Tech
Athlon XP/2200+: gaming performance
DirectX 8.xThe fastest Athlon processor (Athlon XP/2200+) is beaten by the 2.
![zd-defaultauthor-kai-schmerer.jpg](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/3ee36fc7c9c997c5301bb60421a277bae0104c10/2014/12/04/8fd7a393-7b6a-11e4-9a74-d4ae52e95e57/zd-defaultauthor-kai-schmerer.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&frame=1&height=192&width=192)
DirectX 8.x
The fastest Athlon processor (Athlon XP/2200+) is beaten by the 2.53GHz Pentium 4 with PC1066 Rambus memory in MadOnion's 3DMark 2001 test. If PC800 Rambus or DDR266 memory is used, the Athlon XP/2200+ is faster. However, the performance differences among the processors in this test are so small that they won’t be noticeable in practice.
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-3dm.gif)
When running the DirectX 8 game Aquanox, the processors obtain almost identical power ratings. Obviously with this game the graphics card -- which is bsed on nVidia’s GeForce3 Ti 500 -- is the limiting factor.
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-aqu.gif)
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-aqu.gif)
A similar picture is evident with Comanche 4: the performance of the graphics card is more important than that of the processors.
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-com.gif)
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-vul.gif)
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-com.gif)
OpenGL
In the Vulpine test, no significant performance difference is discernible between the Athlon XP and the Pentium 4.
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-vul.gif)
The influence of memory is important in the Quake 3 NV15 demo test. Here, the 2.53GHz Pentium 4 with PC1066 Rambus memory takes a clear lead. However, when used with lower-performance DDR266 memory, the Pentium 4/2533 is matched by the Athlon XP/2200+ with DDR333 memory.
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-qanv.gif)
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-qanv.gif)
In the test with the texture-intensive Quake 3 Quaver demo, a similar picture is evident.
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-qaqv.gif)
![](/i/story/20/40/001416/athlon-2200-qaqv.gif)