The 32 frame increase at 800x600 is a huge one, and Quake III is silky smooth at such breakneck speeds. I am aware of the arguments of how 60FPS is the max that anyone can discern, and I personally disagree, whenever my frames drop below 90 I can sense a certain amount of choppiness that makes it less comfortable to play. On maps like RA3MAP4, it's not unusual to find the frame rates stagger below 60 FPS... so naturally a score of 176.5 FPS is great, but there is always room for improvement :)

 

If you are not a Quake III fanatic, there is still a good reason for a 1Ghz processor, bragging rights! Well not really, personally when I am not playing games, I am absolutely thrilled to be working with a machine that is so darn fast at everything that I throw at it, how about playing a DVD with WinDVD 2000, and watching a Toronto Raptors game at the same time ( windowed of course, via a PCI TV Tuner -- forth coming review :)? I can, and I do!

 

The sheer power that a 1Ghz CPU provides is staggering. Resizing images in Photoshop was once a mundane and arduous task, but not anymore, it just zips right by! I am not RECOMMENDING that everyone should go out and purchase a 1Ghz or faster processor, but when it comes for "free" via overclocking, then go RIGHT AHEAD and do it! Having a processor in quadruple digits is a luxury for a select few, but with the low cost of the Duron, and the relative ease that I had with overclocking it to 1ghz, makes the Duron a reasonable choice for overclocker's to join the 1Ghz club.

Bear in mind thought, not all Duron CPU's are able to reach 1Ghz, naturally with overclocking, results will vary, but 850Mhz - 950Mhz happens to be the most common range for all Duron processors (informal poll with all of my friends and colleagues that have purchased Duron processors).

 

I rarely endorse any processor so strongly, but the Duron 700Mhz (or any Duron processor for that matter) get ringing endorsements from me. There has never been such a great performing "value" available on the open market, the Geforce2 MX cards are close behind the Duron in terms of "bang for the buck" worthiness. But nothing, not even the Celeron 300A days of yore can compete with the AMD Duron in terms of budget performance appeal.

You've seen it yourself, with a few bios tweaks, you can get 'uber' memory scores that improve multitasking, and everything else in general, and with some luck and decent cooling, you can get a 1Ghz monster from a $112 CPU!

 

Once again, the Duron 700Mhz gets my endorsement as an incredibly quick CPU that with Quake III scores that prove it, and it doesn't come to you with much pain in the wallet either.

 

Watch for an upcoming review, where we take an 800Mhz T-bird Socket A Athlon to 1Ghz and beyond, and do some Quake III comparisons, to see what CPU you should choose.