Hardware Performance Discrepancy

[Lyle Patton]

[Thomas Leong] “But it is a head-scratcher”

I know, right? I’m utterly baffled.

I can tinker with multiprocessing settings and/or CPU settings and possibly decrease render times but neither course of action ultimately explains the underlying discrepancy between the two systems.

Yes. I double checked the rendering settings on both machines to make sure they were in fact creating “identical” files. And they are.

I’ll also run some tests with different AE projects to see if the anomalous behavior is consistent.

May also post over on Adobe’s forum and see if I get any insights there.

Thanks again for everyone’s suggestions.

[Thomas Leong]

Here is a comparison between the 2 cpus: https://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-4710HQ-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3960X

One aspect to note is that you reported both running at 3.3GHz in your original post. The 4710HQ base clock is only 2.5GHz, so at 3.3GHz, it is being overclocked. The 3960X base clock is 3.3GHz, in Turbo mode should be 3.9GHz…so it seems to look like you turned off Turbo Mode or Enhanced Turbo in the BIOS?

The 3960X being end of life has dropped drastically in price and the two are closer in price dif now. Down towards the end of the comparison chart under ‘Specifications’, the 3960X does not have 3 Instruction Set Extensions vs the 4710HQ. Wonder if AE uses any of these Extensions in rendering as that may explain somewhat the performance difference.

The last thing that comes to mind is the RAM speed used in the two machines. Are they similar, eg. 1600MHz or is the Desktop using the slower speed of 1333MHz to account for the difference?

Hope you have better luck/answers from Adobe’s Forum.