AMD's Athlon II X3 435 & New Energy Efficient CPUs: Killing Intel Below $90
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 20, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
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:
Compared to the Intel dual-core options, the Athlon II X3 435 is a definite winner here. It's got the core count and clock speed to beat the old Penryn derivatives. Its biggest competition comes from its own family, the Athlon II X4 620 is the better buy here.
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.
As I've been mentioning this entire time, the Athlon II X3 435 doesn't really sacrifice clock speed in its three-core configuration. At 2.9GHz even its single threaded performance is comparable to the Pentium E6300. Run a multithreaded app however and the performance goes from parity to leading:
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.
The POV-Ray results echo what we've been seeing thus far, vs. Intel there's no contest - the 435 is the better value. Compared to the quad-core Athlon IIs however, the 435 isn't very good.
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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
177 Comments
View All Comments
maddoctor - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Yes, Intel Core I5 is the best choice. No sophisticated AMD products, and it will never be. Don't buy AMD rubbish products.Ezz777 - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Not quite what i was getting at - but thanks for your input...I guess my question isn't really Athlon II X3 related but more 'concepts in PC building' so apologies for going OT.
If anyone does want to respond - my question is along the lines of if we assume linearity in the CPU and GPU markets, is there a ratio on how much you should spend on each to get a balanced gaming PC?
fsdetained - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
That's a horrible way to go about buying parts as you'll just screw yourself in the end.I would only buy an athlon II for entry level gaming. It would do ok with more demanding games but the games are starting to catch up with current tech finally. Phenom II or I5/I7 would be for the more serious gamers.
maddoctor - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Hey, AMD could not make any processor approriately like Intel. Even AMD will not make any processor soon because AMD will bankrupt. AMD is whining too much and must be punished. Intel products are better than any AMD products.RadnorHarkonnen - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Can somebody ban this one, it is getting really disrupting.Beyond just behing plain dumb, somebody tell this tool chipmakers aren't football teams. Not that is very bright to discuss like this about football teams.
Gary Key - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Done...RubberJohnny - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
The next few months will be very interesting for AMD, soon they will have the i3 to compete with in this market so pricing will become very important and Nvidia (possibly) about to put some heat on them in the graphics department...hang in there little fella!rippley007 - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
The huge problem with this is STREET prices of CURRENT Intel cpu's.Less than 7 days ago, in a STORE mind you, i just purchased a q9550 CPU. for $169.. Quad core 2.83 ghz, 12mb cache, looks/acts/IS a much better price /performance, AT $169.. That is hard to beat
maddoctor - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Look, this is the facts that Intel is much better in price/performance ratio.fsdetained - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
It had to be a return, open box, or a going out of business sale because even newegg has it listed for $269 and they pretty much always whoop store's prices. No way he got it by normal means at that price.For $179.99 you can get an AMD Phenom IIx4 955 Black Edition which is about on par performance wise as a q9550. That's $90 you're saving for the same performance.