Skip to content
Main Navigation Puget Systems Logo
  • Solutions
    • Content Creation
      • Photo Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe Lightroom Classic
        • Adobe Photoshop
        • Stable Diffusion
      • Video Editing & Motion Graphics
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe After Effects
        • Adobe Premiere Pro
        • DaVinci Resolve
        • Foundry Nuke
      • 3D Design & Animation
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk 3ds Max
        • Autodesk Maya
        • Blender
        • Cinema 4D
        • Houdini
        • ZBrush
      • Real-Time Engines
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Game Development
        • Unity
        • Unreal Engine
        • Virtual Production
      • Rendering
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Keyshot
        • OctaneRender
        • Redshift
        • V-Ray
      • Digital Audio
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Ableton Live
        • FL Studio
        • Pro Tools
    • Engineering
      • Architecture & CAD
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk AutoCAD
        • Autodesk Inventor
        • Autodesk Revit
        • SOLIDWORKS
      • Visualization
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Enscape
        • Lumion
        • Twinmotion
      • Photogrammetry & GIS
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • ArcGIS Pro
        • Agisoft Metashape
        • Pix4D
        • RealityScan
    • AI & HPC
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Data Science
      • Generative AI
      • Large Language Models
      • Machine Learning / AI Dev
      • Scientific Computing
    • More
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Compact Size
      • Live Streaming
      • NVIDIA RTX Studio
      • Quiet Operation
      • Virtual Reality
    • Business & Enterprise
      We can empower your company
    • Government & Education
      Services tailored for your organization
  • Products
    • Puget Mobile
      Powerful laptop workstations
      • Puget Mobile 16″
    • Puget Workstations
      High-performance desktop PCs
      • AMD Ryzen
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • AMD Threadripper
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • Full Tower
      • AMD EPYC
        • EPYC 9004/9005:
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Core Ultra
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Xeon
        • Xeon W-2500:
        • Mid Tower
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • Full Tower
    • Custom Computers
    • Puget Rackstations
      Workstations in rackmount chassis
      • AMD Rackstations
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • R132-4U
        • R550-6U 5-Node
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • T121-4U
        • T120-5U
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • T141-4U
        • T140-5U (Dual 5090s)
      • Intel Rackstations
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • C132-4U
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • X131-4U
        • X141-5U
    • Custom Rackmount Workstations
    • Puget Servers
      Enterprise-class rackmount servers
      • 1U Rackmount Servers
        • AMD EPYC:
        • E200-1U
        • Intel Xeon:
        • X200-1U
      • 2U Rackmount Servers
        • AMD EPYC:
        • E120-2U
        • E140-2U
        • Intel Xeon:
        • X240-2U
      • 4U Rackmount Servers
        • AMD EPYC:
        • E280-4U
        • E281-4U
    • Comino Grando GPU Servers
    • Custom Servers
    • Puget Storage
      Solutions from desktop to datacenter
      • Network-Attached Storage
        • Synology NAS Units:
        • 4-bay DiskStation
        • 8-bay DiskStation
        • 12-bay DiskStation
        • 4-bay RackStation
        • 12-bay FlashStation
      • Software-Defined Storage
        • Datacenter Storage:
        • 12-Bay 2U
        • 24-Bay 2U
        • 36-Bay 4U
    • Recommended Third Party Peripherals
      Curated list of accessories for your workstation
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • Blog Posts
    • Case Studies
    • HPC Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Press
    • PugetBench
  • Support
    • Contact Support
    • Onsite Services
    • Support Articles
    • Unboxing
    • Warranty Details
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
    • Enterprise
    • Gov & Edu
    • Our Customers
    • Press Kit
    • Puget Gear
    • Testimonials
  • Talk to an Expert
  • My Account
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Hardware Articles
  4. /
  5. Metashape 1.5.1: Intel Core i7 & Core i9 vs AMD Threadripper Performance

Metashape 1.5.1: Intel Core i7 & Core i9 vs AMD Threadripper Performance

Posted on May 28, 2019 by William George
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on May 28, 2019. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Test Hardware
  • Benchmark Details
  • Results Overview
  • Detailed Results
  • Analysis
  • Conclusion

Introduction

Metashape, formerly known as PhotoScan, is a photogrammetry program that takes a set of images and combines them to create a 3D model or map. Processing of those images into point clouds and 3D meshes/textures is time-consuming, heavily using a computer's CPU and GPU. We have updated our benchmark tools, following the recent rebranding of this software, so in our first article focusing on the new Metashape we will take a look at how Intel's Core i7 and i9 processors stack up against AMD's Threadripper chips.

Test Hardware

Here is a list of the hardware we tested Metashape on. The video card and RAM capacity were kept the same across all platforms, to avoid either of those throwing off the comparison. All results included here are from after the recent Windows 10 security patch addressing MDS vulnerabilities in some Intel processors, but we did see a small increase in Core i7 9700K and i9 9900K performance when we moved to the newer Z390 motherboard – which helped offset some of the performance those chips lost because of the update.

Test Platforms
CPU Intel Core i7 9700K
Intel Core i9 9900K
Intel Core i9 9900X
Intel Core i9 9940X
Intel Core i9 9980XE
AMD Threadripper 2920X
AMD Threadripper 2950X
AMD Threadripper 2970WX
AMD Threadripper 2990WX
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-U12S
Noctua NH-U12DX i4
Corsair Hydro Series H80i v2
Motherboard Gigabyte Z390 Designare
Gigabyte X299 Designare EX
Gigabyte X399 AORUS Xtreme
RAM 4x DDR4-2666 32GB (128GB total)
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 1809)
Metashape Professional 1.5.1

Benchmark Details

We have improved our benchmarking for Metashape compared to previous articles. Now we have four image sets that we own the rights to, covering both smaller and larger size Model and Map projects. The smaller image sets are included in our public Metashape benchmark, which you can download and run if you want to compare your system's performance to what we measured in our testing.

