Gonna build a new PC for digital painting–what specs do you recommend?

[Mechanizoid]

Hello! It's become clear to me that I need to upgrade to a new PC from my old 2009 Mac Mini and the now-going-off-color hand me down screen that my parents gave me years ago. I've decided to build my own PC 'cause it looks like fun and I'm a DIY kind of guy. I want to build the best system for digital painting I can afford. I'm hoping to have a budget of 1.5-2k USD for the box alone, and another 1k on the screen since this is an investment in my work. But if I end up being a poor artist (LOL) and have to cut corners, it might helpful to know just how little I can spend for a good painting rig.

The only recommendations I've found online are these: http://www.fantasio.info/2014/01/the-101...nting.html This guy says that a good gaming PC can suffice for most Photoshop work, but then he goes on to recommend expensive workstations. Since I'm building my next PC I can choose what features I want, so I picked over his list. But I'd like to ask you professional digital artists out there what you use and what to look for in a PC for digital painting.

I need a sold, reliable workhorse of a PC that supports a good monitor and doesn't lag with big brushes. Since I'm custom-building this myself I want to optimize it for painting, not for gaming like many do. On my new system, I'm planning on switching to Linux and learning to use a FOSS workflow– Krita, GIMP, and Mypaint for painting and Blender for 3d. If I really need Photoshop I guess I can install Windows 7 and ignore Microsofts prompts to update. But I don't ever want to use Windows 10 so I'd prefer to learn to live in Linux entirely. (╯︵╰,)

I'll try not to get to tech-geeky with this, but I'd like to ask what you guys think is best for digital art.

CPU and Memory– I'm looking at either an Intel i5, i7, or Xeon processor. This document says that Krita can use all the cores your machine has– https://krita.org/wp-content/uploads/201...ta-2-4.pdf. So I guess I'll go with a fast, multi-core processor. Programs like Photoshop and Krita tend to use a lot of memory, too, so going for a fair bit of RAM sounds like a good idea. I don't want brush lag.

Graphics– This is a big one!! I'm looking at investing in a good monitor, maybe an NEC, that has and IPS panel with >90% Adobe RBG coverage. So I have to choose between a Geforce card or a professional Quadro. Geforce cards are more affordable and optimized for games. Quadros are pricier, but they have features that are locked out on Geforce cards, like 10 bit color. So here's the big question...

Do I need 10 bit color?

Do you use 10 bit color? Some of the artists I've seen don't seem to (like anyone using an earlier Mac), and earlier Cintiqs only offered 8-bit. Color calibration seems to be more vital. BUT, I've noticed that the latest Cintiqs have 10 bit IPS panels. But unless the rest of the system supports 10 bit (you need the right graphics card and Displayport), that panel will only be able to display 8 bit. If I don't need more than 8 bit, this won't be an issue. But if I want 10 bit  color, I will need a pricier Quadro card. Now I'm a total color management noob, so I don't know half of what I need to know. But I know Krita supports deep color– https://userbase.kde.org/Krita/Manual/Co...#Bit_depth. So, should I plan my build to take advantage of 10 bit displays? Is a 10 bit screen relevant for concept art and painting?

The Monitor- Since this is my canvas, I know I should not skimp on the monitor. I'm planning to invest in a good pro display with an IPS panel and >90% Adobe RBG coverage, and a colorimeter to calibrate it when necessary. Possibly an NEC. Maybe 4k, since those have become pretty affordable overall. Wondering what kind of graphics card goes with such a monitor as I explained above.

I have a better idea of the rest of my build. For storage, I want a SSD as my system drive for speed and a Western Digital Red series as the spinney drive. I'm looking for a nice full ATX tower with enough room for all my stuff. For the PSU, I will calculate the required amount of watts for the whole system and get one that is a bit overkill so I can expand later if necessary. But I'm still unsure as to the best specs for a digital painting workstation.

Please give me any advice you can! I'll really appreciate it. :^) And if I'm totally off-base as to what I need tell me that too LOL. What do you use, and what do you recommend for digital painting? Any advice will be greatly appreciated!!

[Piotr Jasielski]

I'm not an expert when it comes to computers, but my peice of advice would be to focus on ram 16gb, ssd and a good monitor. Anything else is secondary for painting.

