Benchmark Results: Content Creation
Our threaded filter test favors the Core i7-990X over Intel’s Core i7-2600K. But when you fold in Sandy Bridge’s IPC advantages to a six-core architecture, the result is even better (if only by three seconds, in this case).
Normally this benchmark would be a drawn-out workstation-class test capable of making clear the benefits of one processor over another. However, Adobe is slowly extending hardware support for its Mercury Playback Engine to more Nvidia graphics cards.
As a result, our GeForce GTX 580 kicks in, cutting what used to be a 15-minute benchmark on Intel’s Core i7-990X down to 38 seconds. CPUs still influence the overall result, though, and the field finishes just as we’d expect.
The only real loser in After Effects is AMD’s Phenom II X6, which lags behind the rest of the closely-grouped field.
Architectural improvements help Sandy Bridge keep up with Gulftown in our Blender test. Sandy Bridge-E combines the best aspects of both to deliver a new top score.
Core i7-3960X walks away with the highest Cinebench CPU score. That much was expected.
It’s interesting, though, that Sandy Bridge and Sandy Bridge-E both facilitate better OpenGL-based rendering than Core i7-990X, particularly because Maxon specifically aims to isolate graphics card performance in this part of the metric:
“The graphics benchmark in Cinebench is designed to minimize the influence of other system components. All geometry, shaders, and textures are stored on the graphics card prior to measurement, and no code is loaded during the measurement process. This minimizes the system influence, but unfortunately cannot eliminate it entirely.”
