We're ready to crunch some pixels with my new After Effects monster machine and compare it with a few other modern systems. In particular, we're looking at 4-5 different setups, from Windows to OSX, from Intel to AMD. To keep this fair, a monitor was added to each of the systems that didn't have one (parenthetical price is pre-monitor), and I picked a very, very nice one that's equivalent to the sweet display on the iMac: the Dell UltraSharp 27-inch, which runs $900. Let's start with some the relevant machine specs and then get to some very preliminary results. I also added a last-generation system (with current eBay market price) that we can all make fun of for being pokey now that we are all sophisticated moderns.

These are (very) preliminary numbers (including untested blanks). I made up a quick After Effects CS4 project that uses particles with glow, a camera with a shallow depth of field and motion blur, all designed to not only be stressful, but to also be realistic examples of day-to-day AE work with nothing too exotic. I picked CS4 so more folks could run the tests and you won't need anything more than the trial version. You can download the project here: aecs4-rendertest.zip. Please feel free to belittle and berate the project for being unfair in one way or another and we'll fix it, but right now it renders a QuickTime file using the Animation codec and, near as I can tell, this is not a handicap for the Windows platform. 

So what's up with the modern, top-of-the-line 2012 MacPro at $6,650? Something is really, really wrong with that machine+After Effects. As you can see, the GeekBench benchmark rocks, but its AECS5 performance is pathetic and embarassing. The iMac's numbers are very good, so we know it's not an OS X issue. I've got CS6 coming in next week, so we'll see what's up with that anomaly. So far on the other platforms, the version of AE hasn't made a difference. And that's why I brought GeekBench into the equation: it runs on Macs and Linux and Windows and clearly shows the MacPro is the most muscular machine in our survey. But I didn't want to just run benchmarks like Cinebench (et al) because (a) you can find benchmarks all over the interwebs run already if you are interested and (b) I don't think they're necessarily relevant for real-world computing (We'll see, right? These tests should indicate whether GeekBench numbers correspond to AE.). So while our render tests are definitely less-scientific, I think they're also more valuable for those of us looking for After Effects tools. I also tossed in yet-another-render test in an effort to troubleshoot our cranky MacPro. Brian Maffitt's render test is older, but it does yeild consistent results, so is a good double-check of our basic process here.

There are so many astericks here that I will merely plead that this is an exercise and not a scientific experiment. For example, the Intel i7 chip is rated at peak 3.8GHz on one core, but its fastest renders are using 6 cores @3.2Ghz. The AMD box is overclocked by my friend Rex, but I think that's fair and is exactly why he bought that chip (and OC-friendly motherboard). And, of course, the MacBook Pro is the only portable machine in the bunch and the other four would score a ZERO on our benchmarks later this summer when I'm in London. We could cheat and subtract the gorgeous monitor and claim the AMD machine is $1,200 and easily get our MacPro to $7,360 by adding another 16GB of RAM that wouldn't otherwise affect the render tests, but that's not the point.

So please: If you see any flaws in my tests here, make your strongest case and let's level the playing field as much as possible. I'll try to be as transparent as possible with my methodology (such as it is), so keep me honest and flame away!I was also going to note that maybe a penalty of some sort should be added to the home-crafted Windows machines, since there's time and effort, sweat and bloody knuckles that aren't counted in the final price, but then the brand new MacPro arrived and has been nothing but trouble so far, with video card issues, RAM issues and After Effects issues, bad ones that haven't been solved yet. 

And when CS6 is rolled out to all-n-sundry, we'll see what's what with that and run some CUDA numbers, too.

Finally, then, here's our Bang for the Buck chart. Three machines are very competitive and excelllet values, in my opinion. We'll try to fix the broken MacPro 2012 and get some other number and update this in the not so distant future.