We finally reached the games and the first to be tested is Farcry 1 from 2004, a single threaded game that benefits greatly from a powerful CPU!
1. Clawhammer
2. Newcastle
3. Winchester
4. Venice
5. Manchester

While the first 3 generations of Athlon 64 - Clawhammer, newcastle and Winchester - perform neck in neck, Venice and Manchester have 6% better performance! Again there is a significant delta between early and late Athlon's!

The second game is Half life 2 original release. I choose the original because the Steam version is practically Half life 2.5 because it is heavily modified and much tougher on the CPU and GPU. I resorted to fraps to benchmark a 60 seconds interval in front of the train station on the first level, where doctor Breen is making his infamous speech. I walked clockwise around the monument looking forward all the time using WASD and no mouse look. When we will get to the dual cores I think I will use the Steam version as it has an integrated benchmark.

1. Clawhammer
1024*768:
Frames: 4193, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 47, Max:83, Avg:69.883
1280*1024:
Frames: 4055, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 51, Max: 88, Avg: 67.583

2.Newcastle
1024*768:
Frames: 4293, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 47, Max: 99, Avg: 71.550
4293, 60000, 47, 99, 71.550
1280*1024:
Frames: 4029, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 46, Max: 87, Avg: 67.150

3.Winchester
1024*768:
Frames: 4396, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 57, Max: 99, Avg: 73.267
1280*1024:
Frames: 3969, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 52, Max: 85, Avg: 66.150

4. Venice:
1024*768:
Frames: 4506, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 58, Max: 91, Avg: 75.100
1280*1024:
Frames: 4160, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 49, Max: 95, Avg: 69.333

5. Manchester:
1024*768:
Frames: 4739, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 61, Max: 100, Avg: 77.983
1280*1024:
Frames: 4145, Time (ms): 60000, Min: 54, Max:96, Avg: 69.083
4145, 60000, 14, 96, 69.083

Again we see that Venice and Manchester manage to distance themselves at 1024*768 with 8%, respectively 10% better averages. At 1280*1024 all are within 2% so they perform equal. With GTS 250 you would get 100FPS with a stronger CPU - with Venice 3800 I got 82 average FSP at 1024*768. The game is single threaded so all you need is a high clock Athlon - I estimate that an Athlon 64 4000 would get you around 85-86FPS and a FX-57 around 100 based on performance scaling of all Athlon's that I tested.