Cinebench, Valve, and ICE 64
Cinebench R10 64 BitThis is a benchmark where AMD has really shined as of late, even going so far as competing neck and neck with the i7 processors. Cinebench is based on the Cinema 4D application, so it has its roots in an actual product being used to produce professional rendering.
On a per core basis, the Athlon IIs lose out very heavily to the E8500. Once more cores are used then the tables are turned. The 785G also renders the OpenGL part perfectly, while the G41 has rendering errors and incorrect textures and effects in that particular test.
Valve Benchmarks
Two sets of multi-core aware benchmarks were delivered by Valve to get people thinking about the advantages of multi-threading. The first is a particle simulator which can leverage 2 or more cores.
The extra cores the X4s have allow them to take a large lead over the higher clocked E8500.
The second benchmark is a map compilation routine which figures out the lighting for a particular level.
Again we see the extra cores playing a significant part in the performance of these chips.
Microsoft ICE 64
This free image stitching program is also multi-core aware.
The AMD parts do not compete as well as we could have hoped, but that is primarily due to ICE only utilizing 2 cores.