If you can afford: http://www.eizoglobal.com/products/color...html#tab01

If you plan on doing some 3d then also a good 4 core (or more) processor and a good graphix card that supports 3d well.

[Mechanizoid]

Thanks for the advice, Piotr! Yes, I figured that painting would depend on RAM, an SSD, and most importantly of all a good monitor. Funnily enough I already figured on 16 GB when planning my build. :D

Oh man that is one sexy monitor. Looks all-around awesome. Sadly, though, the required software doesn't seem to have any Linux support except for Red Hat Enterprise, which comes as a really pricey subscription service. (╯︵╰,) I would be stuck with Windows, which I decided to avoid after Windows 10. Still, if I did decide to run Win 7 that would be a serious badass monitor to run.

But how about this one? http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa272w-bk

Similar specs, a bit less expensive, and (critically for me!) much better Linux support. :D Both the Multisync software and the Spectraview ii are compatible with most Linux distros. Yay!!

Well, I used to have little interest in 3d–but I saw a lot of artists who make 3d sculpts to use as bases for painting. Also, a bunch of guys specialize in both painting and 3d modeling. So I got curious. Blender looks like a good place to start. As for the graphics card–I've heard a Quadro or Firepro is good if I want to do a lot of 3d, of course, BUT I've noticed that 10bit capable monitors (including the one you shared) always say that 10bit is only possible with such a workstation card. Still unsure of that matters overmuch, but it is worth keeping in mind I guess.

BTW, what computer and monitor do you use to paint? And do you use a commercial gaming card (Geforce or Radeon) or a workstation card (Quadro or Firepro)? I'm guessing that a lot of people just use the gaming ones but I could be wrong here.

[Piotr Jasielski]

As I said I'm not an expert but to my knowlege this NEC is very nice. I can't help you with Linux stuff, unfortunately, maybe you could ask someone from Eizo how it works on Linux. That NEC should have similar quality to CX271, the downside is it doesn't have the built-in color calibrator. However you can calibrate monitors in some shops for photo editors.

I currently work on MacBook pro 13" with retina, 16gb ram, don't remember other specs ( i think 2,7 Ghz dual core processor perhaps)and as for the monitor I have this Eizo CX271.

As for 3d, you won't need a powerful precessor unles you do sophisticated models with badass rendering. For simple blockout/render most of the new decent pc's will suffice.

[Amit Dutta]

You don't need a 10 bit monitor at all. Depends what you are going to use it for; except for the most exacting print standards 8 bit will suffice. Keep in mind that most people will be viewing things on 8 bit screens anyway so all that extra info will be totally lost. As you said you also need to make sure the pipeline you use supports 10 bit (g card, apps, screen etc). With linux as frar as I've read, not all apps support 10 bit so you might have some issues there.

I'm building my own machine as well since my workstation laptop kinda died. Check out pcpartpicker.com . It's an awesome site to do custom builds on. Mostly gaming rig builds on there, but it's the best way to keep track of parts. Love it.

I have a budget of sub 1000 usd for a box and 500usd for a monitor...cuz I am a poor artist, and I can still get a grunty thing. I would go for an i7 if you can afford it (which I think you can :) ) They also do hyperthreading so if you have a quadcore, it gives you 8 threads. Not sure if blender or Krita support hyperthreading, i forget totally with all the research saturation i have been doing. Shouldl be blazing for rendering. A 2Gb card minimum, but again a 4GB gtx will do nicely. I can't afford a quadro in 2gb let alone 4gb. Keep in mind that blender seems to only support Nvidia based cards, so no radeons or amd chipsets for the gpu. Haven't fully researched this yet.

I've looked hard at amd for cpu,  because they give you more cores for the pricepoint, but without DX12 support they don't meet their possible full potential yet,  and unless you want to hedge bets on how useful that upgrade and support will be in the future I decided to go with Intel chips instead. They seem to beat amd in performance without supposed DX12 support anyway. I can only afford a middling i5 :( but it is still going to be fine for rendering and 3d work as far as need it.
16GB ram if you want to do more than basic 3d, but even 8Gb will be fine for blockouts as well as Krita, but every bit extra helps!

