AMD Athlon "Thunderbird" 1.33GHz/1.30GHz

The 1.33GHz Athlon is able to approach the Pentium 4’s performance under Quake III Arena, however it is still unable to dethrone it as the Pentium 4 has dominated in Quake III ever since its introduction.  

It is still unclear as to exactly why Q3A does so well with the Pentium 4; when asked, John Carmack the creator of the Q3A engine, has even said he is unsure as to why it performs so well on the Pentium 4.

Unlike Quake III Arena, UnrealTournament provides a completely different picture yet the game is in the same genre as Q3A.  All of the Athlons come out on top in this test, with the 1.0GHz part offering performance identical to that of the 1.5GHz Pentium 4.