The Competition
i820 Platforms:
- Pentium III: 800, 750, 733, 667
- Intel Vancouver CC820/VC820 i820 Mainboards
- Guillemot TNT2 Ultra
- 128MB PC 800 RDRAM
- 128MB PC133 SDRAM
- Western Digital Expert 18.1GB UDMA 66 HD
- Sound Blaster Live PCI Audio Card
- Toshiba 6X DVD-ROM
AMD Platforms:
- Athlon 650, 700, 750, 800
- Gigabyte GA-7IX Mainboard
- Guillemot TNT2 Ultra
- 128MB EMS HSDRAM (Set to operate at 100MHz FSB)
- Western Digital Expert 18.1GB UDMA 66 HD
- Sound Blaster Live PCI Audio Card
- Toshiba 6X DVD-ROM
Notes V-Sync was disabled for all Quake III: Arena tests. We used the full retail version and the game options were set to "Default" and "Fastest" for Graphics Options. Sound Quality of all benchmarks was set to "low" and EAX support was disabled. If supported and when possible SSE and 3DNow! were enabled within the tests.
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.
Here we see both the Athlon 850 and the Athlon 800 outpacing Intel's Coppermine 800 (which is still nearly impossible to purchase on its own). Of course, with newer games on the market, it is more useful to benchmark with a cutting-edge application. Enter: Quake III.
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