Faster CPU - does this help in CM

[foamy]

I just installed an Athlon 2600+ CPU (Xmas Present !!) and all is working fine.
Will this extra CPU power(Was 850MhZ)speed up anything in CM games such as "Loading graphic files" which takes some time in CMAK, or computer "Thinking" and game play calculation time.
I don't have any hard data, but the new faster CPU does not seem to make any difference to the time to complete these tasks?

[Schrullenhaft]

A faster CPU should definitely help with the 'turn calculation' phase. This is almost purely CPU power (and memory speed) performing this task. However you need to compare similar circumstances where the same number of 'shooters' are shooting across the same distance in similar terrain, etc.

As for 'Loading Graphics' a faster CPU can help with this since part of the process is loading up data (then it's up to the video card to set up the graphical environment). But it will not be a whole lot faster.

One other thing, if you've upgraded the CPU on the motherboard, did you upgrade the memory to something faster ? The faster CPUs definitely work better with DDR memory (if you're not already using it).