Best CPU for UF: i7 or Ryzen?

You can add this to the results:

Ryzen 9 3900X 2x12 @ ~4.05 GHz: 2m51s

It doesn't quite beat a 2950X, but it's extremely close.

22.09.2019 16:14:15: Starting job Benchmark.
22.09.2019 16:14:15: Anti-aliasing off.
22.09.2019 16:14:15: Motion blur off.
22.09.2019 16:14:15: Rendering in PNG format.
22.09.2019 16:14:15: Calculating Benchmark in C:\Users\Phillip\Documents\Ultra Fractal 6\Fractals\bench.upr.
22.09.2019 16:17:06: Finished calculation. Time: 0:02:51.79.
22.09.2019 16:17:06: Saving to I:\jpgs\Benchmark.png.
22.09.2019 16:17:11: Job finished.

My results:
9/24/2019 8:25:58 AM: Starting job Benchmark.
9/24/2019 8:25:58 AM: Anti-aliasing off.
9/24/2019 8:25:58 AM: Motion blur off.
9/24/2019 8:25:58 AM: Rendering in PNG format.
9/24/2019 8:25:58 AM: Calculating Benchmark.
9/24/2019 8:32:42 AM: Finished calculation. Time: 0:06:43.69.
9/24/2019 8:32:42 AM: Saving to C:\Users\jamad\Documents\Ultra Fractal 6\Fractals\Benchmark.png.
9/24/2019 8:32:46 AM: Job finished.

MSI GS75 Stealth, Windows 10 Home, Intel Core i7-9750H @ 2.6 GHz, 16 Gb DDR4 RAM.

Added these – thanks!

But, @Phillip: Did you overclock your (enviable) Ryzen 9? AMD gives 3.8 GHz as its base clock, and hence should only go beyond this when fewer cores are used...

No, thats just the stock boost behavior. 3.8 GHz is the base clock but given enough power and cooling the CPU boosts higher than that. 4.05 isn't even that impressive, I've heard of others whose CPU boosts to over 4.1 on all cores.

It should boost higher for fewer cores used, up to 4.6 at one core only but i have never seen more than 4.5.

Ah, okay. Thanks for the clarification!

Speaking of overclocking... I clocked the CPU to 4.3 GHz on all cores and this is the result:

03.11.2019 12:48:47: Starting job Benchmark4300.
03.11.2019 12:48:47: Anti-aliasing off.
03.11.2019 12:48:47: Motion blur off.
03.11.2019 12:48:47: Rendering in PNG format.
03.11.2019 12:48:47: Calculating Benchmark in C:\Users\Phillip\Documents\Ultra Fractal 6\Fractals\bench.upr.
03.11.2019 12:51:27: Finished calculation. Time: 0:02:39.51.
03.11.2019 12:51:27: Saving to I:\pngs\Benchmark4300.png.
03.11.2019 12:51:31: Job finished.

The gains are obviously minimal, but it's enough to pull ahead of the TR 2950X by about half a second.

//edit:
Just for completeness' sake, here's a run from my Laptop, an Intel Core i7-4710HQ @ 2.5 GHz:

03.11.2019 20:11:09: Starting job Benchmark.
03.11.2019 20:11:09: Anti-aliasing off.
03.11.2019 20:11:09: Motion blur off.
03.11.2019 20:11:09: Rendering in PNG format.
03.11.2019 20:11:09: Calculating Benchmark in C:\Users\Phillip\Documents\Bench.upr.
03.11.2019 20:25:54: Finished calculation. Time: 0:14:45.68.
03.11.2019 20:25:54: Saving to C:\Users\Phillip\Desktop\Benchmark.png.
03.11.2019 20:26:00: Job finished.

Thanks! You've really passed the Threadripper, though rather by 0.13s – in the table I rounded all the figures.

11/25/2018 1:44:41 AM: Finished calculation. Time: 0:02:39.64.

vs.

03.11.2019 12:51:27: Finished calculation. Time: 0:02:39.51.

