In CineBench's single threaded test, the Mac Pro 3.0GHz and Core 2 Extreme X6800 is virtually identical. Dual socket PC workstations are also be available that compete with the Mac Pro in terms of CPU cores, though without OS X support. Naturally, at that point you should also be able to upgrade the Mac Pro to eight cores.

When Intel releases its upcoming Kentsfield processor, you should be able to attain similar performance to the Mac Pro 3.0GHz in a single socket. Given how much of a boost we saw going from one to two cores in 3dsmax, the incredible performance of the four core Mac Pro 3.0GHz is not surprising. Our scores from 3D Studio Max are a composite score from four rendering tests: CBalls2, SinglePipe2, UnderWater, and 3dsmax5 Rays. Cinebench is a free performance testing utility based off of the CINEMA 4D R8 rendering package. We're looking at 3D rendering performance using two different applications: 3D Studio Max and Cinebench 9.5. 3D Rendering Performance using 3dsmax 7 & CineBench 9.5

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