Gigadesigns CPU upgrade success story

[Christian Leue]

Hi Cubists!

Last night, I took the plunge and upgraded most of my Cube's 
components. I replaced the 450 MHz CPU with a 1 GHz Gigadesigns CPU 
(jumpered at a conservative 1 GHz and 1.4 v) , replaced the RagePro 128 
with a Radeon 7500 video card and the 5400 rpm Seagate 80 GB with a 
7200 rpm Seagate 120 GB (8 MB cache) disk.

So far, I'm in fan-less hog heaven. My Cube really has become 
noticeably snappier and responsive. Xbench's CPU and graphics 
measurements doubled and the measured disk speed increased 50%. iPhoto, 
with 4600 images, loads acceptably fast, Marine Aquarium increased from 
33 to 100 fps, iTunes Visuals increased from 16 to 30 fps and Virtual 
PC runs the German Quicken under Windows 2000 decently now.  And the 
air coming out the top of the chimney remains (unscientifically 
measured) 40° C. Too bad that, after only a few hours, I am already 
taking the increased speed for granted...

Then I reminded myself, of course, that this $900 effort just brought 
my beloved Cube to a performance level comparable with the slowest G4 
available at the January 2003 Macworld. So, the absolute speed is 
nothing to write home about, as a modern machine will run circles 
around the Cube. But I was well aware of this before, and I am pleased 
that I can now get an additional two years of useful (silent!) life out 
of the Cube (well, once I find and install an internal SuperDrive with 
native OS X support that does not require patched frameworks or 
tinkering to get it installed).

Cheers,
Christian