Picking the processor, or CPU, is one of the most important decisions when building or buying a workstation – but there are dozens of options to pick from at any given point, with varying specifications and price points, so making the right choice isn’t always clear-cut. We’ve tested all of the latest processors from Intel and AMD across three popular photogrammetry applications to help you know what the best choice is for your next system.
Intel and AMD have both launched new lines of high-end desktop processors, with different approaches to increasing value. AMD’s 3rd Gen Threadripper CPUs are based on a newer microarchitecture, bringing better performance for around the same price as previous models. Intel, on the other hand, focused on reducing price while still using the same underlying technology as their last series. We tested both to see which approach gives the best results in Pix4Dmapper.
AMD’s new Ryzen 3rd generation processors feature both an increase in core count and per-core performance, allowing them to rival and sometimes beat Intel’s mainstream Core processors in professional applications. Since AMD has finally released the top model in this series, the Ryzen 9 3950X, we decided to take a look at how it and some other competing CPUs handle Pix4D – which benefits from both core count and clock speed at various points throughout its workflow.
Pix4D is an advanced photogrammetry application, suited to a wide range of uses, with a focus on handling images captured by drone cameras. Processing of those images into point clouds and 3D meshes/textures is time-consuming, heavily using a computer’s CPU and GPU. We have recently updated our benchmark tools for Pix4D, and published articles looking at CPU and GPU performance on version 4.3 – but in the midst of our testing, 4.4 was released. Is it any faster?
Pix4D is an advanced photogrammetry application, suited to a wide range of uses, with a focus on handling images captured by drone cameras. Processing of those images into point clouds and 3D meshes/textures is time-consuming, heavily using a computer’s CPU and GPU. We have recently updated our benchmark tools for Pix4D, so lets take a look at how Intel’s Core i7 and i9 processors stack up against AMD’s Threadripper.
Over the last couple of years, several new vulnerabilities have been found in modern microprocessor architectures. Many of these have been related to speculative execution techniques used across most of Intel’s product line, and a patch was released for Windows 10 last week which was intended to address some of those weaknesses. Unfortunately, it has also reduced performance in some applications – which this article will demonstrate by comparing processing speed in three photogrammetry programs before and after the update.
Pix4D is an advanced photogrammetry application, suited to a wide range of uses, with a focus on handling images captured by drone cameras. Processing of those images into point clouds and 3D meshes/textures is time-consuming, heavily using a computer’s CPU and GPU. Both core count and clock speed play a role in Pix4D performance, so when Intel released their new Core i9 9990XE with very high clock speeds and a respectable number of cores (14, plus Hyperthreading) this seemed like a good application to test on it.
Dynamic Local Mode is a new feature on AMD’s biggest Threadripper processors. These CPUs have cores grouped internally, some with direct access to system memory and some which have to communicate through those other cores to access data in memory. DLM prioritizes running code on the cores which have a direct line to the memory, helping to improve performance in situations where not all of the cores are in use. How does that translate to real-world workloads, though? Let’s take a look at two photogrammetry applications and see how the 24-core 2970WX behaves with this feature on and off.
Pix4D is an advanced photogrammetry application, suited to wide range of uses, with a focus on handling images captured by drone cameras. Processing of those images into point clouds and 3D meshes / textures is time consuming, heavily using a computer’s CPU and GPU. A new version, 4.3, was released recently – so we have tested multiple projects across a wide range of CPUs to see what hardware performs the best.
Pix4D is an advanced photogrammetry application, suited to wide range of uses, with a focus on handling images captured by drone cameras. Processing of those images into point clouds and 3D meshes / textures is time consuming, so we have tested multiple projects across a wide range of CPUs to see what hardware performs the best.
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