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Review: Giga Designs 7455A G4 1GHz Cube CPU Upgrade (2MB L3 SDR Cache) Tested: 12/5/2003

3D Game Performance Tests

Intro | Benchmarks  | Apps Tests  |  Game Tests | Installation | Specs/Design

Game Performance Tests

Since this is a test of a CPU upgrade and not a video card, lower resolutions were used. The installed OEM Geforce2MX card also isn't the fastest gaming card by a longshot. (My Cube w/OEM Geforce3 card had a logic board failure last fall. I kept the GF2MX in this refurb. Cube due to the fact it has no fan.) For comparison test of games at higher resolutions/tests of faster graphics cards in faster systems - see the Graphics card section of the Video Topics page.

Jedi II Tests:

Timedemo tests were run at 640x480/32bit, medium Geometric/Texture detail settings. Note: like many Mac 3D games, Jedi II is very CPU bound, as shown in previous tests with high end graphics cards like the 9700 Pro OEM Review and 9800 Pro vs 9600 tests which include tests at resolutions up to 1600x1200 (and above for 128MB cards).

Unreal Tournament X PR3 Tests:

I used the latest (original) Unreal Tournament X (PR3) version as of this review date. Medium Quality settings, 640x480 mode, music volume set to 0, decals and dynamic lighting enabled, "Min Desired FPS" set to 0. Framerates seen in actual play will usually be higher than what is shown with a demo benchmark however. But since it's impossible to play matches the exact same way, I recorded a botmatch demo for testing.

Unreal Tournament 2003 Tests:

I used the latest Unreal Tournament 2003 Mac version (w/2225 update and bonus pack) for Flyby and Botmatch tests using the "Asbestos" benchmarks. (For how to run the tests - see the FPS database entry page.) I used a clean INI file (defaults to 800x600) with two changes - sound channels were set to 8 (vs 32). Results were rounded to 2 decimal places. Higher numbers are faster.

Quake3 Tests:

Tests were done with the Quake3 version 1.32 G4. 640x480 resolution was used since this is a CPU test, not a graphics card test. (See the video card reviews page for Q3 tests up to 1600x1200 and even higher with 9700/9800 pro cards.) I used the default "High Quality" and "Fastest" Quake3 settings w/all game options on, changing only the resolution for those standard settings. The Quake3 config file had only one tweak - s_chunksize was set to 4096 vs the default (for v1.32) 2048. As with every game test I've ever included in articles here, audio (sound) was enabled, although music volume is set to 0.

Other Sources of Game Performance Comparisons: The Video card reviews page lists articles and reviews with comparisons of many previous Mac 3D video cards. The Systems page includes reviews of various G5, G4, and G3 systems and iBooks/PowerBooks. Usually those reviews include game performance tests also.

The next page comments on installation of the CPU upgrade. Or you may use the links below to jump to a specific page.

Giga Designs 1GHz Cube CPU Upgrade Review Pages Intro | Benchmarks  | Apps Tests  |  Game Tests | Installation | Specs/Design - or - Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM

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