3dsmax 9 - SPECapc 3dsmax CPU Rendering Test

Today's desktop processors are more than fast enough to do professional level 3D rendering at home. To look at performance under 3dsmax we ran the SPECapc 3dsmax 8 benchmark (only the CPU rendering tests) under 3dsmax 9 SP1. The results reported are the rendering composite scores.

3dsmax r9 - SPECapc 3dsmax 8 CPU Test

This is the closest we've ever seen the Phenom II X6 to Intel's Core i7 series. Here the 860 is a bit faster but it's also more expensive, the 1100T is a good fit here. The Athlon II X3 455 is 16% faster than its closest competitor, while the Phenom II X2 565 BE falls behind its target. This is very similar to what we reported a couple of months ago, the Athlon II X3 is a great value while the Phenom II X2 makes sense only if you can unlock at least one of its cores.

Cinebench R10

Created by the Cinema 4D folks we have Cinebench, a popular 3D rendering benchmark that gives us both single and multi-threaded 3D rendering results.

Cinebench R10 - Single Threaded

Single threaded performance is an advantage the i5/i7s have over the Phenom II X6s, however thanks to the high turbo core speed of the 1100T the gap isn't huge. The Athlon II X3 trails the G6950 here as its core advantage is useless in a single threaded application.

Cinebench R10 - Multithreaded

Turn up the threads and there's no beating the Phenom II X6 and Athlon II X3, they both do much better than their intended competition.

I've started running Cinebench 11.5 in preparation for an update to Bench, some of the initial results are below:

Cinebench 11.5 CPU Test

The Phenom II X6 1100T and Athlon II X3 do very well once again.

SYSMark 2007 & Photoshop Performance Video Encoding & Data Archiving Performance
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  • vol7ron - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    "today we're getting speed bumps"

    Usually this term is associated with a slow down, not a push forward - you slow down at the speed bump. It's sort of like how you don't associate a stop sign with accelerating as fast as you can, which many do right after.

    Other Thoughts: Perhaps you meant speed burst?
  • fic2 - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Apparently you don't know that words can have multiple meanings.
    See #5 from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bump

    bump (bmp)
    v. bumped, bump·ing, bumps
    v.tr.
    1. To strike or collide with.
    2. To cause to knock against an obstacle.
    3.
    a. To knock to a new position; shift: bumped the crate out of the way.
    b. To shake up and down; jolt: bumped the child on her knee; was bumped about on a rough flight.
    4.
    a. To displace from a position within a group or organization.
    b. To deprive (a passenger) of a reserved seat because of overbooking.
    5. To raise; boost: bump up the price of gasoline.
    6. Sports To pass (a volleyball) by redirecting it with the forearms.
  • jabber - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    We shall see. If Intel has been 100% successful and reliable in one aspect of computing its dissapointing with its GPU performance.

    Always a lot of bluster and pre-release pomp about how it will be many times better than the previous piece of crap and then it hits the floor like a dead moose dropped from 50 feet.

    I dont see that changing radically.
  • kwantor - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    How does that work exactly?

    On 2560x yes, you should get 100+fps on 1024x.
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    They're using "Ultra CPU" settings to stress the CPUs. People are probably not really running the game like this.

    MrS
  • nitrousoxide - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    It will be bulldozed by eight-core SNB-E, but surely it will bulldoze quad-core SNBs.
  • flyck - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - link

    lets wait and see shall we. If each BD core is faster then each K8 core it might be very close to it.
  • MrSpadge - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Not sure about the US, but here in Germany the i7 860 has effectively been replaced by the i7 870 since a couple of months. It's 1 - 2 multipliers faster for a small price premium. Currently the 1100T is actually priced a hair above the 870.

    Given the approxiamte tie in threaded apps and wins for the 870 in lightly threaded apps and power consumption at any load level I'd certainly go with that one.

    MrS
  • dertechie - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    They're comparing to i7 860 since they already have one on hand to play with, I suspect.
  • mapesdhs - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link


    MrSpadge is right; when I went looking for one recently, I noticed many
    stores had the 860 priced higher than the 870, or the gap was so small
    that the 860 made no sense. So I bought an 870 instead.

    Btw, it's a bit misleading IMO to include AMD oc results and yet not at
    least briefly mention how well the Intel chips also oc, especially given earlier
    reviews here of the i3 and other options, eg. I get 6.88 for Cinebench 11 with
    my oc'd 870, 20442 for Cinebench 10 (and this isn't on the high side either).

    I've found the 870 to oc better than my older 860 aswell, and not just because
    of the base clock difference. It just seems to work better. I'm sure I could push
    it to 4.5+, but there's no need for this on a gaming rig with two GTX 460s SLI.
    Indeed, so far I find game fps scores are better with HT turned off and a
    higher CPU clock, so even more headroom is possible (confirmed this effect
    with 3DMark06, Unigine Heaven, Stalker COP and X3TC so far). With the
    same Vcore/VTT, my 870 was ok at 4444 instead of 4270 with HT off, and
    temps were lower. If you want max 3DMark06 overall scores, leave HT on;
    to max out game fps rates though, try turning HT off and increase the raw
    clock (I'd like to know which games benefits from HT - none of my current
    tests show any gain).

    Hmm, the '3dsmax 9 - SPECapc' test looks interesting, might give that a spin.
    Is that a separate download to Viewperf 11?

    Ian.

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