G4 Cube Mod Design Questions

Hi, I have a G4 cube that I picked up off of Craigslist and am looking to modify. I'd like to keep the original handle mechanism, the touch sensor, and perhaps the original power brick and heatsink (not sure if that's reasonable).

I've been agonizing over parts to fit into the case and this is what I've come up with so far:

- Intel Xeon E3-1240V3 CPU
- GALAXY GeForce GTX 750 Ti GC Slim 2 GB GPU
- ASUS H97I-PLUS mini-ITX motherboard
- Crucial M500 480GB SATA 6Gbps M.2 Internal SSD
- X3-ATX-300 300W High Power 24PIN DC-DC ATX Power Supply
- DDR3 Low profile RAM (any)
- Panasonic UJ-265 Slim 6X Blu-ray Writer SATA (Slot Load)
- UNEX DAXB-81 PCIe mini card ac/n WIFI

I've run it through a power supply calculator (http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp), but I know nothing about power supply ratings or how much if this build is possible with that supply. I would probably use the Cube power brick case to house an AC/DC converter.

Any help or criticism would be great!

Hello there,

power-wise you'll most likely land between 150W and 200W, depending on where you push the GPU and how far you can undervolt the CPU. Those calculators always come up far above what you really need - just don't use them.

Best approach is to just get the hardware and run it on an older ATX-PSU, measured with a known good kill-a-watt thingie. Then just get a small PSU that is rated at what you read under maximum load.

For example my 1230v2 and HD7850 come in at about 160W under Prime+Furmark after some fine tuning, which is measured at the wall. So maybe 140-150W or so after efficiency is taken into consideration. The difference is what heats up the AC/DC brick and PicoPSU (Dell DA2 and Pico 160xt in my example). So i should be safe to run like this forever, while allowing for spikes of even more load. Like maybe a spin-up of your BR-Drive (that i have not) or whatever.

TL;DR: dont trust the internet (but trust me ) and get a good watt-meter (or whatever they are called) where you live. Everything else is just wild guessing.

p.s.:

I wired my graphics card 6-pin connector directly to the same 12V lines that come from the Dell DA2 and go to the PicoPSU. This way the graphics should never draw more than 75W out of the PicoPSU, in reality even that will be far to high a guess. I can't measure this (again, ideally we should) but power comes through those 6 pins mostly. What that means is that the PicoPSU - should you go that route - is seeing even less load. This should not matter that much on the other hand, as it basically just passes through 12V from the input. But once you compare the (two!) tiny cables that go there - and the even tinier four coming out to the molex plug - with the six thicker ones typically used for graphics cards ... you don't even think about using an adapter.

I think that you'll definitely run into packaging and heat issues trying to fit the large DC-DC PSU inside of the case along with a DVD drive and large graphics card. At the very least you'll want to look into a lower power CPU such as the i7-4770S and eliminating either the DVD drive or the graphics card. If you want to stay with a 750ti graphics card be sure that it's an nvidia reference design and not a special version created by the manufacturer because many of the non reference boards require supplemental 6 pin power.

Edit: This is the closest thing to what you're looking to build which uses a similar TDP graphics card, only a 45W CPU and a smaller and lower power pico PSU:
My Cube 2.1: Core i7 and ATI 6670 inside a Cube G4 case

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rehpotsirhc said:

I deleted this post because my first post never showed up, and then did. Now it's gone again because I tried editing it. I would really like to know which words are flagging my posts for moderation.

Click to expand...

So would I. Anywho, I'll approve it when I catch it. Just hang in there until I can deal with it.

Percymac said:

Hi, I have a G4 cube that I picked up off of Craigslist and am looking to modify. I'd like to keep the original handle mechanism, the touch sensor, and perhaps the original power brick and heatsink (not sure if that's reasonable).

I've been agonizing over parts to fit into the case and this is what I've come up with so far:

- Intel Xeon E3-1240V3 CPU
- GALAXY GeForce GTX 750 Ti GC Slim 2 GB GPU
- ASUS H97I-PLUS mini-ITX motherboard
- Crucial M500 480GB SATA 6Gbps M.2 Internal SSD
- X3-ATX-300 300W High Power 24PIN DC-DC ATX Power Supply
- DDR3 Low profile RAM (any)
- Panasonic UJ-265 Slim 6X Blu-ray Writer SATA (Slot Load)
- UNEX DAXB-81 PCIe mini card ac/n WIFI

I've run it through a power supply calculator (http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp), but I know nothing about power supply ratings or how much if this build is possible with that supply. I would probably use the Cube power brick case to house an AC/DC converter.

Any help or criticism would be great!

Click to expand...

Percymac here are my comments on your project.

The GTX 750 is not currently supported in OS X.

The largest issues that we encounter with G4 Cube hacks is cooling. The low power version CPUs are a plus here such as the i7-4770T at 45W. I use this CPU in my LOL project with a single fan system.

And a very good documented build to study is here: http://www.tonymacx86.com/powermac-...2-1-core-i7-ati-6670-inside-cube-g4-case.html by sleppek - excellent documentation.

Please document your project here with a thread.

Good modding,
neil