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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  • vol7ron - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    "No one with any knowledge of computers would buy the i7 860. They'd get the real deal, the i7 920." Unfortunately, there are 30W that beg to differ. No one with a sane mind would pass over the 860 so easily.
  • vol7ron - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    I want one :) I think the 860 is the sweet spot for price/performance
  • jordanclock - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    I'd say the 750 and 860 are both sweet spots, but for different budgets. They both are amazing performers for their price segment. After motherboard prices come down a tad more, there will be a pretty big gap between the 1156 and 1366. I really don't see the 920 lasting much longer in that kind of situation. Even the 940 is a little less attractive because the performance gains for the amount spent are really lacking when you go above the 870.
  • strikeback03 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link

    Has the 940 ever been attractive? Only for those who couldn't or wouldn't OC a 920.
  • the zorro - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    this benchmarks were taken with turbo overclocking on, so the lynnfield is overclocked at least 600 mhz, is illegal to say these are stock speed results, and compare with phenom 2 at stock speed.
    is unfair and biased.
  • Lonyo - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    A new name for snakeoil?

    These are stock results in terms of this is how the processor comes as stock - with turbo enabled.

    If they were overclocking the CPU outside of what is warrantied and allowed by Intel, THEN it would be unfair, but if the CPU is sold with the capability available and enabled to overclock itself, then it is not cheating or "illegal" to say that it's stock.

    If you really want to be amused, then feel free to go back to the 9800XT days of ATI, who are now owned by AMD.
    Back in those days, the Radeon 9800XT (made by the now AMD owned ATI) used to overclock itself, from a base clock of 412MHz up to 440MHz if possible.

    ATI (now owned by AMD) have already participated in this "illegal" automatic overclocking 'war' and now you say it's biased when Intel use a clever technology to improve performance.

    Personally I think it's a great feature, although what should really be done is an examination of its usefulness.
    Take some i5/i7 systems, put them in regular cases with stock and aftermarket heatsinks on them, and alter the environment in which they are used to see how good the turbo feature is when it's not a (presumably) open lab environment such as seen at Anandtech.
    That sort of suggestion from someone who claims "illegal" benchmark results might be more helpful than claiming it's "illegal" or "unfair".

    Is it illegal or unfair to benchmark an ATI card with DX10.1 and an NV card with only DX10 if the DX10.1 codepath in a game does nothing more than improve AA performance? No, it's not, it's taking advantage of a feature that only one side has implemented. To take away from what that side has done would be stupid. Deliberately crippling someone to prevent their potential from being show is stupid. Maybe we should put the best basketball players in wheelchairs so they can't perform as well as normal?
  • Chlorus - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    You kinda wonder when he will realize he's wasting all his time and attention on a frakking computer chip. "illegal"? Illegal with regards to what law?
  • the zorro - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    the law that says:
    you will not steal.


  • Chlorus - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    HOW IS THAT FUCKING STEALING!? How is using a stock feature stealing? You are aware that AMD is planning to use the same feature to?
  • DigitalFreak - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link

    If you guys would just ignore him and not reply to his posts, he'll go away.

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