  • Rock Model – 36 photos at 20 megapixels each
  • School Map – 51 photos at 18 megapixels each
  • School Model – 439 photos at 18 megapixels each
  • Park Map – 792 photos at 18 megapixels each

We also split our "model" testing into two branches: one using the creation of a dense point cloud to create the model / mesh, and the other skipping that step and using just the depth maps for mesh creation. These methods utilize the hardware in a computer differently, and we wanted to reflect both approaches in our benchmark. This is also why we ran Metashape 1.5.1 instead of the newer 1.5.2: it was reported to us by a reader than 1.5.2 has some odd behavior with depth maps, and we didn't want that to affect these results.

Each image set was processed 2-3 times on each CPU, and the fastest overall result was used for the comparisons below.

Results Overview

Here are charts for each of the four image sets, showing the total time (in seconds) they took to process on each CPU. The processors are listed in the same order on all charts, regardless of performance, to make it easy to see how they stack up. Intel's chips are shown in blue, with AMD's in red, and the fastest result on each project is highlighted (bold) to ensure it stands out from the crowd.

Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Previous Next
System Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Gallery Image
Previous Next

Detailed Results

For those who want to dig further into the differences in how each CPU performs, here is a table showing the times for each step within Metashape on each of the image sets:

Metashape 1.5.1 Intel Core i7 & i9 versus AMD Threadripper Performance Table
Image
Metashape 1.5.1 Intel Core i7 & i9 versus AMD Threadripper Performance Table
Open Full Resolution

Analysis

Across most of our testing, Intel's Core i7 9700K and i9 9900K traded off coming in first and second in performance. This seems to indicate that, in general, clock speed matters more for Metashape than core count – and that Hyperthreading, the biggest feature difference between these two processors, doesn't play much of a role either.

However, there is one odd outlier – the larger of the two models (not maps) when using the Dense Cloud method of mesh creation. There was some very strange behavior in that part of the benchmark:

  • It is the only test where building the dense cloud was faster with more cores
  • The Core i9 9980XE took oddly long to build the mesh (this happened in multiple runs)

I can't explain the 9980XE's slowness at building the mesh, but even if that hadn't happened I think the 9940X would still have been the fastest in this situation. It has a good combination of clock speed and core count, so with the core count suddenly benefiting performance in the most time-consuming step it came out on top by a wide margin. Remember, though, that this was a lone outlier among our results.

Conclusion

For most projects in Metashape 1.5.1, either Intel's Core i7 9700K or i9 9900K will give you the best performance – at least when using a single video card (we'll be testing multiple GPU configurations in the near future to see if that changes anything). The one possible exception is processing larger models using a dense point cloud, rather than just depth maps, where a processor with more cores while still maintaining very high clock speeds can take the lead. Such processor can often support higher amounts of memory as well, which may be a factor if you work with particularly large projects or use very high quality settings.

Stay tuned for more coverage of Metashape, including video card performance comparisons and a look at multi-GPU scaling.

Looking for a
Photogrammetry Workstation?

Puget Systems offers a range workstations tailored for Pix4D, Metashape, and RealityCapture. Even in the most demanding situations, our workstations and designed to minimize downtime and allow you to work as efficiently as possible.

Configure a Photogrammetry Workstation

Tags: AMD, AMD Threadripper 2nd Gen, CPU, Intel, Intel 9th Gen, Intel X-series, Metashape, Performance, photogrammetry

Who is Puget Systems?

Puget Systems builds custom workstations, servers and storage solutions tailored for your work.

We provide:

Extensive performance testing
making you more productive and giving better value for your money

Reliable computers
with fewer crashes means more time working & less time waiting

Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up & running ASAP

A proven track record
as shown by our case studies and customer testimonials

Get Started

Browse Systems

Puget Systems Mobile Laptop Workstation Icon

Mobile

Puget Systems Tower Workstation Icon

Workstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Workstation Icon

Rackstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Server Icon

Servers

Puget Systems Rackmount Storage Icon

Storage

Latest Articles

  • Impact of PCIe 5.0 Bandwidth on GPU Content Creation Performance
  • Network-Attached Storage Guide
  • NVIDIA 5060 Ti vs. AMD 9060 XT for Content Creation
  • Unreal Engine 5.6: Faster Open Worlds, Smoother Animation, Better ICVFX
  • Unreal Fest 2025: Highlights from Orlando
View All

Post navigation

 Pix4D 4.3: Intel Core i7 & Core i9 vs AMD Threadripper PerformanceRealityCapture 1.0.3: Intel Core i7 & Core i9 vs AMD Threadripper Performance 
Puget Systems Logo
Build Your Own PC Site Map FAQ
facebook instagram linkedin rss twitter youtube

Optimized Solutions

  • Adobe Premiere
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Solidworks
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Machine Learning

Workstations

  • Content Creation
  • Engineering
  • Scientific PCs
  • More

Support

  • Online Guides
  • Request Support
  • Remote Help

Publications

  • All News
  • Puget Blog
  • HPC Blog
  • Hardware Articles
  • Case Studies

Policies

  • Warranty & Return
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Delivery Times
  • Accessibility

About Us

  • Testimonials
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter

© Copyright 2025 - Puget Systems, All Rights Reserved.