Review of Giga Designs 1.4GHz CPU Upgrade

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Review: Giga Designs 1.4GHz CPU Upgrade
By Mike
Published: 6/13/2003

Benchmark Test Results

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

Benchmark Tests

Benchmark tests were run with CineBench 2003, Xbench 1.0 and Altivec Fractal Carbon demo 1.1.3. I reboot between all tests (benchmarks and apps/game tests) to ensure as clean/consistent a cache/memory state as possible. Of course benchmarks are far less important than real-world applications and game tests, but many want to see them regardless. (The Apps tests page has results of tests with iMovie3, iTunes4 , MPEG4 movie conversion and Photoshop 7.0. The game tests page includes results with popular 3D games like Jedi II, Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Quake3.

XBench 1.0 Results:
Here's the comparison results of all the non-disk related Xbench 1.0 tests:

CineBench 2003 Results:
Since probably less than 1% of Mac users own Maxon's Cinema4D application, I use their freely available CineBench benchmarks. (Which does more than just a simple timed render of a scene file - it also does shaded and wireframe model spins, "fly-throughs" of a scene, etc. to show graphics card and cpu performance, not just rendering times.) The Feb. 28th news page here noted that Maxon had released an updated version of their Cinebench 3D/rendering benchmark. Here's maxon's comments on the 2003 benchmark:

" CINEBENCH 2003 is the free benchmarking tool for Windows and Mac OS based on the powerful 3D software CINEMA 4D R8. The tool is set to deliver accurate benchmarks by testing not only a computer's raw processing speed but also all other areas that affect system performance such as OpenGL, multithreading, multiprocessors and Intel's new HT Technology.
CINEBENCH 2003 includes render tasks that test the performance of up to 16 multiprocessors on the same computer as well as software-only shading tests and OpenGL shading tests on huge numbers of animated polygons that will push any computer to its limits. "

CineBench 2003 is available at http://www.maxon.net/jumps/cinebench.html. Cinebench 2003 is totally revised from the previous 2000 version and is now OS X native as well (but can still be run in OS 9). All Cinebench 2003 tests were run at millions color mode. Since past reviews were run before 10.2.6 and had older driver/OpenGL versions, I did not include those results here.

CineBench 2003 Results
As an FYI - here's a graph of the FPS rates from the 2 scenes in the Benchmark (results from OpenGL Hardware mode)

CineBench 2003 Scene FPS

Fractal FPU Benchmark:
I used the freeware Altivec Fractal (Carbon) demo v1.1.3 program (available here) to compare FPU performance of the original Dual G4/533 system and each of the upgrades. Test run in OS X 10.2.6 (not OS 9). Default settings were used. This is basically a FPU test (Altivec boosted and dual CPU aware). (Note: MegaFlops/sec = Millions of Floating Point Operations per Second.)

Fractal Demo Results

The next page has results from real world applications. Or you may use the links below to jump to a specific page.
( For comparisons to other CPU Card upgrades and systems see the site list of CPU Card Reviews and Systems page.)

Index of Giga Designs 1.4GHz Review Pages
Intro | Benchmarks | Apps Tests | Game Tests | Installation | Specs/Design

- or -
Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM

Copyright © 2003.

No part of this sites content or images are to be reproduced or distributed in any form without written permission.
All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies.

Users of the web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.

The Source for Mac Performance News and Reviews
Review: Giga Designs 1.4GHz CPU Upgrade By Mike Published: 6/13/2003
Benchmark Test Results
Intro \| Benchmarks \| Apps Tests \| Game Tests \| Installation \| Specs/Design
Benchmark Tests
Benchmark tests were run with CineBench 2003, Xbench 1.0 and Altivec Fractal Carbon demo 1.1.3. I reboot between all tests (benchmarks and apps/game tests) to ensure as clean/consistent a cache/memory state as possible. Of course benchmarks are far less important than real-world applications and game tests, but many want to see them regardless. (The Apps tests page has results of tests with iMovie3, iTunes4 , MPEG4 movie conversion and Photoshop 7.0. The game tests page includes results with popular 3D games like Jedi II, Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Quake3. XBench 1.0 Results: Here's the comparison results of all the non-disk related Xbench 1.0 tests: CineBench 2003 Results: Since probably less than 1% of Mac users own Maxon's Cinema4D application, I use their freely available CineBench benchmarks. (Which does more than just a simple timed render of a scene file - it also does shaded and wireframe model spins, "fly-throughs" of a scene, etc. to show graphics card and cpu performance, not just rendering times.) The Feb. 28th news page here noted that Maxon had released an updated version of their Cinebench 3D/rendering benchmark. Here's maxon's comments on the 2003 benchmark: " CINEBENCH 2003 is the free benchmarking tool for Windows and Mac OS based on the powerful 3D software CINEMA 4D R8. The tool is set to deliver accurate benchmarks by testing not only a computer's raw processing speed but also all other areas that affect system performance such as OpenGL, multithreading, multiprocessors and Intel's new HT Technology. CINEBENCH 2003 includes render tasks that test the performance of up to 16 multiprocessors on the same computer as well as software-only shading tests and OpenGL shading tests on huge numbers of animated polygons that will push any computer to its limits. " CineBench 2003 is available at http://www.maxon.net/jumps/cinebench.html. Cinebench 2003 is totally revised from the previous 2000 version and is now OS X native as well (but can still be run in OS 9). All Cinebench 2003 tests were run at millions color mode. Since past reviews were run before 10.2.6 and had older driver/OpenGL versions, I did not include those results here. As an FYI - here's a graph of the FPS rates from the 2 scenes in the Benchmark (results from OpenGL Hardware mode) Fractal FPU Benchmark: I used the freeware Altivec Fractal (Carbon) demo v1.1.3 program (available here) to compare FPU performance of the original Dual G4/533 system and each of the upgrades. Test run in OS X 10.2.6 (not OS 9). Default settings were used. This is basically a FPU test (Altivec boosted and dual CPU aware). (Note: MegaFlops/sec = Millions of Floating Point Operations per Second.)
The next page has results from real world applications. Or you may use the links below to jump to a specific page. ( For comparisons to other CPU Card upgrades and systems see the site list of CPU Card Reviews and Systems page.)

Index of Giga Designs 1.4GHz Review Pages Intro \| Benchmarks \| Apps Tests \| Game Tests \| Installation \| Specs/Design - or - Back to WWW.XLR8YOURMAC.COM
Copyright © 2003. No part of this sites content or images are to be reproduced or distributed in any form without written permission. All brand or product names mentioned here are properties of their respective companies. Users of the web site must read and are bound by the terms and conditions of use.