Cinema 4D CPU Roundup: AMD Ryzen 3, AMD Threadripper 2, Intel 9th Gen, Intel X-series
Written on July 22, 2019 by William GeorgeIntroduction
AMD's new Ryzen 3rd generation processors feature both an increase in core count and per-core performance, both of which directly improve rendering speeds in Cinema 4D. In this article we will take a look at how they stack up to other AMD and Intel processors in this application, focusing exclusively on rendering performance (not modeling, animation, or simulation at this time) in Cinebench R20.
We also took a look at rendering in V-Ray Next in another article, for those who use that engine instead of the native C4D renderer.
Test Hardware
For this roundup we have several models in the new Ryzen 3rd Gen family - along with a couple of older 2nd Gen models, AMD's Threadripper 2nd Gen lineup, and Intel's mainstream 9th Gen Core and high performance Core X processors. The main results are all using the same memory: 16GB DDR4 modules running at 2666MHz (4 of them on the Ryzen and Core, 8 on Threadripper and Core X). This was selected to ensure a fair comparison, but because Ryzen also officially supports higher speed memory in certain configurations we tested the new 3rd Gen chips at 3200MHz as well. Those results are included here too, but in a separate set of charts near the end.
AMD Ryzen Test Platform | |
CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 3900X AMD Ryzen 7 3800X AMD Ryzen 7 3700X AMD Ryzen 5 3600 AMD Ryzen 7 2700X AMD Ryzen 5 2600X |
CPU Cooler | AMD Wraith PRISM |
Motherboard | Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra |
RAM | 4x DDR4-2666 16GB (64GB total) 4x DDR4-3200 16GB (64GB total) |
Video Card | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB |
Hard Drive | Samsung 960 Pro 1TB |
Software | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1903) Cinebench R20 |
Intel Core Test Platform | |
CPU | Intel Core i9 9900K Intel Core i7 9700K Intel Core i5 9600K |
CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-U12S |
Motherboard | Gigabyte Z390 Designare |
RAM | 4x DDR4-2666 16GB (64GB total) |
Video Card | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB |
Hard Drive | Samsung 960 Pro 1TB |
Software | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1903) Cinebench R20 |
AMD Threadripper Test Platform | |
CPU | AMD TR 2990WX AMD TR 2970WX AMD TR 2950X AMD TR 2920X |
CPU Cooler | Corsair Hydro Series H80i v2 |
Motherboard | Gigabyte X399 AORUS Xtreme |
RAM | 8x DDR4-2666 16GB (128GB total) |
Video Card | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB |
Hard Drive | Samsung 960 Pro 1TB |
Software | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1903) Cinebench R20 |
Intel Core X Test Platform | |
CPU | Intel Core i9 9980XE Intel Core i9 9960X Intel Core i9 9940X Intel Core i9 9920X Intel Core i9 9900X Intel Core i9 9820X Intel Core i7 9800X |
CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-U12DX i4 |
Motherboard | Gigabyte X299 Designare EX |
RAM | 8x DDR4-2666 16GB (128GB total) |
Video Card | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB |
Hard Drive | Samsung 960 Pro 1TB |
Software | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (version 1903) Cinebench R20 |
Benchmark Details
We used the latest version of Cinebench, from Maxon, for this comparison. The primary test it conducts looks at how quickly the CPU is able to render one full frame, and it benefits greatly from both core count and clock speed / per-core performance. Other operations in Cinema 4D are not nearly as well threaded, so do not look at the data here as a guide for the best 3D modeling or animation system.
Results
A note about the color coding used here: AMD Threadripper chips are shown in orange, Ryzen is red, and all Intel processors are blue.
Analysis
AMD processors excel at rendering, with Threadripper chips taking the top two spots on our chart and the new Ryzen 9 3900X effectively matching the performance of the TR 2950X despite having fewer cores. It also beat out Intel's 12-core i9 9920X, a great testament to how much of a per-core speed boost these new Ryzen 3rd Gen chips have received. Although it wasn't something we tested in this roundup, that per-core performance should mean that the 3900X will do well in less-threaded parts of the Cinema 4D workflow too.
