money was less of an issue for me I would have jumped on it, but it is and it's price for what you had to give up just didn't comp.

2far · Apr 9, 2003, 02:30 PM

Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
I know. I was all excited about a new 20-inch. Instead I am thinking about getting a refurb 22 while there are still some available.

Get a Nvidia Gforce 2MX, that's supposed to work and doesn't have a fan.

Superchicken · Apr 9, 2003, 02:34 PM

the cube should be something slightly priced above an eMac but low end enough that you can buy one to add onto your machine.

Cipher13 · Apr 9, 2003, 05:44 PM

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
the cube should be something slightly priced above an eMac but low end enough that you can buy one to add onto your machine.

What? "buy one to add one to your machine?" Is it just me, or does that make zero sense?

Anyway. More expensive than an eMac? Yet monitorless? It'd need pretty beefy stats, then.

AlanApple · 07:03 AM

What's this about the flat panels? I have my Cube hooked up to a 17" Apple Flat Panel and there is no problem. The Cube has an ADC.

dav · Apr 10, 2003, 09:34 AM

i think they meant the new line of flat panel displays aren't supported by the radeon graphics card in the cube.

niji · Apr 10, 2003, 10:55 AM

alanapple,

cube. excellent choice. i have two in our house. one for me and one for my daughter.
only regret is that i dont have three.

mine is: 500/60gig 7200rpm/1gig mem/original fanless card.

completely silent.
completely always on.
just there.
just like steve said.

ahead of its time.

awcopus · Apr 11, 2003, 10:32 AM

Cube is glorious. Also have two in my home, one with DVD hookedup to 22" Cinema Display, other with CD-RW hooked up to 21" CRT (bound to be replaced soon) at my parents place.

Replaced hard drives with super quiet Barracudas (ATA-IV) to eliminate high-pitched screeching of the drives they shipped with.

Had the Radeon in DVD model, but it actually stopped working, so I'm back to the stock card.

Both are quiet, always on, and, as the man above said, ahead of their time. Parents always wondered why I was into Macs...they can't believe how beautiful the thing is, even now their PC owning friends are blown away by its form and total silence.

Third and fourth computers are a desktop (QS series) and an iBook (portable cube). When I want to surf or write in peace, I go back to the Cube.

I LOVE the idea that 2004 will be the year of the mini-desktop and the Cube will resurface in some form or another. Unfortunately, for my work, I use explansion slots up....but I'd still buy anything Apple makes that's just beautiful.

chrisutley · Apr 12, 2003, 02:46 AM

Cube is a lower volume product, with parts that cost more than an equivalent Power Mac. Now factor in the fact that the Cube doesn't offer anything particularly special over a Power Mac, except the "cool looking, overpriced Power Mac" market".

They can't make one enough people will want and be willing to pay for, it's that simple.

voodoo · Apr 12, 2003, 10:13 PM

I love your sig chrisutley!! Do you have a high res version of that image? If you do I'd looove to get my hands on it, it is the most beautiful Apple logo ever.

spookymulder · Apr 13, 2003, 09:49 AM

the cube would have been the biggest selling computer had apple not decided to give it a price tag equivalent to the gdp of a small african nation.

the emac should lower in price and the imac II should be replaced with a cube.

then we'd see sales move. I would have bought a cube but in the bang for buck stake really couldn't justify the enormous price of a cube compared to a powermac

Mohammed Al-Sabah · Apr 13, 2003, 01:10 PM

anyone remmber the price dif between the Cube and the power mac? i remmber when i first got the power mac g4 500 in less then hmm 3 weeks the cube came out.. wish i had goten the cube tho

LudwigVan123 · Apr 14, 2003, 12:56 AM

Originally posted by chrisutley:
They can't make one enough people will want and be willing to pay for, it's that simple.

What was odd, however, was that sales (according to what I read at the time) went up when Apple announced that they were ending production of the Cube - collectors and such, I imagine.

gator · Apr 14, 2003, 01:55 AM

Originally posted by Mohammed Al-Sabah:
anyone remmber the price dif between the Cube and the power mac? i remmber when i first got the power mac g4 500 in less then hmm 3 weeks the cube came out.. wish i had goten the cube tho

Go to http://www.apple-history.com and look at the specs/prices (it's in the paragraph description) of the Cube and the PM that's listed right before it.