Apple M2 3.3ghz 8x8 cores:

11-11-22 16:47:49: Starting job Benchmark.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Anti-aliasing off.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Motion blur off.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Rendering in PNG format.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Calculating Benchmark.
11-11-22 19:11:37: Finished calculation. Time: 2:23:47.83.

Slowest result ever for the UF benchmark?

Meanwhile, when I run Cinebench 23 this Mac scores 7955 multicore/1557 single core, which seems to be typical for M2. My Mac is faster at rendering than the Intel i7 9750h which did the UF benchmark in only 6m44s.

Threadripper Pro 5975WX (32/64C), 4.2-4.3GHz when running all cores. 512GB of PC3200 ECC RDIMMs / 8 channel, Windows 10 Pro Workstation.

I'm still messing with the machine and I've had it run up to 10s faster than this on NPS1 but I may have also had some other setting changed related to power management at the time so take that with a grain of salt.

12/15/2022 8:47:25PM: Starting job Benchmark.
12/15/2022 8:47:25PM: Anti-aliasing off.
12/15/2022 8:47:25PM: Motion blur off.
12/15/2022 8:47:25PM: Rendering in PNG format.
12/15/2022 8:47:25PM: Calculating Benchmark.
12/15/2022 8:48:39PM: Finished calculation. Time: 0:01:14.08.

I'm on Windows 10 so I needed a workaround using SysInternals "psexec -a 0" (I don't know exactly why it works since it's forcing cpu affinity and the 0 can be any number but I gave it a shot) to run on all cores in L3 as SRAT & NPS4 (4 numa nodes on this processor) mode, or it just works in NPS1 / no L3 as SRAT mode which is less optimal on higher core count AMD. I don't know how many cores per node this will make things work right on.

@Eric B : I'm working on a native M1/2 version of Ultra Fractal... would be interesting to see where you end up then. Although I wouldn't really expect too much: in my testing so far the M1 is never better than a comparable Intel processor.

Thanks Frederik. Looking forward to it.

Hi all,
My results are :

25/09/2023 19:14:56: Starting job Benchmark.
25/09/2023 19:14:56: Anti-aliasing off.
25/09/2023 19:14:56: Motion blur off.
25/09/2023 19:14:56: Rendering in JPEG format. Quality: 100%.
25/09/2023 19:14:56: Calculating Benchmark.
25/09/2023 19:23:15: Finished calculation. Time: 0:08:18.67.
25/09/2023 19:23:15: Saving to C:\Users\admin\Documents\Ultra Fractal 6\immagini2023\Benchmark.jpg.
25/09/2023 19:23:16: Job finished.

i7 7700K 4.2 GHZ 4 core with 32 GB of ram. Rendering 4000X4000 no anti aliasing

Well, i'm thinking to try the Ryzen CPU because seems much faster to calculate, i was thinking to the Ryzen 7 7700X 8 core, but i notified also the Amd Ryzen 9 5900X 4.80 GHz with 12 core and maybe is better.
Can someone suggests some Ryzen 7 or 9 in the price of 300 / 350 Euro? Better 12 core ? or also an 8 core Ryzen 7? For sure the memory will be 32 GB.
Andrea

Hadn't tried this with my new (April 2023) computer, so here goes.

9/26/2023 3:30:37 PM: Starting job Benchmark2.
9/26/2023 3:30:37 PM: Anti-aliasing off.
9/26/2023 3:30:37 PM: Motion blur off.
9/26/2023 3:30:37 PM: Rendering in JPEG format. Quality: 90%.
9/26/2023 3:30:37 PM: Calculating Benchmark in D:\jimbl\Documents\Ultra Fractal 6\Parameters\benchmark.upr.
9/26/2023 3:33:07 PM: Finished calculation. Time: 0:02:30.06.
9/26/2023 3:33:07 PM: Saving to D:\jimbl\Documents\Ultra Fractal 6\Working\2023 Fractals\2309\Benchmark2.jpg.
9/26/2023 3:33:08 PM: Job finished.

