Even though Quake II is dated, we can still get a good idea of how a CPU performs using the crusher demo. Here are our benchmarking numbers with the CPU-intensive crusher.dm2.
Quake III: Arena makes use of Intel's SSE optimizations, leveling the playing field between the processors. In a fantastic display of visuals, we ran both systems through a low-resolution 640x480 timedemo in order to measure raw CPU power.
The mention of Quake III conjures images of volumetric fog, impressive shaders, and animated textures - all in splendid 32-bit color. While T&L enables some of the transform functions to be sent to the GPU (for those lucky GeForce owners), processors are still responsible for all of the lighting (vertex and lightmap) and those metallic shaders. Because of this, fast CPUs are as important as ever.
How does AMD's latest air-cooled gigahertz processor stack up to what's currently available?
Performing marginally better than Intel's 800MHz Coppermine, we see where the need for a full speed L2 cache is expressed. At 333MHz, the cache simply isn't able to deliver information to the core fast enough.
Expect to see these scores improve significantly once AMD is able to deliver CPUs with the "Thunderbird" core (on-die L2 cache and copper interconnects).