G4 Cube Graphics Card Options

Hi all,

does anyone know the best ADC graphics card I can fit in a G4 Cube? Ideally I'd like one that will allow it to run Front Row in a half decent manner.

I know the Radeon 7500 and Nvidia Geforce 4 used in entry level towers at the time will work.

Since its such a confined space you don't want too hot a card in there so the lower end card suit it better.

They both have ADC and DVI..

I have seen both on ebay for $30-40 in the recent past.

I dont mean to be a killjoy but to get good performance with front row I think your going to have to not go with a apple card with ADC. I would suggest a Flashed card and the be all and end all card for cubes is the nVidia 6200 or if you want to go a little cheaper there is the 5200 which will be pretty good. the 6200 is nice because it has a built in temp censer and it doesn't run too hot. So you may want to check out http://themacelite.com/ as all the flashing guys hang out there. You can check out ebay too for whos selling them and remember only buy from the highest rated sellers. I would offer to flash it for yea but I dont have a compatible mac to test the card on. Also I forgot to mention you need a card that supports Core Image which the 7500 and Geforce 4 do not.

What is really the point of a faster GPU if it still has to feed thorough AGP 2X?

Anything above a Radeon 9200 is going to be wasted in 2X AGP.  I have a Radeon 9600 Pro in my MDD's AGP 4X slot and I don't get that great of core image performance.

Not sure about the 6200 but I know for sure that the Radeon 9600 is faster than the 5200.  The Cube's AGP 2X floodgate is simply not wide enough to make the most of the cards you recommend.

I had a Radeon 9000 which is on par with the 9200 in my old Sawtooth and then went to a 5200 and finaly to a 9800 and I noticed speed improvements each time more so with the 9800. Besides a 9600 will not fit in a cube with out heavy modding the 5200 and 6200 will easily fit in the cube.

Well, I have just swapped in a 'new' card since my old one would switch off ADC displays about 30 secs into the boot process. The new card was pulled from a Quicksilver. I forgot to actually check which card it is. I'd still like to use Front Row. I wonder if its possible to rebuild the interface to work on slower GPUs.

Which specific Quicksilver is it?  That way I can tell you what card it is. 

BTW..  do you really need front row?  You have no remote so you would have to be sitting at the mac to use it anyway.  It would be just as easy to access the media normally through OS X.  Without a remote front row is reduced to eye candy.

Aha. I happen to know Leopard will go on it with minimal fuss. And leopard will happily run front row on any Mac it detects an IR sensor on. I also happen to know how to wire these up to a USB cable. Plug and Play.

The reason I wanted FR, is that the Cube is being used as my bedroom TV. It has CyTV since firewire EyeTV boxes cost silly money for their age. Getting FR working I was hoping would be cheaper than getting a bluetooth adaptor and wireless keyboard. The grammar in that sentence was appalling.

The card is a GeForce 2MX 32MB. Pulled from a stock 733. Sadly the Radeon9000 from the MDD is too fat to fit. That might have done it. I have one of those I could swap out. Its in my Xserve.

Get the Keyspan Front Row remote its like $20. The 5200 works great with front row plus its cheap and really easy to flash. The 5200 doesn't run very hot. If you plan on using DVI than the 6200 or Radeon cards would be better cause the 5200 doesn't do DVI out.

I already have an Apple IR receiver. I need an ADC card to use with my 20" LCD. The Apple 5200 is too wide I think. Unless I move the VRM maybe? Its going to start getting expensive then though......

Here's how I put a GeForce 6200 with a Zalman GPU fan into my Cube:
http://www.cubeowner.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=12882&hl=
Note I have a PowerLogix case, not the stock Cube case. The Zalman fan barely fits and would never go inside a stock case but there are other smaller fans that do fit the stock Cube case.