Cinebench
Graphics is a classic example of a computing problem that's easily parallelizable, so it's no surprise that we can exploit a multi-core processor with a 3D rendering app. Cinebench is the first of those we'll try, a benchmark based on Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine. It's multithreaded and comes with a 64-bit executable. This test runs with just a single thread and then with as many threads as CPU cores are available.

Cinebench breaks the flow of gentle alternance between AMD and Intel chips by giving AMD's offerings the clear upper hand pretty much across the board. Even the ill-fated Athlon 64 FX-72 and FX-74 chips outperform the Q6600, although Intel's quad-core contender gets a better score in our performance per dollar chart. Considering the costs associated with AMD's Quad FX platform, the Q6600 is what we'd recommend for this application if your budget allows room for a quad-core solution.

POV-Ray rendering
We've finally caved in and moved to the beta version of POV-Ray 3.7 that includes native multithreading. The latest beta 64-bit executable is still quite a bit slower than the 3.6 release, but it should give us a decent look at comparative performance, regardless. Performance per dollar values were generated using the performance of each CPU with four threads.

The situation we just saw in Cinebench is both mirrored and amplified in POV-Ray. AMD's lead is so pronounced here that the FX-72 manages to overtake the Q6600 in our performance per dollar chart. Looking at the scatter plot shows why: the AMD four-core offering has a huge performance lead over its Intel competitor, but the price difference between the two is very slight. Quad FX may yet be worth the outrageously expensive motherboard and increased power bills in POV-Ray.