Cinebench R10	Source: CINEBENCH

CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores to render a photo-reaslistic image. The scene makes use of various CPU-intensive features such as reflection, ambient occlusion, area lights and procedural shaders. In the first run, the benchmark only uses one CPU (or CPU core), to ascertain a reference value. On computers that have multiple CPUs or CPU cores and on those who simulate multiple CPUs (via HyperThreading or similar technologies), MAXON CINEBENCH will run a second test using all available CPU power. Higher results are best. Cinebench is multi-threaded.

Cinebench R10 1 CPU (split between cores) Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 3066 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3475 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3306 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 2920 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 2565 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 2570 AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition 2843 AMD Athlon II X2 250 2686 x CPU (full load all cores) Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 12640 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 6732 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 6339 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 10455 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 7064 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 7104 AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition 5518 AMD Athlon II X2 250 5205

Cinebench is only a narrow win for the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition, but a win nonetheless. The Core 2 Duo processors enjoy a clock-speed advantage over the triple-core 720BE, which brings their dual-core performance almost in line with the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition.

Bibble 5.0	Source: Bibble Labs

Bibble 5 is a multi-threaded photographic workflow application that can be used to demonstrate the ability to scale work load across 4, 8, 16 or more processor cores. The basic process we will use for benchmarking is to convert a batch of 50 RAW image files from a digital SLR camera from their original RAW format to JPEG's at full resolution, using the applications default image settings.

Lower results are best.

Bibble 5.0 Batch RAW-to-JPEG Conversion: (sec/Image) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 0.261 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 0.585 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 0.61 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 0.377 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 0.623 AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition 0.767 AMD Athlon II X2 250 0.822 Time to Complete 50 Photos: (sec) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 13 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 29.2 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 30.5 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 17.9 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 31.2 AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition 38.3 AMD Athlon II X2 250 41.1

While Bibble is able to scale to multiple cores effectively, it's still a little bit faster on the Core 2 Duo processors thanks to their higher clock speeds. To see the real benefit of parallel processing, a quad-core or octo-thread (as is the case of the Core i7 920 with HT enabled) processor is required.