Revit and the i7 Processor - Rendering Results

All I can say is wow...

I built a new machine about a month ago and have been using it quite a bit.  Until this week I have not really done to many renderings with it.  Well, all I can say is wow....

A prime example are these two draft (test) images:

The image above is before any touching up and photoshopping (straight out of Revit).  It took 1 hour and 12 minutes on Best.  Interior with artificial and sun.  I can't wait to go at this bad boy with Photoshop.

The image above took 12 minutes!  On BEST.  Interior with Sunlight only.

I ran some other test renderings and compared them to my Macbook Pro.  Here is the result.  I did not save the image but it was an exterior rendering of a library I designed last year (lots of furniture inside, curtain wall, water, blah blah) .  The image was renders on medium, exterior with sunlight only (Revit Architecture 2011)

Macbook Pro : 12 minutes and 37 Seconds.

• Intel Dual Core 2.4ghz
• 4 GB ram
• Nvidia 8600m GT
• Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium

Custom Built Machine : 3 Minutes and 16 Seconds

• Intel Core i7 870 - 2.9Ghz (not overclocked for this test)
• 16GB of Ram
• AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series (1GB)
• Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

So the custom built machine (which cost all but 1100 bucks) destroyed the Macbook Pro (which cost about 2100 bucks).  Let that be a lesson to you.  Of course, the Macbook Pro is still very important in my arsenal because of the portability.  

For those of you who would like to build a custom machine let me know in the comments and I will post the specs in a future post.