Quake III Arena	Source: ID Software

Quake III Arena is a First Person Shooter (FPS) that revolutionized gaming as we know it. Using multiple light sources and having graphics textures that can fill videocards, even after 3 years it's still able to bring a cutting edge system to its knees.

Quake III Arena Fastest demo001 (SYSTEM)
	Processor	FPS	Ranking
1.	XP 2700+ (2.16 GHz)	325.8
2.	P4 2.4 GHz	364.2
3.	P4 2.8 GHz	373
4.	P4 2.66 GHz	368.5
5.	P4 3.26 GHz	421

Quake III Arena Fastest nv15demo (CPU TESTER)
	Processor	FPS	Ranking
1.	XP 2700+ (2.16 GHz)	90.9
2.	P4 2.4 GHz	97.4
3.	P4 2.8 GHz	104.7
4.	P4 2.66 GHz	100.2
5.	P4 3.26 GHz	114.5

Ahh, Q3. It's always loved the bandwidth available to a Pentium 4, and here we see it stand head and shoulders above the AthlonXP. The trend of the P4 2.66 performing close to that of the P4 2.8 also continues here. Overclocked we can hit an amazing 421 fps!!!

Conclusions:

As you can see from the benchmarks, the P4 2.66 GHz processor is an excellent performer and when you consider the price it's also a really good value. With a retail price of $650 CDN ($300 US), the P4 2.66 is only a tad slower than the P4 2.8 in most benchmarks, but the difference is a lot larger at the check-out counter. Even with the price drop which will be happening with the release of the Hyper-threading enabled 3.06GHz Pentium 4, the 2.66GHz model still offers a very good value to the consumer.

If you demand top of the line performance, but don't want to pay top of the line prices, the P4 2.66 fills that role very well. I doubt very many people would even notice the difference if you were to switch out a 2.8GHz for a 2.66GHz chip. If the stock speed of the processor still isn't enough for you, then there is always overclocking. The unit we tested for this review reached 3.26 GHz with a voltage of 1.65V and typical air cooling!

With the imminent release of the new P4 3.06 GHz processor, it means that all the other Pentium 4 processors are going to go down in price and that's even better news for potential buyers. If you're looking for a top end processor, the P4 2.66 suits the role very well. While not as fast at stock speeds as the P4 2.8 GHz, it's damn close and with that extra $$ in your pocket I'm sure you'll be even happier.

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