I highly recommend an ssd. 2 if you can afford it. 1 for OS and apps. 1 for a dedicafed scratch /projects disk and a large capacity mechanica drive for archiving and longer term storage. Don't go below 7200rpm.

My dead-but-hope-to-be-revived laptop workstation is a dell m4800. I7 cpu (forget exactly, maybe a 4900? ) with 16gb ram, 1gb quadro k1100m and a 255gb ssd, on win 8.1. Works like a dream if only the bastard started up. More than adequate for the most demanding high res 5-6k files in krita, 1k brush sizes with a bit of lag but that's krita's fault which they are trying to address with version 3.

Blender was fine, but the gpu struggled a bit rendering at 1920, high samples, so  got better results rendering off cpu. Definitely pouring more money into my g.card and cpu over everything else when it comes to 3d, which I plan to do much more of.

with a budget of 2.5-3k usd, you will get something that far exceeds any painting needs whatever you get for a custom build! The question becomes, pour itmall in that, or get only what you need with space for upgrades later, and maybe think about some other toys for work! Don't be scared to get geeky...I love this shit.i

[tbnkaron]

Very interesting discussion, will be keeping an eye on it as I am in the process of moving from working on a laptop to (hopefully) building a workstation (that I need to learn how to put together at some point).

Only thing I can add is to wait a few months for Nvidia's new architecture cards Pascal to come out, you will be able to either buy much better cards (if you are aiming for the very best of Geforce) or perhaps get current top models that may be out with your price range atm.

[Mechanizoid]

Wow, glad to see this topic interests more than just geeky me! :D

@ Piotr Jasielski  I'm definitely eyeing the NEC if I can afford one when I put together my system. :) It has pretty much all the features I need. For calibration I can get a Spectraview ii–the required software works on Linux as well.

Hmm, thanks for sharing your system specs, this helps me understand better what I need!

@ Amita  Wow man, thanks for the long write-up, lots of interesting info here for sure. And thanks for clearing up the 8-bit color vs 10-bit color thing. The kinds of monitors I'm considering (or rather drooling over LOL) still have plenty of advantages in quality and calibration even if you use 'em in 8-bit mode, I think. But it's good to know that I won't need a full 10-bit pipeline for most purposes. Sill eyeing a workstation class card though.

I have a budget of sub 1000 usd for a box and 500usd for a monitor...cuz I am a poor artist, and I can still get a grunty thing. I would go for an i7 if you can afford it (which I think you can :) ) They also do hyperthreading so if you have a quadcore, it gives you 8 threads. Not sure if blender or Krita support hyperthreading, i forget totally with all the research saturation i have been doing. Shouldl be blazing for rendering. A 2Gb card minimum, but again a 4GB gtx will do nicely. I can't afford a quadro in 2gb let alone 4gb. Keep in mind that blender seems to only support Nvidia based cards, so no radeons or amd chipsets for the gpu.

Best of luck on the new build man! :D And PCPartsPicker is the best. As for budget–well, I'm not entirely sure what I'll be able to afford when I get down to it, but I'm willing to invest a lot in my new system. But we'll see what happens.

Thanks for your recommendations! Yes, Krita is multi-threaded and can make use of all your cores, which is why I will go for an i7 if I can. As to the graphics–do you recommend a Quadro or a Geforce for my workstation build? As far as I understand it, a Geforce brings more power for the dollar but the Quadro brings better drivers for 3d and other pro features. I was looking at the Quadro K2200, since it isn't terribly expensive than the GTX 970 I was considering earlier. With a 1.5-2k budget I could fit in a K4200 card without much trouble, might be useful if I get deep into 3d. With these Quadros, am I mostly looking at features for Blender? Do they bring advantages for 2d?

I was going to suggest AMD might be a possibility for your build. I've heard that AMD tends to beat out Intel at the lower price brackets, thought I have no experience with AMD as yet. But it looks like you are doing good research. Gotta research DX12, though, I don't know this term! I'm such a noob at being geeky like this. :D I learn something every time.