Intel Core i7-12700KF 3.61 GHz
12 cores, 20 threads
Windows 11 Pro 22H2 64-bit 32 GB ram

At Microcenter.com, this CPU lists for $450, sells for $274.

Hi physicist,
So the strong point is to increase the cores, my i7-7700K with 4 cores takes about 8.18 minutes while Jam's i7-9750H with 6 cores takes 6.40 minutes while your i7-12700KF with 12 cores takes 2.30 minutes at 4000X4000 pixels.
You need a processor with at least 12 cores, Intel is fine too. I could also upgrade my computer without buying a new one, but I still have to change the CPU and motherboard.
Thanks for the info.
Ciao

It's five years since I posted my last benchmark results and I have changed my PC since then. That was 3 years ago so CPUs are probably a little more advanced these days but this is from a 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X CPU:

[Antialiasing off - 4000x4000]
28/09/2023 11:26:33: Starting job Benchmark.
28/09/2023 11:26:33: Anti-aliasing off.
28/09/2023 11:26:33: Motion blur off.
28/09/2023 11:26:33: Rendering in JPEG format. Quality: 85%.
28/09/2023 11:26:33: Calculating Benchmark.
28/09/2023 11:28:35: Finished calculation. Time: 0:02:01.93.
28/09/2023 11:28:35: Saving to D:\WIPs\Benchmark.jpg.
28/09/2023 11:28:36: Job finished.

PC Specs:
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 3.5GHz
16 cores, 32 threads
Windows 11 Pro 64-bit 32 GB RAM

Apple M2 3.3ghz 8x8 cores:

11-11-22 16:47:49: Starting job Benchmark.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Anti-aliasing off.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Motion blur off.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Rendering in PNG format.
11-11-22 16:47:49: Calculating Benchmark.
11-11-22 19:11:37: Finished calculation. Time: 2:23:47.83.

Slowest result ever for the UF benchmark?

Meanwhile, when I run Cinebench 23 this Mac scores 7955 multicore/1557 single core, which seems to be typical for M2. My Mac is faster at rendering than the Intel i7 9750h which did the UF benchmark in only 6m44s.

With the new public beta for Apple Silicon Macs, I got 11:18.24 on my M1 Mac mini. Considering that the base M1 only has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, that seems to be about right and puts it in roughly Core i7 with 4 cores + 4 hyperthreading territory. I think the newer M2/M3 with more cores will do quite well.

Would be interesting to find out how your M2 performs with this version!
https://www.ultrafractal.com/forum/index.php?u=/topic/893/public-beta-ultra-fractal-for-apple-silicon-macs

15m20s on M2 MacBook.

Super cool! Thanks Frederik!

EDIT: 9m49s on M2 MacBook with minimum threads at 8. (The 15m20s test was with min threads at 4.)

Hi Eric,

Is your minimum/maximum threads setting set to 8/8 in the Fractal tab of the Settings/Preferences dialog?

I think you should be able to get a little bit better than the 11:18 that I got on my M1.

Thanks! I was using 4/8 but switching that to 8/8 improves the render time to 9m49s.

Hi everyone,
Yesterday I finished assembling my new computer and I put an i7 14700K 20 Core, 32 GB RAM Viper Venom, obviously I assembled the computer to speed up the calculation. What to say?
My i7 7700k took 8.18 minutes while the i7 14700k took 1.32 minutes, wow. But it's a little expensive because the CPU costs 420 euros but you can definitely feel the difference.
HI
Andrew

14/02/2024 14:04:48: Starting job Benchmark.
14/02/2024 14:04:48: Anti-aliasing off.
14/02/2024 14:04:48: Motion blur off.
14/02/2024 14:04:49: Rendering in PNG format.
14/02/2024 14:04:49: Calculating Benchmark.
14/02/2024 14:06:21: Finished calculation. Time: 0:01:32.91.
14/02/2024 14:06:21: Saving to C:\Users\spino\Documents\Ultra Fractal 6\immagini2024\Benchmark.png.
14/02/2024 14:06:24: Job finished.