G4 Cube or G4 tower?

thunderwood511

Hi, Im somewhat new to the Apple computing community. I recently bought my freinds G4 450Mhz cube because he sold it to me for the ridiculously low price of $200. I also have an oppurtunity to purchase a Qicksliver G4 1Ghz DP with 1.5Gb RAM, 200Gb HD, SuperDrive & an extra 24X CDRW drive--all for $2k. However, if I buy the G4 DP, Ill have to sell my cube.



My question is this... I am primarily interested in using the computer for video editing and multimedia purposes; Im a student and spending wisely is of utmost concern. Should I save money and upgrade the cube, or simply bump up to the G4 DP? Does anyone know how stable the cube will be with fairly major upgrades (like a PowerLogix 1Ghz processor upgrade or GForce3 Card)?



Although I can run FinalCut Pro 3 on the cube as is (barely), users of AVID Video Editiing software have told me the cube won't run the latest AVID Xpress DV 3.5 because the program makes use of the G4 Velocity engine? Does the cube really not have the Velocity Engine (which I understand to be a sort of co-processing unit)? Can I get one for the cube?



Also, what is the difference between the QuickSilver G4's and the newer Mirror-Drive Door G4's? Can these differences be made up with aftermarket upgrades to the QuickSilver? Is the Quicksilver G4 1Ghz DP (as described above) a good deal at $2k--still under warranty for two years?



I know I have a lot of questions here, and some are somewhat ambiguous and open to opinion, but any help you can provide would be appreciated. I just would like to hear the opinions of some people who are more familiar with Apple technology than I am.



Thanks!!! <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

cubedude

I'd say go with the DP G4. I too have a cube and am fine with it, but for video editing, the DP will definitely help.



1)The cube has the Velocity Engine. All G4's do.(I think. I know the cube does.)



2)The Velocity Engine isn't required. A G4 processor may be required, but the Engine is not.



I can't help you with the rest.

luca

I would personally rather have the dual G4 than the Cube for video editing. One problem is price: upgrading a Cube is expensive because Cube-nuts on eBay will pay ridiculous prices for any Cube-compatible video card (like the GeForce 3). Try $250+, for a video card that's really only worth $150 or so based on performance. Also, the processor upgrades will only help to a certain extent - the Cube is designed to run at 450 or 500 MHz, so upping it to 1 GHz is possible but it'll tax the system. Stability might go down because of the extra heat - you'll need to get a fan for it. On the other hand, the Quicksilver G4 is designed to run at 1 GHz so you could probably boot speed by at least 50% with upgrades. It also has a lot more room inside for adding additional hard drives (necessary for video editing) and other upgrades like PCI cards. What is FireWire 2 comes out in the next couple years and you need it to run your video camera? Well, the Quicksilver will be able to add it via a PCI card, but the Cube won't be able to.



All G4s have the AltiVec (Velocity Engine) instruction code. It's not really a co-processor, more of a set of specialized instructions that really speed things up if they're optimized to use those instructions (Kinda like if you pre-programmed a robot to walk to the door from his charging station - it's only useful once in a while but when you use it it'll be much faster than programming every single move).



You'll also see the benefit of dual processors with that dual GHz G4. It helps a ton with OS X (as does memory).



There are a few differences between the new mirror G4s and the Quicksilvers. First of all, the mirror G4s have two drive bays instead of one (you can hack the Quicksilver to have two front 5.25" bays if you're handy and brave). They also have native support for four hard drives instead of two (though you can add more with aftermarket cards). The differences that you can't change are the bus speed, RAM, and L3 cache. The Quicksilver has 2 MB of L3 cache per processor while the mirror has only 1 MB. However, the mirror has a 167 MHz bus and DDR RAM to make up for the lesser L3 cache.

thunderwood511

Thanks for the help so far. Very helpful... How about the Quicksilver G4 DP for $2k? Good deal?

dfiler

For video editing, you'll need as much power as you can get. Otherwise, I'd suggest sticking with the cube for another year until the 970s come out.



You're wise to be looking at the quicksilvers. IMO, they're a much better price point for budget G4 buyers than the MDD machines.

eman

I'll take the Cube for $200