Comprehensive benchmarking results comparing Quake performance across different 1990s CPU architectures (Intel Pentium, Cyrix 6x86, AMD K5/K6), operating systems (DOS vs Windows 95), and hardware configurations. Intel Pentium 120MHz delivered the sweet spot at ~30fps, while Cyrix and AMD K5 CPUs suffered 50% performance penalties due to poor floating-point units. Pentium MMX provided 7% improvement through architectural enhancements, not MMX instructions. Testing revealed minimal differences between AGP vs PCI, SDRAM vs EDO RAM, and showed WinQuake achieved performance within 6% of DOS Quake. Pentium Pro outperformed all P5 chips due to out-of-order execution and larger L2 cache.
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