I thought about your budget limitations a bit, and this is what I think I would do with a budget of sub-1000 usd for a workstation PC. This is more to generate discussion, your choices will of course vary depending on budget and what you want. :-) This is intended as a solid build with room to upgrade. Bear in mind I have difficulty working under a budget. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8WVzmG

CPU/Motherboard I went for a Skylake i5 processor and an Asus H170 PRO/CSM mobo. I don't think you are interested in overclocking, and besides there isn't much advantage in OCing a budget build (you can just buy a faster chip with the cash freed up by not buying a Z-series board and aftermarket cooler), thus the locked CPU and H170 board. Sticking with the stock cooler to stay under budget.

RAM Just 16 gigs of RAM sticks. You can always add more later if necessary.

Storage One 250 gig SSD for the system drive and a 2 GB 7600 RPM hard drive for long term storage. You can always add an SSD scratch disk later.

Graphics Couldn't fit a Quadro in the budget, so I went for a Geforce GTX 970. I have not researched this particular brand (but I figure they must be OK since they make the Quadros as well). The actual build could go for a different brand and it wouldn't change much.

Case I've been looking at a bunch of cases, and while they are plain the Fractal Design cases look like a good fit for my needs. I've heard good things about the Define R5 (it is a favorite of the silent PC community). I'm told the fans the R5 are actually pretty good, so you won't have to replace them. And it has room for all our stuff.

PSU I refused to skimp too much here. Bad PSU's can cause serious problems. Also, the PSU is one of those choices that determines how you can upgrade your system later. Maybe a bit overkill, but it won't limit your options later.

Monitor Haven't looked into this one much yet. I know there are some pro monitors in the 500 usd range, like the HP dreamcolor and some professional Dells. Another thing you might consider, perhaps, is getting a factory refurbished monitor? I've heard that NEC offers refurbished PA272W Multisync monitors for reduced price, but I'm not sure where to find them. That could be a good option for getting a nicer monitor than you could otherwise afford.

So what do you think of this? And have you made your own parts list yet?

My dead-but-hope-to-be-revived laptop workstation is a dell m4800. I7 cpu (forget exactly, maybe a 4900? ) with 16gb ram, 1gb quadro k1100m and a 255gb ssd, on win 8.1. Works like a dream if only the bastard started up. More than adequate for the most demanding high res 5-6k files in krita, 1k brush sizes with a bit of lag but that's krita's fault which they are trying to address with version 3.

Blender was fine, but the gpu struggled a bit rendering at 1920, high samples, so  got better results rendering off cpu. Definitely pouring more money into my g.card and cpu over everything else when it comes to 3d, which I plan to do much more of.

Sounds like a great laptop, sorry to hear she died. :-( Hope you can revive her and get back to work soon! Failing that, better get building. Based on these specs, though, it looks like an i7 processor, 16 gigs or more RAM, and workstation card are favored features for a professionals computer.

with a budget of 2.5-3k usd, you will get something that far exceeds any painting needs whatever you get for a custom build! The question becomes, pour itmall in that, or get only what you need with space for upgrades later, and maybe think about some other toys for work! Don't be scared to get geeky...I love this shit.i

That's the impression I was getting, and it's good news too! That means I can go lower budget and still get a system that meets my needs if necessary. Actually, building a tower that meets my basic needs and has room for later upgrades sounds like a very practical choice. I don't have to get everything at once so long as I leave room for additions later. And I won't be scared to get geeky now!

[Amit Dutta]

Hey thanks for those suggestions Sagi! Funnily enough, I already went ahead and ordered all my parts so i could have a good backup / 3d machine for the future. It sucks not to be able to deliver client shit, because your one machine is down. Your suggestions mostly matched my final build!. I got a good deal from a local store with my picks, with a bit of hard negotiation, so i don't even have to waste time putting it together, as fun as that would be.

This is my final part list. The prices aren't totally accurate, to the deal I got. The only difference is I'm getting an fsp p1802 case and also an fsp raider 650w psu. I'm not sure on the screen yet, but with my budget it will most likely be an older but decent dell or asus. I slightly blew over my budget, but i decided to upgrade to an i7 and 16gb ram and a 4gb card for the 3d stuff. What the hell, I'll eat tomato sauce and rice for a few months.

AMD cpus sound great for the pricepoint to #cores, but many seem to fall behind the i5s and i7s, and the fx series got lots of criticism when they were launched, so yeah I decided not to.

I don't intend to overclock, and I don't game, so I was mostly focused on 3d for this build.

Prices are in NZ dollars.

