Please help me understand how to interpret the cpu benchmark tests charts!

[Fun2Learn]

Hi everyone. Please help me understand how to interpret the results on cpu benchmark charts like this:http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
and then this chart: http://www.behardware.com/medias/photos_news/00/39/IMG0039483.png

I am shopping around for a new home computer that can also handle 3-D CAD (Revit andChief Architect especially). I was originally thinking of a desktop, but then started exploring laptops (esecially since the desktops I would need were getting so expensive anyway!) I thought I had found a good deal on a Toshiba laptop wth a good graphics card and with an i73820QM cpu, but read a few negative comments in other posts (on the "hardware" section of the REVIT forum) where others were asking about the same type of cpu and the replies seemed to indicate that, although it was adequate for small jobs with REVIT, it was a relatively slow processor. I looked at the cpu benchmark chart that someone here had posted a link to, and and it seemed like the i73820Q was still pretty high up there in ratings (esp. if you take away all the workstation type cpus), given the price, etc. I really don't understand how to interpret those charts, however. Maybe they don't have any relevance to CAD? That is probably the most expensive laptop cpu I can afford, so if it isn't really
going to do cad fast enough, I guess I will have to go back to looking at desktops.

Maybe I should also ask, while I am "here": would a laptop "burn out" and need to be replaced a lot quicker than a desktop, given similar in-home CAD use, and similar cpu, hardrive, graphics card, memory, price, etc? I can't afford to replace my computer every few years.

I am "newbie" to all this technical info about the workings of computers, but have learned so much in the last few days from reading and posting questions here (and on the Revit forum). I learned answers to questions I didnt even know I should ask before! Thanks so much in advance for any help you can give.

 

[8350rocks]

A laptop for a heavy duty rendering machine will be a little underpowered, you'll want better hardware than they can cram into a tiny laptop case. The portability is nice, but for heavy lifting, you need a desktop.

If I was building a heavy duty rendering machine, it would look something like this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/MChZ

That's a $1300 build without windows or peripherals (monitor/keyboard/mouse)...the graphics card onboard in that build will do all your heavy rendering, and play games well. You can run multiple monitors with it as well. Additionally the chip in that build is as good a chip as you'll find for rendering, especially at that price point.

If your budget has different constraints, let me know and I can pare that build back some to fit it into a certain requirement.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/MDmp

That's a $1000 build, I could go a little cheaper, but you would start to lose performance considerably.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as reading benchmarks, it's a bit different, some charts are based on % of performance versus a baseline CPU they determine.

Some are done by framerate, that's denoted as FPS (frames per second) and in those tests higher is better.

Some are done by a given score from a program, for example cinebench...a cinebench score around 7.0-8.0 is pretty good, while a Passmark score will be a completely different number usually running into the thousands...

Essentially it's all comparatively showing results from various CPUs to show how they perform relatively. Though, various factors can effect the results, such as RAM used, motherboard/chipset, GPU used, HDD or SSD impacts the speed of things pretty heavily too.