Developing new benchmark - need Core i7 940 or 965 test subject!

Oshyan · February 15, 2009, 07:13:39 PM

Hello all. I'm in the process of developing a new TG2 benchmark to be featured on a benchmarking site I am helping to develop. In order to make the benchmark relevant and accurate for the largest number of machines possible, I'd like to test the absolute fastest machines available today to make sure they don't render the scene too fast. Thus I need someone with TG2 running on a Core i7 940, or better yet Extreme 965, overclocked better still. PM or email me "tgbench AT oshyan.com" if you want to volunteer. The tests shouldn't take long.

Thanks!

- Oshyan

Seth · February 15, 2009, 07:15:19 PM

Quote from: Oshyan on February 15, 2009, 07:13:39 PM
I'd like to test the absolute fastest machines available today to make sure they don't render the scene too fast.

schmeerlap · February 16, 2009, 08:26:43 AM

Quote from: Oshyan on February 15, 2009, 07:13:39 PM
to make sure they don't render the scene too fast.

Perish the thought.

John

PorcupineFloyd · February 16, 2009, 09:11:37 AM

I can help with Q6600 @ 3.2 GHz.

It ain't speed daemon right now but if you would like to build a database of some kind or compare Kentsfield with Nehalem - I'm good to go.

cyphyr · February 16, 2009, 12:28:03 PM

Q9450 @ 2.67 Ghz here, wont be getting an i7 till July (which will be OC'd and water cooled Mmmm) but if I can help let me know...

ruichard

Kranky · February 16, 2009, 05:19:01 PM

I'm only using the i7 920, but if you don't find users with overclocked 940 / 965EE, I can test it with ~3GHz.

Oshyan · February 16, 2009, 11:33:41 PM

Thanks for the replies guys. I've got several quad Core 2's of my own here to test on. What I really need is a top of the line Core i7. But, failing that, a 920 (overclocked even better) would be good, at least. So if you're ready to try, go ahead and contact me privately via email Kranky. I'll arrange to get you the benchmark files and away we go.

- Oshyan

neon22 · February 17, 2009, 12:29:32 AM

I think I'm gonna cry :-(

echrei · March 05, 2009, 05:40:29 AM

I have access to a Core i7 @ 3.6GHz if you still need someone. It's only on Windows XP32 right now though. I'm trying to install Mac OS 10.6 on it though.

Oshyan · March 06, 2009, 01:02:03 AM

The benchmark is published now so go check it out! I'd love to have your result. http://www.3dspeedmachine.com/

- Oshyan

echrei · March 07, 2009, 05:43:30 AM

Quote from: Oshyan on March 06, 2009, 01:02:03 AM
The benchmark is published now so go check it out! I'd love to have your result. http://www.3dspeedmachine.com/

- Oshyan

Done. I put the results of a few machines on there. I got the highest score at 3.6GHz but I think I could do better with a CPU cooler and more RAM.

Oshyan · March 09, 2009, 03:27:30 AM

Awesome, thanks! Pretty impressive, although surprising it's not a whole lot faster than Frank's result. Here's something to try. Run the benchmark again, except this time before you do the actual render, change the Minimum Threads setting to 8 and see what happens. Apparently Core i7's "hyperthreading" implementation is actually quite good and gives a notable speed increase, whereas with older hyperthreading (Netburst, P4 architecture) the "virtual cores" were comparatively slow and so by default TG2 doesn't recognize and try to take advantage of them. We may have to change that strategy for Core i7's.

Also if you can properly indicate the speeds of the systems you entered, instead of using the default clock speed for your CPU, that would be great. You should have a *separate* system entry for each clock speed for overclocking results.

By the way, we now have more Terragen 2 benchmarks than any other application on the site. Go Terragen community!

- Oshyan

echrei · March 10, 2009, 03:35:18 AM

I changed the number of cores override in the preferences to 8 to get that render time. I tried putting the actual clock speed, but the benchmark site reset it back down to 2.66GHz. I had it running at 3.6GHz. I'm sure I could get it higher with a better CPU cooler. People have gotten them up to 4.5GHz on air. I just have a stock cooler right now. I also need to get more RAM, but I'm saving for a Mac Pro and she doesn't really want to spend more money on computer stuff right now.

Check out the speed of the new Mac Pros @ 2.93GHz compared to the Core i7 I was using a@ 3.6GHz.

The Core i7: http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/114772

Mac Pro: http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/115605

Oshyan · March 10, 2009, 03:52:30 AM

Strange. What was your result with the default minimum of 1 thread? I'm just surprised your system is so much slower than Frank's. It's possible that Vista or x64 provides some benefit I suppose, but that seems pretty significant. In your posted results, are both at 3.6Ghz overclocked, or is your XP SP3 result at default 2.6Ghz?

I'll look into the issue with entering the clock speed correctly.

- Oshyan

echrei · March 10, 2009, 07:14:07 PM

The one with XP I think was at the default clock and the default 4 cores detected. I suspect Frank had his set to render on all 8 core and/or was overclocked too in order to get that time. The XP I used was 32-bit and the Windows 7 was 64-bit. The machine however only has 3GB of RAM, so I don't know if the 64-bitness helped any. It installed Terragen into the 32-bit Programs folder.

Ironically, I also got the two lowest scores on the benchmark list too. Go 500MHz G3 iMac!

Any chance you could compile the Mac OS X version of Terragen with the architecture set to x86_64? Right now it's only running in 32-bit mode according to activity monitor. It's sad having one of the most powerful applications on my computer still being 32-bit in relation to almost all the processes in Mac OS 10.6 being 64-bit. I'd personally love to compile Terragen myself so I could set the cflags to something like this for my laptop: -arch x86_64 -march=core2 -mtune =core2 -msse4.1.