PCPartPicker part list: PCPartPicker part list: http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/p/8qkBQ7

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($499.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($154.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($129.00 @ PC Force)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($121.00 @ Paradigm PCs)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($85.00 @ PC Force)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card ($349.00 @ 1stWave Technologies)
Monitor: Dell U2515H 60Hz 25.0" Monitor ($524.54 @ Aquila Technology)
Total: $1861.54


In terms of your questions....I haven't researched in depth the benefits of gaming gpus vs quadro. To be honest, if you are just doing basic 3d and learning, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The gtx 960 I got has 1024 cuda cores, compared to 384 for my quadro k1100m. And 4gb ram, and higher bus and clock speed, so I'm pretty sure it will outperform my quadro by a bit. I can let you know how it goes when it is up and running if you like, but there are tons of benchmark scores out there to compare these kind of things. I think the 970 is a decent choice.

There are few advantages of a quadro over a gtx for 2d stuff. With a 4gb card, an i5 and 16gb of ram and an ssd it will be way more than adequate to handle anything in krita I would say. In my laptop, 1 gig 8 bit 6-7k px files with over 50 layers, would lag a bit when doing whole canvas adjustments or moving layers, but nothing to be too annoying, and easy enough to merge layers anyways. Krita 3.0 should be much better at memory handling and brush lag as well.

Anyway I should get the box in a few days, but still need to source the monitor and do the drudgery of installing os and programs yet again...sigh. only other decision to be made is whether to dual boot linux and win 8.1, or go full linux again. I loved linux when I had it for over 4 years, but there are some programs that just aren't compatible or run poorly on wine, so need to figure that out :) looking forward to it though. Haven't had a proper working desktop workstation for ages!

[Mechanizoid]

No problem man. I don't know much about PC building yet so take any suggestions I make with a grain of salt, but it was fun playing with that budget limit. And best of luck with the new PC! So the guys are gonna assemble it for you? That's cool, building it yourself would be fun but this saves time for your work.

Your build looks good to my inexperienced eye, nice choice of processor. Couldn't stand to stay with an i5 I see, lol. Heard good things about the Gigabyte boards but haven't looked into them much yet myself. Based on what little I know it sounds like this build will fit your requirements quite well.

In terms of your questions....I haven't researched in depth the benefits of gaming gpus vs quadro. To be honest, if you are just doing basic 3d and learning, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The gtx 960 I got has 1024 cuda cores, compared to 384 for my quadro k1100m. And 4gb ram, and higher bus and clock speed, so I'm pretty sure it will outperform my quadro by a bit. I can let you know how it goes when it is up and running if you like, but there are tons of benchmark scores out there to compare these kind of things. I think the 970 is a decent choice.

You're probably right that I don't need to worry too much about the GPU. I'll be doing basic 3d and painting mostly. I'm still going to research this further to understand the difference better.

I've been looking at both Quadro and Firepro cards, and I find that there are some decent midrange cards that will be within my budget. In particular the Quadro K2200 (640 CUDO cores, 4gb vram) and the Firepro W5100 (768 stream processors, 4gb vram). The Firepro is about a 100 USD cheaper than the Quadro, but I'm not sure how it compares or (vitally) how it performs under Linux. And I'm still researching the meaning of all the specs.

What I know so far is the that workstation cards have these advantages:
- Better drivers for working with 3d professional software
- Greater reliability rather than gaming performance
- Support for 10 bit colors
- Much higher precision calculations (probably not as relevant to what I do)
- Short on power consumption compared to gaming cards

with these cons
- Much higher price to performance
- Not as good for gaming (but I don't play games LOL)

The gaming cards have the advantage of much better price to performance and (duh) games, but leave out those pro features and consume more power and generate more heat. So for situations where the pro drivers and features help, the Quadros and Firepros will be better, but for situations where raw power determines the outcome the gaming cards may outperform an equivalently priced workstation card. There are benchmarks out there, so I will check those out to understand this further before investing in anything. But if I'm only working on it and don't need games, I'll definitely take a close look at the workstation cards.

Anyway I should get the box in a few days, but still need to source the monitor and do the drudgery of installing os and programs yet again...sigh. only other decision to be made is whether to dual boot linux and win 8.1, or go full linux again.

