DP G4 vs. 1.6 G5

[oingoboingo]

Originally posted by neonart
iJon, you're exactly the one I need to talk to!

How does the G5 1.6 compare the the revB DP1.25 Gamingwise? I have a DP1.25 setup like my signature says. If I get a 1.6 G5 I can just put the RAM and R9800 from the G4 into the 1.6 and keep rocking.
I'd like to make sure I will see an improvement going to the G5 as far as games go.
Any info is appreciated- and the more the better!

I ran the Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo on my 1.6GHz G5 with a Radeon 9600 card. Video settings were 1600x1200 in 32 bit colour, and maximum detail settings for everything. I set up a spectator game of Capture the Flag on the Citadel map, with 16 bots playing. I got an average FPS of between 20-24 fps while the game ran and the 16 bots all tried to kill each other.

I don't know how that compares to a G4. The botmatch is a reasonable test because it stresses both the video subsystem (obviously), and the CPU also gets a workout simulating 16 bot players. Remember that this is just the demo version of UT2003. There has been a patch released that supposedely increases performance by 25-35% by adding AltiVec optimisations, but I don't have that patch.

I also have WarCraft III on here, so if anyone has any benchmarking suggestions let me know and I will give them a run.

This is not any sort of scientific test, but I have a friend who owns a 1.33GHz G4 17" PowerBook with 1GB of RAM. When he comes around to my place and uses the G5, he comments every time on how much smoother and responsive the G5 feels compared to his PowerBook. I know that's almost so subjective that it's not worth mentioning, but I suspect that for all bar the most SMP-optimised applications, the G5 is going to be faster than any G4 system.