Last Passing Maneuver: Tualatin 1266 With 512 kB Versus Athlon And P4

Quake 3 Arena

At this lower (640 x 480) resolution, the bottleneck is not at the graphics card. It is worth noting that the Tualatin profits enormously from its 512 kB cache. At the same clock speed of 1000 MHz it is miles above its older brother, Coppermine. Even a comparison of Athlon and Tualatin 512 architecture reveals an important connection. At 1200 MHz, the Tualatin is just a tiny bit faster than the Athlon 1200. However, the Athlon can make up for this deficiency with a higher absolute clock speed. The Athlon 1400 is the top model available commercially, while Intel only offers a 1266 MHz maximum.

In commonly used 1024 x 768 resolution, the architecture of the graphics chip (and card) has a greater impact on overall performance. In this respect the Tualatin rivals even the Pentium 4, whereas the Athlon must take a back seat. No hasty conclusions will be drawn here. A conclusion will only be possible after we've gone through the following tests.