How did Linux work out for your professional stuff? I'm planning on switching Linux like David Revoy did, it looks like a great way to have independence and a good bit of fun getting everything working. :D I know that there is a lot of software that isn't Linux compatible, but there seems to be alternatives for a lot of things (like GIMP and Krita for PS, Inkscape for Illustrator, Blender for 3d etc.).

Anyway, have fun figuring out everything for your new workstation! And do please tell me how things go with the Geforce once it is up and running. I have to get back to drawing right now, though. One thing I learned from Feng Zhou's podcast is that tools don't matter nearly as much as practice. I can practice with just a cheap pen and stack of paper, but no graphics card or drawing tablet will give me skillz. XD Enough CD for one day for me LOL!

[Amit Dutta]

No major problems at all, though I had gone back to windows, more out of laziness when I went full time freelance. I got a cheap deal on my workstation and it came with win 8.1, and I couldn't be bothered switching out OS at the time.
I still use mainly only opensource and linux compatible apps, and have never seen the need to go to PS bcause Krita is great, and Blender too. I did find it a bit harder finding ports and equivalents for some things, especially good video editing soffware, which seem to be terrible on linux. Blender has good NLE built in, so I suppose if I played with that, it might suffice, but it's no aftereffects, which I really like. 
There is some frustration in not being able to find ports for some specific software, and trying to get them to work through wine. I used a windows virtual box sometimes, but it is pretty slow because two OS sharing the same resources, but most things can be worked around. Also a thing that surprised me a bit was, opening word documents and getting formatting to save correctly into word, even though supposedly supported well for open ofice and the ilk, was annoying as hell. Made it impossible for me to edit my day job office documents at home...probably not a big deal, but if you work between windows and linux machines, there might be some frustration ahead.

The only problem which is minor is that if clients want .psd files it can be an issue saving out from krita because adjustment layers and layer modes are handled differently. Most of the time I get around that by reducing everything to normal layers as much as possible and saving out as .tif

Mainly, linux is the bomb as an OS because it is so stable and resource efficient, and of course isn't run by evil megacorps wanting to spy on you. I don't think I shut down my machine in months and it ran as smoothly as the first day. Windows would have gone slower and slower eventually, farting and dying if it was on for that long. I however absolutely HAD to have a separate device that could access the internet to solve problems or I would have been totaaly screwed with troublehooting. It's definitely not for people scared of technical stuff and command line things and you must have good google-fu. Linux also tends to be way more hands on than newer windows machines, but that is part of the fun sometimes.

 I have to get back to drawing right now, though. One thing I learned from Feng Zhou's podcast is that tools don't matter nearly as much as practice. I can practice with just a cheap pen and stack of paper, but no graphics card or drawing tablet will give me skillz. XD Enough CD for one day for me LOL!

Tools are just tools, the old adage holds true! Enjoy

[Amit Dutta]

I got my basic build up and running (finally after some annoying initial wanking with the Sata connections). 
I temporarily installed win 8.1, which I will dual boot with linux (probably going to try out Manjaro this time around, or maybe Mint). Once I'm satisfied all the hardware works with Linux, I will kick windouch to the sideline.

Thought I would pop in some benchmark tests I've been running, so anyone reading can check what my specs result in.

CPU: Intel i7 6700 @3.4Ghz
Graphics: Gigabyte Geforce GTX 960 4GB OC edition
Ram: 16GB
Apps and OS Running on a Kingston V300 SSD

Nothing has been overclocked, and no tweaks done yet at all, so I could probably get some better results if I did down the line.

Blender BMW test:

Blenderartists.org thread to see other's specs and results

GPU render time: 2:35 mins
CPU render time: 4:40 mins

Cinebench R15 benchmark:
OpenGL: 116.76 fps (seemed to be blazingly fast, but I guess that's what you get with a Gaming GC)
CPU [multiple core]: 791  
CPU [single core]: 161
MP ratio: 4.92x

The cpu ranked quite high on list of comparisons they showed

I also did a brief test myself in blender and I am pretty damn happy with the performance. I am going to use a familiar heavy scene with lots of volumetrics that would take 15 minutes to render even at low samples, and see what this machine can do. :)
Might upload with further benchmarks if I do them.