Ryzen 3rd Gen Memory Comparison
Most CPUs are rated by manufacturers to support specific speeds of memory, and AMD's new Ryzen 3rd Gen chips are no exception. In this case, the official memory support varies depending on how many modules you have installed and whether they are single- or dual-rank. Tom's Hardware conveniently published these details, which likely came from AMD's reviewer guide (which we do not have):
AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen Processor Memory Support Chart (courtesy of Tom's Hardware)
The normal memory we used in this test fits the bottom category on that chart: four sticks of dual-rank memory. As such, testing at 2666MHz was the correct speed according to AMD's official support documents. To get the other end of the spectrum, we tested with 3200MHz memory modules as well - which is at the top of the chart, though we still used four 16GB modules in order to keep the total amount of RAM the same. That means this configuration is actually outside of their official support specs, but should still show whether there is anything to gain by going with faster memory on this platform (and in this specific application). Red is 3200MHz, orange is 2666.
In Cinebench, there is effectively no difference in performance between the two memory speeds we tested at. For each CPU there was less than 1% variance, which is well within the margin of error - so it is probably best to stick with the official AMD supported RAM speed.
Conclusion
It is no surprise that rendering benefits from high core count - as well as clock speed / per-core performance - and AMD has excelled here. The Ryzen 9 3900X is clearly the fastest CPU for rendering in its price range, and with such a small difference between it and the lower core count 3800X and 3700X I don't see any reason to consider those. A $100-200 difference, in the context of a full system build that is probably $2000-5000, is nothing compared to the 40-50% increase in performance gain compared to those models.
With that said, though, there are even faster CPUs available for pure rendering workloads... so if you have the money to spend, a top-end AMD Threadripper will render frames more quickly. Those CPUs also support more PCI-Express lanes and additional slots for memory, allowing for a more robust build all around. However, if modeling and animation are also important to you, the Ryzen 9 3900X and Core i9 9900K provide the best lightly-threaded performance... and the 3900X has the best combination of both.
Are cinebench single thread/core scores good indicators of view-port performance?
That has been my opinion for a long time, based on looking at how Cinema 4D uses the CPU during most operations. Even with pretty heavy physics simulations, it seems mostly to load up one core. However, the exact way that Cinebench tests single threaded performance is to do the same render it does normally but limit it to one thread (and thus one core of the processor). That means the sort of calculations it is doing are not the same as those involved in normal viewport performance... so it isn't a perfect comparison. That is why I left it out this time around: I want, instead, to try and find a better way to actually test viewport performance at some point. I'm not sure when - or even if - that will actually happen, though :/
You can test viewport performance in blender. Should be helpful for people like me who can't decide which CPU buy. He has a really good pack to download for benchmarking.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
I saw that you posted this in another thread as well, and I am very intrigued! I'm downloading the benchmark files linked to in that video right now!
Blender has an official benchmark too, but unfortunately it only tests rendering performance :(
Hey, sorry to spam it haha. I am just super curious why nobody wants to test viewport in any 3d app. This is one of the most important things IMO. Who cares really about rendering time, it is pretty easy to find on any benchmark site. Zbrush is also another app nobody wants to benchmark when new CPUs are released...Super sad. I tested Zbrush last night by switching off threads ( from 16 to 8) and haven't noticed a lot of downgrade.This is confusing because I thought zbrush would work a lot better with more cores/threads. I also OCed my ryzen 1700 to 3.8 Ghz and noticed a nice upgrade to my brushes (they work more smooth etc.) Why nobody benchmarks it. I am also confused with single core performance of new +15% IPC on new ryzen 3000 CPUs, are these processors really that better in 3d modeling app viewports or are they still worse than i 9900k because of 5ghz single core speed?
Its not that no one wants to - or, at least, not that I don't want to (I can't speak for everyone else). The difficulty is that it is hard to benchmark stuff that is "live" *and* it can be hard to come by models, animations, etc that are actually complex enough to fully stress every system. I'm actively interested in solving this, though, and I already reached out to the fellow who made this video about using his files for our testing. It will be a few weeks before I can get to that, and I would need to build some scripts for automation and result tracking, but I am hopeful that it turns out to be a viable method to benchmark Blender :)
You would be probably the only one benchmarking it. Thank you, appreciate it. :)
Thanks for your reply William. Alex over at CGDirector has this page on his website. This might be worth checking out for you https://www.cgdirector.com/...
Nice find! I am going to try that out today :)
Awesome article. I do have to ask, when will your site start showing more AMD systems options, instead of still forcing customers to buy Intel, since the AMD option is never there?
We have had a few AMD Threadripper based systems for the last year or two - in places where they performed better than Intel, like V-Ray rendering and Pix4D for large model projects. Given how Ryzen's 3rd gen processors have done in our testing, or our product team started qualification on that ecosystem (testing CPUs, motherboards, etc) a couple of weeks ago. Once that wraps up, if all went well, you should see a few more AMD systems added to our Recommended Systems program - in places where their performance makes sense :)