I got an Athlon 3400+ installed yesterday. It seems to be very fast (compared to my old pentium 1.5 at least) but I'm somewhat confused. The guy who fitted it said it was of a speed equivalent to a pentium 3.4ghz, but it's listed on my computer as 2.2ghz, and many games list the same requirement for both - 1.2 pentium or 1.2 Athlon, etc.
So what is the Pentium equivalent, roughly? Will a 3400+ last me for a while?

Why do you think the word "equivalent" is used? Your CPU is roughly as powerful as a 3.4GHz P4, it does not run at 3.4GHz.

1.2Ghz Athlons and Pentiums are something from two CPU generations ago, back then the clock speed actually had some meaning to it. Nowadays the GHz is not the number to look at.

I'm sorry, I was a bit vague. My worry was caused mainly by the following:
Bloodlines minimum requirement for CPU: 1.2ghz Athlon or 1.2ghz Pentium.
I also tried to install Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and it told me "my 2.2ghz processor didn't meet requirements".
Is this just a mark of the creator's ignorance as regards to how Athlons work?

well the main reason for this is that intel and AMD have different cpu structures. im not a pro but in stupid language i think its because amd uses like 16 calculation pipelines (for example) and intel only 12. but physically you cannot only raise the amount of pipes to raise the frequency forever. because at some point too many parallel calculation pipes slow down the overall calculation.

thats the reason why AMD uses for instance 2700+.. because its like an own "unit" of frequency.. due to their own amount of pipes.. specially designed for gaming etc.

please note that lost coast for what i know needs HD-supporting graphicscard or whatever u need for that ****. so it needs a pretty high minimal system requirement/features.

Modern CPU's are really measured by actions per clock-tick cycle. Megahertz speed really doesn't apply. By lowering the megahertz speed you reduce tempeture, then increasing bus speed, pipeline architecture, etc, you will increase processing speed or power. I would estimate the equivelant would be a Pentium 4 / 3.4 Ghz at least. Your AMD 3400 should be more than adequate for quite sometime.

Ah. That would make sense.

Thanks for clearing things up, all of you. I mainly created this topic because I got a bit worried after Steam pretty much declared my new, expensive, powerful CPU borderline obsolete.

eh, Lost-Coast isnt really worth playing anyway, its like a 10 minute demo.

From what I've heard, it could be replaced with ten minutes of the graphic artists masturbating and nobody would notice.