The Intel Core i7 860 Review

by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 18, 2009 12:00 AM EST

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 9 - SPECapc 3dsmax 8 CPU Test

There are definitely cases where Bloomfield's memory controller is a boon, the Core i7 860 is able to approach but not outperform the i7 920.

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 Benchmark

Since threaded performance is excellent on the 860, after all it's running at 3.46GHz in this situation. The 920 doesn't stand a chance.

Cinebench R10 - Multi Threaded Benchmark

Up the thread count and we see the Core i7 860 slightly ahead of the 920.

Blender 2.48a

Blender is an open source 3D modeling application. Our benchmark here simply times how long it takes to render a character that comes with the application.

Blender 2.48a Character Render

Blender performance is again faster than a 920 and nearly on par with the Core i7 870.

POV-Ray 3.73 beta 23 Ray Tracing Performance

POV-Ray is a popular, open-source raytracing application that also doubles as a great tool to measure CPU floating point performance.

I ran the SMP benchmark in beta 23 of POV-Ray 3.73. The numbers reported are the final score in pixels per second.

POV-Ray 3.7 beta 23 - SMP Test

POV-Ray performance is nearly on par with the Core i7 870 and equal to that of the i7 920.

Video Encoding Performance Archiving, Excel Monte Carlo, Blu-ray & FLV Creation Performance
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  • marsspirit123 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link

    "Microcenter, for in-store purchase. I purchased an i7 860 last week for $229. The i5 750 is cheaper, $159 seems right."

    Yeah with 8.5 % tax that price is $250 + how much for gas?
  • afkrotch - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link

    For online purchases, you may still have to factor in sales tax and shipping. There's also the cost of having to wait.

    Between your current computer and the upgrade, what is the performance gap? For that gap, how much time could have been saved in your work? Because you saved time at work, how much $$ was saved?

    Things can become complicated or we can just stick with the retail pricing at these stores and leave out the other factors.
  • marsspirit123 - Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - link

    The I7 860 is $290 at newegg with free shiping and no fees of any kind.In microcenter you have $230 + $20 tax + gas .The point is the differance is less than $40 with microcenter .You should always compare final price for the purpose of being fair. How long have you been waiting for I7 860 cpu to come out ? How much have you lost for that time ?So if you have been waiting 8 months how is 3 days going to be bad?If that is so bad how come you din't get 920 before?
  • BlueBlazer - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    I think he's referring to this?

    http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....">http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....

    Core i5 750 = $159.99
  • BlueBlazer - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    As well as this...

    http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....">http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....

    Core i7 860 = $229.99


    My +/- 1 cents..
  • Ninevah - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link

    Or this, for that matter:

    http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....">http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....

    Core i7 920 = $199.99
  • vol7ron - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    This doesn't even factor in the savings on Watts used.
  • jordanclock - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    But how many LOCs per fortnight can they process? Could you please provide your metrics in more understandable formats. At the very least I would like to see how many TuxRacer compiles per hogshead of cider (the good stuff, not the end-of-season stuff) we can expect.
  • BlueBlazer - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    Skewing the numbers? Try..

    Intel E5300
    142 / 69.99 = 2.02 SYSmarks per $
  • BlueBlazer - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    Where in the review is the PII X4 620?

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