The Battlegrounds

For all of our benchmarks we used Doom 3's built in timedemo functionality. To benchmark Doom 3 yourself simply do the following while in Doom 3:

Bring up the console by hitting: CTRL + ALT + ~
Type: timedemo demo1

Then hit return and Doom 3's timedemo will run. The average frame rate for the demo will be reported after the run is complete. We ran all of our tests three times, disregarding the first score and taking the higher of the remaining two scores. We disregarded the first score because the first time the demo runs there is a lot of pausing as the demo gets cached, the remaining two runs are generally within 1% of one another.

 Performance Test Configuration
Processor(s):

Socket-939 & Socket-754 Athlon 64/64 FX CPUs
Socket-754 & Socket-A Sempron CPUs
Socket-A Athlon XP CPUs
Socket-478 Pentium 4 & Celeron CPUs

RAM: 2 x 512Mb OCZ 3500 Platinum Ltd (2:3:3:7)
Hard Drives Seagate 120GB 7200 RPM (8MB Buffer)
Video AGP & IDE Bus Master Drivers Intel Chipset Driver 6.0.0.1014
NVIDIA nForce Drivers: 4.27
Video Card(s): NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Video Drivers: ATI Catalyst 4.7
NVIDIA ForceWare 61.77
Operating System(s): Windows XP Professional SP1
Motherboards: Intel 875P
NVIDIA nForce3
NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra
How does CPU Speed Impact Graphics Performance? Prescott vs. Northwood
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  • Thorne - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    SMP Anyone? Doom III should support smp... has anyone found it?
  • Thorne - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

  • jrphoenix - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Intel and gaming don't mix. Where is Peteroy when you need him? LOL. My 3800+ is looking better and better each day :)
  • magratton - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Is there any possibility that you could produce some numbers for the cpu overclockers who placed their bets on the Athlon XP2500M instead of the A64? Great article, thank you!
  • ceefka - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Oh my, I guess the Pentium EE is indeed the Extra Expensive Emergency Edition.

    I'm not much of a gamer though. It's a shame I wrecked my car a few weeks ago. I wanted to build a 939 since they also perform so well on sound and video. Have to wait now. Well there's one upside to that, prices will drop a bit, or so I hope.

    Say AT, how about soundbenchies, especially Cubase SX, or similar, with a fixed arrangement, sound & midi with VST instruments and then add stuff like plug-in effects until the system throws up. I have read that Dual Opteron systems can handle 100 audio channels with about 80 realtime plug-ins. How far does say the top 20 of these CPU's carry you. I suppose Hyper Threading would help out Intel here. So I'm very curious.
  • msva123 - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    If only you could download hardware...
  • Sonic587 - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    I find it remarkable how the A64 3000+ manages to get within 2FPS of the 3.4GHz EE. We have a lowly $160 processor almost besting a $1000 EE. Wow.
  • Adul - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    drool :D cant wait to upgrade
  • mkruer - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    LOL im still not buying and AMD 64 chip til the end of the year, but its good to know that the 3500+ on socket 939 still beats*ntels best

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