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
Comments Locked

59 Comments

View All Comments

  • michael2k - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Heh, what about frames/$ graphs?
  • Da3dalus - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Lovely graphs, *pats my Athlon 64 3200+ while waiting for Doom 3*

    Another week for Doom 3 to hit our european shelves, damnit I hate waiting for something you americans already have :-/
  • elfy6x - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    I have a dual Opteron 246 setup, with 1Gb of ram, and a Radeon 9700 Pro. I'm not really a gamer, but I gave Doom 3 a shot, and it utilizes both of my CPU's when I play. I have nothing else running when I play the game. It doesn't tax both CPU's to 100% but one CPU fluctuates between 40-50% while the other one bounces around 10-20%. So something is processing two threads. Just my observation. :)
  • PotatoMAN - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    I second the idea of benching memory and video memory at AT for doom week. I have a 3200+ A64 and I am wondering if I am starving it more with a 9800 pro (128) or with my 512mb of RAM. Thanks AT for being awesome!
  • Gooberslot - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    I bet a 1-1.2ghz P3 or Athlon would cut it for a minimum. Just go back and look at the old benchmarks of the P4 1.5ghz on here. Only in Quake3 was the P4 on top. In UT the P4 actually tied with the P3 1ghz. Pathetic. Stating minimum requirements based on those old Williamete P4's is very misleading. Perhaps the real minimum cpu requirements should have been 1.2ghz P3 or Athlon, 1.5ghz P4, or 2.4ghz Celeron. :)
  • matman326 - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Man I always knew that an athlon 64 system was powerfull but a 180 dollar proc. beating Intels Extremly Expensive 1000 dollar proc is just mind blowing. So much for the Netburst design kicking butt.
  • AtaStrumf - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    If you could find some time, I'd like to see a comparison between 128 and 256 MB R9800Pro, and 512 RAM and 1024 MB RAM. Basicly how much of a difference do video and system RAM make.
  • at80eighty - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    dammit! looks like im gonna celebrate Christmas with a loan..grrrr... : )
  • WooDaddy - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Two words:

    AMD ROX!!!


    I've been an AMD user since the 386 days and even had a NexGen processor (pre-pentium, K5). Never went Intel, never will (maybe)...

    Thatsright,
    Naw.. The charts don't lie. But to be fair, let's wait for the Intel-funded people (aka Tom's (blow)hardware) to put up their benchmarks. 10 bucks says they'll make all kinds of excuses to why Intel procs aren't fast enough.
  • Regs - Wednesday, August 4, 2004 - link

    Wow. Good info. Dual channel offers nothing. And the socket 939 2.2 Ghz CPU offers nothing over my 3000 A64 which costs 200 dollars less. Given that if you play on higher resolutions.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now