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CPU upgrades for Cube
- Thread starter Mikeyy00
- Start date
Looks like it's an Encore ST G4. 1Ghz.
Manual says you need to install a fan if using a Cube. No worries there.
But it also says if you have the 800mhz and 1200mhz, nothing else is needed. But if you're using the 1Ghz, it's saying you need a newer VRM?
Can anyone comment on this? You'd think a 1.2ghz would use more power vs. the 1Ghz.
As-is, my cube has the hard drive replaced with an SSD, a small fan installed (connected to the hard drive power cable), and I've swapped the DVD drive out for a newer model. Oh, and a Radeon 7500 vs the Rage 128.. You think I can squeak by on my VRM with the 1Ghz?
I'll buy a newer one if I have to, but they're damn near $200.
Personally, I wouldn't risk it. With the upgraded video card and a CPU upgrade you're going to be putting more stress on an 18 year old board that didn't have a whole lot of extra headroom to begin with. As Bolle mentioned, if the VRM goes it takes the motherboard and CPU with it. Any replacement Apple stock VRMs you might find on eBay are going to be questionable too so I'd just bite the bullet and go for the Stratos one,
As said I have seen Sonnet CPUs burning up Cubes as well.
If you want to be absolutely sure go for the upgrade VRM. Factor in the costs for a new logicboard, CPU and stock VRM replacement in case things go wrong and those 200$ don’t sound too bad anymore.
The failure usually isn’t instant but if you really use the Cube the stock VRM eventually breaks down under the additional load and heat.
The VRM can be fixed and most of the time you can fix the CPU board as well but I could not yet fix a broken logicboard.
Always wanted to try and transplant parts over from a working G4 tower board.
I‘ll do that some day to my dead Cube board.
The 1GHz upgrade was using an overclocked 800MHz chip. It was the same thing as the 800MHz upgrade but with a higher voltage set for the CPU.
The 1.2Ghz and 1.4GHz upgrades are using a more modern chip that generally runs cooler than the older 800/1000MHz upgrades.
If you want to be absolutely sure go for the upgrade VRM. Factor in the costs for a new logicboard, CPU and stock VRM replacement in case things go wrong and those 200$ don’t sound too bad anymore.
The failure usually isn’t instant but if you really use the Cube the stock VRM eventually breaks down under the additional load and heat.
The VRM can be fixed and most of the time you can fix the CPU board as well but I could not yet fix a broken logicboard.
Always wanted to try and transplant parts over from a working G4 tower board.
I‘ll do that some day to my dead Cube board.
The 1GHz upgrade was using an overclocked 800MHz chip. It was the same thing as the 800MHz upgrade but with a higher voltage set for the CPU.
The 1.2Ghz and 1.4GHz upgrades are using a more modern chip that generally runs cooler than the older 800/1000MHz upgrades.
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It's unfortunate, but I'd hate for you to risk damage to your cube... the box says on it "Requires Cube Installation Kit: Kit P/N SGC-KIT for 800MHz and 1.2 GHz G4 only, Kit P/N SGC-VRM supports any speed." I'm not sure exactly what that means but perhaps it originally intended to go with a VRM upgrade.
It did.
For 800MHz and 1.2GHz you need SGC-KIT which includes a fan and mounting hardware for the CPU card.
The 1GHz needs SGC-VRM which included everything that came with SGC-KIT plus a new VRM. As said this is due to the 1GHz beeing an overclocked 800MHz 7450 which is getting really hot because it is running a higher core voltage to take it to 1GHz.
You need the fan for any upgrade faster than 800MHz.
Fan is already installed, so no problem there.
I guess I'll look up that Stratos VRM guy and see if we can do a deal. It'll allow me to install the Radeon 9000 I have kicking around too.
Y'all are right though, better safe than sorry right? Especially with how hard parts are to find for these.
I've done several of these and it makes for a pretty nice setup. I used one at 550MHz as a daily driver for years. If you look back at some of the barefeats.com reviews of the dual 7400/7410 compared to the higher clocked 7450 G4 that were coming out, the duals often out performed the 'faster' singles. I would suggest adding a fan to the base of the Cube and heatsinks to the 5v section of the VRM. If you can find a single 533MHz CPU, these are a nice little boost to a Cube, because they will often run at 600MHz and still use less power than the original 450MHz CPU. I was able to get a dual 600MHz card working with the lower power 7410 chips:
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/56896-dual-600mhz-cube/
Stick with the 1Ghz, unless you have apps that can take advantage of the dual processor, both the OS and app need to be written to take advantage of the duality... some apps won’t even see that there’s 2.
OSX definitely knows when it has dual CPUs. Even if a particular app isn't written for it, I've had better overall productivity on duals because I usually have multiple programs going. Here is one of the comparisons I remember seeing:
https://barefeats.com/pm05.html
He has done a few similar comparisons, including some with Cube specific upgrade CPUs. In this one you can see that in most cases the dual 533 beats a single 933. Of course a dual 1GHz is faster, but that's not too realistic in a Cube. The best CPUs I've seen in a Cube are the Powerlogix/Newer Tech dual 7447 or 7448 boards that get their power straight from the 28v input and don't stress the VRM.
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