Test System Setup

Changes

The biggest change you'll notice for our testing is the updated use of Q3test 1.07. Yes, we know that Q3Test 1.08 was just released, but unfortunately, along with any new code, the included demos have changed as well. For the sake of this comparison, we'll stay with 1.07 results so that everyone has something to more easily benchmark against their own machines. Hopefully, when the game is released, we can have a standard "demo1" to benchmark average performance against.

Why no overclocking on the Athlon?

That's probably the most oft-asked question short of "Why don't you test it against a P3-600 instead of a 560?" Quite simply, our Athlon motherboard doesn't have any utilities or jumpers for overclocking. AMD has stated on numerous occasions that they will not institute multiplier locks on their processors, or in any other way block hobbyists from pushing their chips to the limit. Of course, overclocking does affect the warranty.

An interesting AMD quote is how the Athlon is not quite as overclockable as the K6-3, but should still perform nicely. While the Athlon doesn't use the exposed OLGA core with SECC2, we'll have to see how efficient SECC-1 Althon heatsinks will be.

System Setup

Intel Pentium III 600
Abit BE6
Corsair PC-100 3.3v SDRAM - 1x128MB
Diamond Viper V770 Ultra (150/183)
Driver version 2.08 (Detonator)
Western Digital Caviar 26400 6.4GB EIDE HD

AMD Athlon 600
Athlon motherboard
Corsair PC-100 3.3v SDRAM - 1x128MB
Diamond Viper V770 Ultra (150/183)
Driver version 2.08 (Detonator)
Western Digital Caviar 26400 6.4GB EIDE HD

Benchmarks

(All tests run under a clean install of Windows 98)
Ziff Davis Winbench 99 1.1 - 1024x768x16
CPUMark99
FPUMark

Ziff Davis Winstone 99 - 1024x768x16
Business Disk Suite

SiSoft Sandra Pro
CPU Tests

3DMark99 MAX - 800x600x16
3DMark99 MAX - 800x600x32
3DMark99 MAX - 1024x768x16
3DMark99 MAX - 1024x768x32
Quake II 3.20 - crusher & demo1- 640x480x16
Q3Test 1.07 - 640 x 480 Fastest, Normal, High Quality
Q3Test 1.07 - 800 x 600 Fastest, Normal, High Quality