Another Day at the rumors: Cube Petition

[BTs_Mysterio]

Well during a look around the Apple Insider Forums, I noticed a person on a misison. This person, (I don't know the person in question is who so dont ask), has started a petition to get Apple to bring back the Cube line.

I personally agree. The iMacs are not good enough for many of thoe who enjoy gaming apon other processor hungry things. And for some Powermacs are just too darn expensive. The cube was the middle man who was not too expensive but met the needs of many. Although it was cancelled because of the lack fo sale for reasons such as:

1. It was too expensive with a price point too close to an expandable G4

2. Quality issues with the never-ending reports on 'cracks' and the unforgiving power sensor

Among a slightly too high price these over bashed and under loved machines soon disapeared into the valt of history. Anyway, If you want to sign heres the line:

http://www.petitiononline.com/mac_cube/petition.html

If you have negative views on the issue which are in no way constructive, please do shut up. This thread is for those who care, not those who don't

P.S. If you dont BURN IN HELL!

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Cubes are great.  The only thing that could make them better is if they had a full sized video card.  

I'd love to see a G5 in a cube form factor.  

And after listening to the new G4's, having one without a fan at all is fucking awesome!

[Ace]

I'm posting this from my Cube, and I would be in heaven if Apple would make a G5 version. I've never run into any of the problems that some people claim. I've just had a silent, small computer that works like a charm. The expandability isn't even a problem as you can swap the HD, GPU, CPU, and add almost as much RAM as the same era Powermacs. I just wish they had room to squeeze in a single free PCI slot.

[c| Splinter]

In my opinion the lack of PCI slots are what doomed the cube.  They priced it in a range that was designed for professionals mainly, but didn't offer the features.  I work in sound design, and we still have a few 9600s in the works just because hey have 6 pci slots, and every single one of them is full.

It's too bad, because it was a really cool design. At that time they offer the low end powermac for less money, and it had pci slots.

If they could find away to drop the price below the low end powermac and above the imac, i think i would have a shot, otherwise I think it would be doomed to the same fate.

[Toxic::Joka]

*signed*

Only 42 signatures

Thats pretty weak, not that apple will pay any attention to it anyway  

[|MP|Buccaneer]

In my opinion the lack of PCI slots are what doomed the cube.  They priced it in a range that was designed for professionals mainly, but didn't offer the features.  I work in sound design, and we still have a few 9600s in the works just because hey have 6 pci slots, and every single one of them is full.

I see your point Splinter, but that's not the market for the cube.  6 pci slots are the market for a server.  What in the world do they do with a single computer that it needs 6 pci cards in it?  How many of them can't be replaced with FireWire?  If any of them are being used for SCSI connections, it's more economical to run a RAID and connect to it over the network (gigabit ethernet and firewire are still faster then even a SCSI RAID)

I'm sure you have some specialized inputs, but is that needed in every machine?  The cubes are meant as work stations.  

Also, you are doing some pretty specialized work.  Most of the people I've worked with, that use both PC and Mac, never use the PCI slots.  They did before USB and Firewire, back when pci was the only way to get faster interfaces, but not since.

As you can see, I'm a big fan of using server and network solutions to save money without sacrificing performance.  For new cubes to work, they just have to be bad ass workstations.  Top end RAM, CPU and GPU, and let FireWire and the network servers handle the big stuff.  It's what they do in the PC and Unix world, why should the Mac model be different?

[c| Splinter]

Im just saying that for the price, they put them out of reach for most people who could do them on the cheaper powermac.  One of those slots was for scsi, but the rest where for video capturing card, and audio cards which usually took up 3 slots.  The last one was used by the display card, back when they stuck them in PCI slots.  Those configurations would be needed on every machine.  With the new G4s i think we do it with 4 PCI Slots. Anyhow...as far as I saw it, the only advantage it offer was that it was small.  But you are right, i am just coming from the audio world.  For graphic design you wouldn't need all the slots, as well as for just your average user.  

I just think the cube was priced too high.  The low end PowerMac at the time cost less, but you could throw more RAM into it, had more ports, and had the PCI slots if you needed it.  Anywho...just my 2 cents.

 

[|MP|Buccaneer]

Splinter, you are off on the RAM.  The max RAM was 1.5 gigs on all models of G4 when the Cube came out.

The low end mac was a G4 400, all the specs the same as the low end cube except that the cube was a 450MHz.  

G4 400 - $1599
Cube 450 - $1799
Cube 500 - $2299
G4 500 DP - $3499

Those were the models released on July 19th 2000.  

The previous middle Mac out there, the G4 450 Sawtooth, was selling for $2500 on July 18th, 2000 and was $3500 in February that year. (500, the best, was going for $3500)

Basically, the G4 Cube was priced along what the tower with the same chip would cost, and you were giving up PCI slots for form factor / design.

So, if they were to offer a G5 2GHz Cube today for $2400 or $2500, that would be right in line.  

I do have one question for you, just because I'm curious.  What audio card takes up three slots anyway?  I know video capture can be done through USB and Firewire, for those that want to go that way.  But that's a huge audio card.  Or did you mean three different audio cards (and then, why three?).

Have a good one.  I don't think the Cube was over priced, I just think people priced the PCI value more than the design value.  My only complaint about it has ever been the half sized video card.  That's my same complaint with the iMac's too.  The GPU is outdated before the CPU, and needs to be expandable.

[c| Splinter]

Digidesign Protools systems take up a bunch of slots depending on how many audio tracks and how much processing power you want to have.  You have 1 core card, and as many farm cards as you want to add in more power to the system.  I work in post production for TV/Film and it's common to have 100+ tracks playing at one time. As of right now that takes 1 core card and 2 farm cards to get 128 tracks.  Shit for the show i work on, the mixers use 4 G4s all tied in together, with all the slots taken up with to cards.  But with sound/fx, music, foley, and dialog it tops out at over 300 tracks at a time.

Consumer video capture can be done through USB and firewire, but for highend real time rendering of effects and editing, it takes something with a little more juice.  The G4s don't have the power to do all of that without a little bit of help.  The G5s very well may though, which would be oh so sweet.

I guess i'm coming from a very biased perspective on the PCI slots thing.  Those are paramount to do anything for my line of work.  But i too would love to see the cube come back, cause it is quite the sexy beast.