We upgraded Quake 4 to version 1.4.2 and ran its new multiplayer demo id_perftest at 1600x1200x32 under two scenarios: first with image quality settings configured at “low” and then with image quality settings configured at “high”, both of them with SMP mode turned on thru the command r_useSMP 1. You can check the results below, given in frames per second.

Quake 4 1.4.2 - Low	FPS	Difference
Core 2 Extreme QX6850 (3 GHz)	194.78
Core 2 Extreme "QX6950" (3.33 GHz)	194.29	0.25%
Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz)	194.27	0.26%
Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66 GHz)	194.03	0.39%
Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66 GHz)	193.30	0.77%
Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz)	192.98	0.93%
Pentium 4 550 (3.4 GHz)	90.44	115.37%

On Quake 4 with image quality set at “low” all Core 2 CPUs achieved the same performance level, indicating that the video card is the one limiting the system performance.

When we set image quality to “high” the same thing happened.